A high-level Australian inquiry yesterday called for criminal or civil action to be taken over a government scheme that sent false debt repayment demands to more than 400,000 welfare recipients.
The “robodebt” scandal caused such distress to jobseekers, pensioners, students and carers that some considered suicide. It allegedly pushed two young men to take their own lives.
The scheme ran from 2015 to 2019 under Australia’s former Conservative government, and was most notably promoted by former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison.
Photo: Reuters
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who set up a royal commission into the affair after his center-left Labor Party won elections in May last year, yesterday described it as “a gross betrayal and a human tragedy.”
“It was wrong, it was illegal, it should never have happened and it should never happen again,” Albanese said. “This tragedy caused stress, anxiety, financial destitution and sadly had a very real human toll.”
However, he refused to be drawn on whether Morrison should resign as a member of parliament, saying: “That’s a matter for him.
“I think that these findings ... make it clear that Scott Morrison’s defense of this scheme and all the government’s actions over such a long period of time were, to quote the report, based upon a falsehood,” he said.
In her report, which runs for more than 900 pages, Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes said an additional sealed chapter sent to federal authorities “recommends referral of individuals for civil action or criminal prosecution.”
The names of those people should be kept secret, “so as not to prejudice the conduct of any future civil action or criminal prosecution,” she said.
The “robodebt” scheme used income averaging — comparing a person’s reported income with their income as measured by the Australian Tax Office — to automatically issue notices to welfare recipients saying they would have to repay some of the benefits they had received.
However, the system was faulty and resulted in the unlawful claiming of almost A$2 billion (US$1.32 billion) from 433,000 people.
Morrison, who was the social services minister at the time the scheme was rolled out, was criticized a number of times in the report.
Holmes said he had “allowed Cabinet to be misled” and had “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.”
Morrison denied the report’s conclusions.
“I reject completely each of the findings which are critical of my involvement in authorizing the scheme and are adverse to me,” he said in a statement.
“They are wrong, unsubstantiated and contradicted by clear documentary evidence presented to the commission,” he said.
A class action was settled in November 2020, with the government agreeing to pay A$112 million in compensation to about 400,000 people.
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