Taxpayers forked out $2.5m in legal expenses for eight former Coalition ministers, including two prime ministers, to be represented in the robodebt royal commission, with almost half a million for Scott Morrison.
Ahead of the release of the royal commission report on Friday, the Attorney General’s Department has revealed the cost of legal assistance as of 24 May this year, including that the former attorney general and social services minister Christian Porter incurred legal bills totalling $795,053.
The figures do not include any costs from the final month and a half of the commission, meaning the final bill is likely to exceed $2.5m. Former ministers are eligible for the cost of responding to notices of potential adverse findings or referrals, if any were received by them.
The costs for legal representation at the robodebt royal commission are:
$795,053 for Porter, the social services minister from 2015 to 2017
$518,064 for Michael Keenan, the human services minister from December 2017 to May 2019
$477,528 for Scott Morrison, the social services minister in 2014 and 2015
$240,520 for Marise Payne, the human services minister from September 2013 to September 2015
$183,835 for Stuart Robert, the human services minister from September 2015 to February 2016, then government services minister from 2019 to 2021
$112,696 for Dan Tehan, the former social services minister
$98,935 for Malcolm Turnbull, the former prime minister
$5,626 for Anne Ruston, the minister for families and social services from 2019 to 2022
In November, Guardian Australia revealed six former ministers had received approval for taxpayer-funded legal expenses related to the robodebt royal commission.
Alan Tudge, the human services minister from February 2016 to December 2017, received approval but according to the Attorney General’s department incurred no expenses to May 2023.
Late last year, the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, approved the robodebt legal expenses for the former ministers, who held portfolios in government, social or human services at the centre of the inquiry into the federal government’s unlawful use of income averaging to demand welfare repayments.
The robodebt scheme, which ran between 2015 and November 2019, culminated in a $1.8bn settlement covering hundreds of thousands of people issued unlawful Centrelink debts.
Ministers and former ministers are eligible for “legal representation in relation to proceedings and other costs related to proceedings”.
Dreyfus approved Morrison’s expenses for the robodebt inquiry related “to the performance of Mr Morrison’s former ministerial duties as then minister for social services, treasurer and prime minister”.
He said it was “appropriate to give assistance”, and that costs would be limited to what his department determined to be “reasonable”.
Separately, the newly released figures also reveal that Morrison incurred costs of $22,424 for representation in the Virginia Bell inquiry into his multiple ministries. The former health minister Greg Hunt incurred $5,200 for this inquiry.
The department also revealed that Robert has made an application for taxpayer-funded legal representation in the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit inquiry into procurement at Services Australia and the National Disability Insurance Agency.
Robert incurred costs of $8,785 for an inquiry into procurement processes for contracts within the Department of Human Services, Services Australia and the National Disability Insurance Agency.
