The royal commission’s report is scathing of the former prime minister Scott Morrison, former government services minister Stuart Robert and former department of human services secretary Kathryn Campbell.
Here are the key criticisms made in the report about each of the key government figures in the robodebt scheme.
Scott Morrison
The commissioner, Catherine Holmes, directly criticised Morrison in her report for not making proper inquiries in his role as social services minister about why his department went back on its 2015 suggestion that income averaging required legislative change.
It’s a key question because income averaging – the often false assumption that someone’s yearly income can be spread evenly across Centrelink’s 26 fortnightly reporting periods – is at the heart of robodebt’s injustice and illegality, leading to flawed debt calculations and untold damage.
Holmes said it was “obvious” that Morrison should have asked about the sudden change. The failure to ask about it led to cabinet being misled, she found.
Morrison also failed in his ministerial responsibility, the report said.
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.
Holmes said the commission “rejects as untrue” Morrison’s evidence that income averaging was an established practice and a “foundational way” in which the department of human services worked.
In a statement on Friday afternoon, Morrison flatly rejected the report’s findings in relation to his involvement.
“I reject completely each of the findings which are critical of my involvement in authorising the scheme and are adverse to me,” the statement said. “They are wrong, unsubstantiated and contradicted by clear documentary evidence presented to the commission.”
He said he had “acted in good faith and on clear and deliberate Department advice that no legislation was required to introduce the scheme”.
Morrison said he had “no reason to question the veracity” of advice that legislation was not required.
“There is no evidence before the commission which establishes that I was responsible for the departments ceasing in their duties to stop giving frank or candid advice to me regarding the need for legislative change,” he said.
Stuart Robert
Robert, the government services minister during the final period of robodebt, was also strongly criticised by the royal commission.
Robert claimed in evidence to the commission that he attempted to end the scheme as soon as possible and had serious concerns about income averaging. The royal commission rejected parts of his evidence, saying:
[The] weight of the evidence is strongly against Mr Robert’s having given any instruction to [secretary of human services] Ms Leon on 7 or 8 November 2019 to cease income averaging as a sole or partial basis for debt raising. What seems to have happened at the meeting on 8 November 2019 was a canvassing of options. It is reasonable to suppose that Mr Robert still hoped to salvage the Robodebt Scheme in some respects.
Robert was also criticised for using false figures about robodebt’s accuracy to publicly defend the scheme. Robert told the royal commission he was publicly praising the scheme, despite having private reservations about it, out of cabinet solidarity.
But the royal commission said:
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.
In a response on Friday afternoon Robert maintained that he had tried to have robodebt shut down.
“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.”
Kathryn Campbell
The royal commission report is scathing of Campbell, the former department of human services secretary, on multiple points.
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.
It was damning of her handling of the policy proposal for robodebt that went to cabinet’s powerful expenditure review committee in 2015.
The policy proposal said nothing of income averaging or of the need for legislative change, despite prior advice from the Department of Social Services that such change would be needed.
The report found Campbell knew of both the intended use of income averaging and the DSS advice that legislative change was needed, but did nothing to change the policy proposal that went to government.
It found she did so because she knew Morrison wanted to “pursue the proposal and that the government could not achieve the savings” that were promised without income averaging.
In oral evidence, Ms Campbell accepted that the NPP [new policy proposal] was apt to mislead Cabinet. She contended that her failure to eliminate its misleading effect was an “oversight.” That would be an extraordinary oversight for someone of Ms Campbell’s seniority and experience. The weight of the evidence instead leads to the conclusion that Ms Campbell knew of the misleading effect of the NPP but chose to stay silent, knowing that Mr Morrison wanted to pursue the proposal and that the Government could not achieve the savings which the NPP promised without income averaging.
It was also scathing of her handling of a request for legal advice about robodebt, made by the acting secretary, Barry Jackson, while she was on leave in early 2017. Campbell returned from leave and “instructed DHS officers” to cease responding to Jackson’s request for legal advice.
The Commission finds that Ms Campbell instructed DHS officers to cease the process of responding to Mr Jackson’s request for advice, motivated by a concern that the unlawfulness of the Scheme might be exposed to the Ombudsman in the course of its investigation.
It also found that she knew her statements that there had “been no change to how we assess income or calculate and recover debts”, a key deflection used to defend the scheme, were false. She knew that because Colleen Taylor, a frontline Centrelink staffer, had told her in forensic detail why it was wrong and expressed concerns she was “being misled”.
When Ms Taylor expressly brought the falsity of that statement to her attention on 7 February 2017, Ms Campbell took no steps to correct it. Ms Campbell accepted that the persons to whom she had delegated the review of Ms Taylor’s complaints had not followed up and addressed them in any systematic way. The responsibility was hers, but she took no further action.
Campbell has been approached for comment.
Alan Tudge
Tudge was the human services minister in 2017 when the robodebt scheme was facing national scrutiny. The royal commission was damning of his handling of the controversy, describing some of his actions as a reprehensible “abuse of power”.
Holmes found that Tudge was “not open to considering any significant alteration, or cessation, of processes underlying those fundamental features”.
Holmes found Tudge used “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”.
She wrote:
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.
Holmes accepted that Tudge believed he was “bound by the cabinet decision to implement them, but that did not mean he could not have investigated the problems with them and raised any concerns with the appropriate senior minister”.
On Friday Tudge said he rejected the findings about the way he used the media and the alleged abuse of power “in the strongest terms”.
“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.”
