Scott Morrison ‘failed to meet his ministerial responsibility’: Robodebt report

Senior staff behind the illegal Robodebt scheme will be referred for civil and criminal charges as a royal commissioner denounces the ‘dishonesty and conspiracy’ behind the scheme.

Former Queensland Chief Justice Catherine Holmes delivered a 990-page report containing 57 recommendations to Governor-General David Hurley on Friday.

The report also contained a sealed chapter that is not part of the bound report.

“It recommends referring individuals for civil or criminal prosecution,” Ms Holmes said in the report.

“I recommend that this additional chapter be kept sealed and not submitted with the rest of the report, so as not to prejudice the course of any future civil suit or criminal prosecution.”

The Commissioner has also referred parts of her report to the Australian Public Service Commission, the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the President of the Law Society of the ACT and the Australian Federal Police.

It is remarkable how little interest seems to have been in ensuring the legality of the scheme, how hasty its implementation was, how little thought was given to the consequences for benefit recipients and how far civil servants were willing to go to oblige ministers. looking for savings,” she wrote.

“Truly staggering was the revelation of dishonesty and collusion to avoid exposing the plan’s lack of legal basis.”

Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was the social services minister behind the scheme’s rollout, was also directly criticized in the report.

“Mr Morrison allowed the Cabinet to be misled because he didn’t do that obvious inquiry,” Ms Holmes said.

She said the former prime minister brought the proposal to cabinet without the necessary information on what the scheme actually entailed and without the caveats that using ATO PAYG data would require legislative and policy changes.

“He knew the proposal was still about income averaging; he had been told that caveat only a few weeks earlier; nothing had changed in the proposal; and he had done nothing to determine why the reservation no longer applied.

“He failed in his ministerial responsibility to properly inform the cabinet about what the proposal entailed and to ensure that it was lawful.”

In her report, Ms Holmes said it had been “surprising” to discover the myriad ways in which the plan had failed to serve the public interest.

The committee ruled that the circumstances with which the welfare recipients in the program had to deal with were ‘not normal’ and that the debts were ‘often inexplicable’.

The report also found that the government was engaged in “ongoing misinterpretation” that Robodebt did not entail any change in income or debt.

The committee also found that the Ombudsman had been ‘deliberately misled’.

The 57 recommendations will strengthen public service, improve the Department of Social Services and Services Australia and strengthen oversight bodies.

However, the report said there was no practical way to determine compensation.

The impact of (Robodebt) on the people involved in it was vividly illustrated in the evidence before the Commission of the witnesses who spoke of the suffering and harm they suffered and, of course, the evidence of the mothers of the two young men who took their own lives, at least in part because of it,” the statement said.

“It’s impossible to come up with a set of criteria that would apply across the board because people were affected in such different ways.”

The committee recommended investing more money in increasing social security benefits instead of a compensation scheme.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese apologized to the victims of the plan on Friday.

“We have come to the truth thanks to the courage of some of Australia’s most vulnerable,” he said on Friday.

‘People who have shown courage in the face of injustice, adversity and sometimes terrible grief. We have come to the truth thanks to the courage of some of Australia’s most vulnerable.

“It should never have happened and it should never happen again.”

When asked whether Mr Morrison should now resign from parliament, Mr Albanese said it would be up to him what actions he would take.

Public Services Secretary Bill Shorten said the royal commission had “highlighted a broken system under the previous administration”.

“Commissioner Holmes certainly didn’t mince words about what she says. She has described Robodebt as a “ill-conceived, embryonic idea that was rushed to the cabinet,” Shorten told a news conference.

He said the government needs some time to consider the recommendations.

The former coalition government launched the Robodebt scheme in mid-2015 to “detect, investigate and deter suspected welfare fraud and non-compliance” in a bid to save billions of dollars.

The program sent IOUs to people who were identified through a process called income averaging that compared reported incomes to IRS records.

More than $750 million was wrongly recovered from 381,000 people under the scheme.

Victims told the royal commission of their trauma and fear as they received messages and contacted collection agencies.

The inquiry also heard evidence from bureaucrats who ignored serious questions and advice about the legality of the scheme.

The scheme was ruled illegal by federal court in 2019.

In 2020, a $1.2 billion settlement was reached between Robodebt victims and the then government.

The commission, which started in August last year, has issued 200 communications to provide information and 180 communications to provide documents.

The federal government produced more than 958,000 documents in response.

The investigation involved 303 hours of hearings with 115 witnesses and 1,099 submissions were received.

Mr Albanese said the government would take time to provide a “considered response” ahead of the release of the report.

“It should never have happened and the important thing is it never happened again because this was a human tragedy with real consequences for people,” he told ABC radio.

“The cabinet has made a decision to immediately release it (the report) for public viewing.”

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said he would wait to see what findings are made in the report.

“There’s no question why it’s being scrapped today,” he told Nine’s Today programme, pointing to the upcoming Fadden by-election.

But the final reporting date was set a week before Fadden MP and former minister Stuart Robert resigned from parliament, triggering the vote.