‘Stretched resources’ behind no advice

Andrew Brown | January 30, 2023

A chief lawyer for the government department involved in the robodebt scheme has admitted external advice on whether the program was legal was not sought due to stretched resources.

Former chief counsel at the Department of Human Services, Annette Musolino, told the royal commission into robodebt a further review of the debt recovery scheme wasn’t acted on because the department was struggling with its workload at the time.

The Centrelink debt recovery scheme used annual tax office data to calculate fortnightly earnings and automatically issue welfare debt notices.

The controversial program recovered more than $750 million from over 380,000 people and led to several people taking their own lives while being pursued for false debts.

While officials within the department discussed whether external advice was needed on whether the income averaging was legal, it decided against it,due to other reviews being conducted.

“It would have been another review under way at the same time as we were, frankly, struggling to manage the ombudsman review, parliamentary inquiries or the media attention and everything else that went with it,” Ms Musolino told the commission.

Robodebt was carried out between 2015 and 2019, and continued to run despite significant concerns being aired about the scheme in 2017.

The royal commission heard departmental advice was received in 2014 that indicated income averaging was not supported by the legislative framework.

Earlier on Monday, Ms Musolino said once an ombudsman report came out about the robodebt scheme in 2017, it gave the department assurances that issues reported about the program were all fine.

The former chief counsel also told the commission she saw no issues with robodebt following advice she received in 2017 from the Department of Social Services.

“It was pretty short advice, but I had no reason to second guess what was in it – it was coming from the policy agency who owns the legislation,” she said.

“We’re a service delivery agency. When we’re given a program to deliver or implement, we don’t generally look behind how that decision was made or designed or the legalities.

The department would later get advice from the solicitor-general in 2019 saying robodebt was unlawful.

While income averaging was initially meant to be used as a last resort to calculate debt, Ms Musolino said the averaging became a default position.

“It was not a step in the process that you go and get the pay slips from the employers. That step had been removed,” she said.

The latest block of hearings will examine what department officials knew about the potential illegality of the scheme, and how officials communicated information with the government and other staff.

Former human services minister Alan Tudge and former social services minister Christian Porter will give evidence later this week.