Ex-Liberal minister Stuart Robert faces robodebt inquiry

Maeve Bannister | March 2, 2023

A former coalition minister who told the head of his department to “double down” on robodebt rather than admit fault will front a royal commission on the matter.

Stuart Robert, who served as human services and government services minister, will be questioned on Thursday. 

Hundreds of thousands of Australians were sent debt notices under the robodebt scheme that unlawfully recovered more than $750 million.

The commission is examining why the controversial Centrelink debt recovery scheme was established in 2015 and how it continued until 2019, given it had generated significant criticism by early 2017.

Former human services department secretary Renee Leon told the commission Mr Robert dismissed legal advice from the solicitor-general in 2019 the scheme was unlawful.

When she presented the solicitor-general’s findings, Prof Leon recalled Mr Robert telling her: “Well, secretary, legal advice is just advice”. 

“I remember because it was so shocking to me, because we weren’t talking about some low-level advice,” Prof Leon said.

“This was from the solicitor-general, who we don’t think gets things wrong.” 

Later when robodebt was publicly determined to be unlawful, Prof Leon advised Mr Robert the department apologise to customers, admit the error and inform the public of steps to correct it.

She recalled Mr Robert responded: “We absolutely will not be doing that. We will double down.”

Prof Leon said she ended up having to stop the program before the former government made the decision to do so. 

She said it was only when former attorney-general Christian Porter confirmed the solicitor-general’s advice was correct that Mr Robert felt he had to abide by it. 

Former minister Marise Payne, who held the human services portfolio between 2013 and 2015, will front the commission for a second time.