Extract from ABC News
The political recriminations for findings of the Robodebt royal commission have been swift, with the prime minister dubbing the former debt collecting mechanism a "gross betrayal" of the Australian people.
The government on Friday morning received the almost 1,000 page three volume final report from commissioner Catherine Holmes SC.
A fourth sealed volume includes referrals for criminal and civil prosecutions.
"The Robodebt scheme was a gross betrayal and a human tragedy," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said following the release of the report.
"It pursued debt recovery against Australians who in many cases had no debt to pay.
"It was wrong. It was illegal. It should never have happened and it should never happen again."
What was it?
We'll get to what the final report has said about the politicians who oversaw the program shortly, but let's just recap on what Robodebt was.
The Coalition government's unlawful debt recovery program ran from 2015 to 2019.
It raised $1.76 billion in alleged debts owed to Centrelink against more than half a million people.
It was based on the false premise that income averaging assumes a person's income is evenly spread across a year.
It culminated in a $1.8 billion settlement between the Commonwealth and victims, with a federal court judge ruling Robodebt was a "massive failure in public administration".
The final report dubbed Robodebt neither fair nor legal and has offered 57 recommendations.
Labor called the royal commission after coming to power in 2022 and following the release of the report Mr Albanese dubbed it the "Liberal Party's Robodebt".
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten went further, accusing the former government and public servants of having "gaslighted the nation and its citizens".
Sources have told the ABC the sealed report has been sent to the Australian Federal Police, the newly-established National Anti-Corruption Commission, the Law Society and the Australia Public Service Commission.
Mr Albanese confirmed the head of his department has received the sealed section but he has not. He said it was not being released amid concerns it could prejudice future prosecutions.
So of what's been made public, what did it say about the people who oversaw the program?
Scott Morrison
Former prime minister Scott Morrison served as social services minister in 2014 and 2015, after which he became the treasurer.
In evidence to the royal commission, he said at no point had anyone advised ministers that the scheme was unlawful.
He told the commission that his scaled-up version of debt recovery was an extension of a Labor scheme.
But the commission rejected this:
"Mr Morrison's evidence that he was told of the longstanding practice of income averaging in 2015 is inconsistent with his oral evidence that the Executive Minute was the sole source of his information at that point in time. The commission rejects as untrue Mr Morrison's evidence that he was told that income averaging as contemplated in the Executive Minute was an established practice and a 'foundational way' in which DHS worked."
The commission found Mr Morrison knew that the use of income averaging was a new approach and he had failed to meet his ministerial responsibilities.
The report stated:
"Mr Morrison allowed cabinet to be misled because he did not make that obvious inquiry. He took the proposal to cabinet without necessary information as to what it actually entailed and without the caveat that it required legislative and policy change to permit the use of the ATO PAYG data in the way proposed in circumstances where: he knew that the proposal still involved income averaging; only a few weeks previously he had been told of that caveat; nothing had changed in the proposal; and he had done nothing to ascertain why the caveat no longer applied. He failed to meet his ministerial responsibility to ensure that cabinet was properly informed about what the proposal actually entailed and to ensure that it was lawful."
Mr Morrison moved to the backbench after his government lost the last federal election.
Mr Albanese said it was a matter for Mr Morrison to reflect on whether he should remain in federal politics. He added that should the former prime minister remain in politics, Mr Albanese expected him to come to parliament.
Mr Morrison issued a more than 1,200 word statement following the release of the royal commission's findings.
"I reject completely each of the findings which are critical of my involvement in authorising the scheme and are adverse to me," he said.
"They are wrong, unsubstantiated and contradicted by clear documentary evidence presented to the commission.
"It is unfortunate that these findings fail to acknowledge the proper functioning of government and cabinet processes in the face of not only my evidence as a former prime minister, and cabinet minister for almost nine years, but also the evidence of other cabinet ministers."
Alan Tudge
Victorian Liberal Alan Tudge was the minister for human services between 2016 and 2017, having previously served as the assistant minister for social services.
Mr Tudge has faced some of the harshest criticism of the ministers who oversaw the Robodebt scheme, particularly his office's "mean-spirited" media strategy that sought to place stories about so-called "welfare fraudsters" to counter criticism about the program.
The report stated:
"As a minister, Mr Tudge was invested with a significant amount of public power. Mr Tudge's use of information about social security recipients in the media to distract from and discourage commentary about the scheme's problems represented an abuse of that power. It was all the more reprehensible in view of the power imbalance between the minister and the cohort of people upon whom it would reasonably be expected to have the most impact, many of whom were vulnerable and dependent on the department, and its minister, for their livelihood."
Mr Tudge told the commission that he had no reason to doubt the legality of Robodebt because it had gone through cabinet.
He faced questions at the commission about the suicide of a participant who'd had a debt raised against them. Mr Tudge told the hearing that while it wasn't possible to say that the scheme was the cause, it also wasn't possible to say that it wasn't.
The commission found he should have done more to assess the impact Robodebt was having on people.
The report stated:
"By July 2017, Mr Tudge knew that at least two people had died by suicide, and that their family members had identified the impact of the scheme as a factor in their deaths. Nonetheless, Mr Tudge failed to undertake a comprehensive review into the scheme, including its fundamental features, or to consider whether its impacts were so harmful to vulnerable recipients that it should cease."
Mr Tudge quit federal politics earlier this year.
In a statement, he said his lawyers had not identified any basis for which civil or criminal proceedings could be brought against him.
"I strongly reject the commission's comments of the way I used the media and that I had abused my power in doing so," he said.
"I reject that finding in the strongest term. At no stage did I seek to engage in a media strategy that would discourage legitimate criticism of the scheme.
"It is part of a minister's role to publicly defend government policy when that policy is subject to criticism."
Stuart Robert
Former Queensland MP Stuart Robert, who suddenly quit politics earlier this year, was the minister for government services between 2019 and 2021.
Mr Robert has sought to claim credit for being the minister who ended Robodebt but the commission has been critical of public comments he made as minister.
The commission pushed back against that. It found then human services secretary Renee Leon was the first to act.
The report stated:
"Consequently, the commission rejects Mr Robert's claim to have acted to end the Robodebt scheme quite as promptly as he professes. Ms Leon was in fact the first to take steps for that purpose. There is no reason to suppose, however, that had Ms Leon not taken the step she did, the government's announcement of the cessation of the practice would have been far behind."
In evidence to the royal commission, he claimed that he could make false statements on the basis of "cabinet solidarity".
“As a dutiful cabinet minister, ma’am, that’s what we do,” he told Commissioner Holmes.
To that she replied: “Misrepresent things to the Australian public?”
The final report noted:
"It can be accepted that the principles of cabinet solidarity required Mr Robert to publicly support cabinet decisions, whether he agreed with them or not. But Mr Robert was not expounding any legal position, and he was going well beyond supporting government policy. He was making statements of fact as to the accuracy of debts, citing statistics which he knew could not be right. Nothing compels ministers to knowingly make false statements, or statements which they have good reason to suspect are untrue, in the course of publicly supporting any decision or program."
Mr Robert, in a statement issued after the publication of the report, said the royal commission had made sensible recommendations.
"As the minister that worked hard to get the legal advice and close down the income compliance scheme, I welcome the royal commission report and its sensible recommendations," he said.
"I have not received a notice of inclusion in the sealed section and I understand they have all gone out."
Christian Porter
Christian Porter served as the social services minister from 2015 to 2017 before becoming Australia's top law official as the attorney-general.
The West Australian retired from politics at the last election to become a barrister.
Mr Porter accepted responsibility for his part in the scheme when he gave evidence. He said he regretted not pushing harder with questions about the legality of the scheme.
The final report argued that Mr Porter at the very least should have directed his department to produce legal advice underpinning the scheme. The commission found he likely would have then sought external legal advice. This, the report agues, would have likely resulted in "its unlawfulness would have been identified and the scheme ended".
The report states:
"Mr Porter could not rationally have been satisfied of the legality of the scheme on the basis of his general knowledge of the NPP (new policy proposal) process, when he did not have actual knowledge of the content of the NPP, and had no idea whether it had said anything about the practice of income averaging. A simple "yes" to his question about whether there was advice was not enough to meet his obligation to ensure that the program was operating lawfully under the Social Security Act, particularly where he had already identified shortcomings in the information provided to him by DHS (Department of Human Services)."
The ABC has contacted Mr Porter for comment.
Public servants
The commission has offered a scathing assessment of senior public servants for their role in overseeing Robodebt.
Mr Shorten said there was a culture of fear among staff for speaking out and senior figures had lacked leadership, paying tribute to frontline Centrelink staffer Colleen Taylor.
"Some of the real heroes here weren't the people who should have been," he said.
"The real leadership came from the rank and file of the organisation who spoke up even at risk of their own job security and promotion."
Senior public servant Kathryn Campbell led the Department of Human Services between 2011 to 2017 and the the Department of Social Services between 2017 and 2021.
As with Mr Morrison, the commission was critical of her handling of the scaled up debt collection process, especially the failure to suggest legislative change to underpin income average.
The report stated:
"Ms Campbell had been responsible for a department that had established, implemented and maintained an unlawful program. When exposed to information that brought to light the illegality of income averaging, she did nothing of substance. When presented with opportunities to obtain advice on the lawfulness of that practice, she failed to act."
The commission was also critical of her handling of legal advice, being sought by the ombudsman, instructing staff to "cease" processing the request, "motivated by a concern that the unlawfulness of the scheme might be exposed to the ombudsman in the course of its investigation".
The former government promoted Ms Campbell to run the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2021.
Following the election, the new Labor government moved Ms Campbell to a senior role overseeing the AUKUS nuclear submarine project.
The commission was critical of Serena Wilson, a senior official at the Department of Social Services.
It found she excluded a document, being sought by the ombudsman.
"In the commission's view, Ms Wilson's conduct in instructing that the 2014 DSS legal advice be withheld from the ombudsman was not motivated by doubt as to whether the opinion fell within the scope of the ombudsman's request for information. Rather, it was motivated by a concern that the ombudsman might be made aware that averaging was being used to determine social security entitlement under the scheme in circumstances where DSS had obtained advice that the practice was unlawful. Ms Wilson's behaviour in this regard was an attempt to conceal critical information from the ombudsman."
The commission also found Mark Withnell, the general manager of business integrity at DHS between 2008 and 2017, had misled cabinet in how income averaging was described to the nation's top politicians. He had said income "smoothing" or "averaging" was able to be used in "exceptional cases".
It found:
"Mr Withnell knew that the description of the measure in the NPP would be apt to mislead cabinet as to the true nature of the scheme. There is no evidence of Mr Withnell taking any steps to ensure that cabinet was properly informed of the averaging component of the measure. To the contrary, Mr Withnell was a central figure in formulating the language used in the NPP ultimately considered by the ERC on 25 March 2015. The Commission's view is that Mr Withnell engaged in deliberate conduct designed to mislead cabinet."
The government says it will now fully consider the report.
But on the prospect of compensation for victims, commissioner Holmes said she expected it wasn't feasible because different people suffered different harms.
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