Bill Shorten has accused Scott Morrison of being “a bottomless well of self-pity” with “not a drop of mercy for all of the real victims of robodebt”.
That outburst in question time followed the former prime minister’s defence of his involvement of the scheme in parliament on Monday, claiming Labor was pursuing a campaign of “political lynching” against him.
The Albanese government continues to pursue the Coalition over robodebt, demanding that the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, apologise after he backed Morrison’s defence of the scheme and his right to stay in parliament as long as he wished.
Despite the lack of overt pressure on Morrison to retire, he is increasingly isolated in his party, with just a handful of colleagues attending his personal explanation on Monday.
Shorten, the minister for government services, noted Liberal MPs were “strangely silent” when Labor highlighted Morrison’s record on robodebt in question time on Tuesday.
Mr Morrison, you are a bottomless well of self-pity with not a drop of mercy for all the real victims of Robodebt pic.twitter.com/tdDiK6O6TK
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) August 1, 2023
In response to a Labor question, Shorten used the phrase “real victims” of robodebt 16 times, explaining that they were: people treated as if “guilty until proven innocent” who received debt notices from the government; “who were denied reviews because they couldn’t provide the payslips” of former employers; or “who suffered financial hardship and had to sell their possessions to pay an unlawfully raised debt”.
“The real victims were those who suffered trauma, anxiety, distress. The real victims were those who took their own lives. The real victims are the mothers of those who took their own lives.
“The real victims are all those Australians who lost trust in government because of an unlawful scheme run for four-and-a-half years.”
Shorten said: “One person who is not a real victim is the member for Cook [Morrison].”
He rejected Morrison’s claim the royal commission effectively reversed the onus of proof on to him. “Satire is truly dead in this country when [Morrison] complains about the reversal of onus of proof on him, but not the 434,000 people who did have their reverse onus.”
Throughout the Shorten roasting, Morrison interjected that the former leader of the opposition was being “very personal” and “we all know why” – an apparent reference to Morrison’s victory over Shorten at the 2019 election.
The robodebt royal commissioner, Catherine Holmes, found Morrison, who was social services minister from December 2014 to September 2015, had “allowed cabinet to be misled” about whether legislation was required to raise debts through a method known as “income averaging”.
That was because Morrison did not make the “obvious inquiry” about why his department had changed its view on whether legislation was required to change social security law. “He chose not to inquire,” she said.
On Monday Morrison told the House of Representatives that while he acknowledged the “regrettable unintended consequences” of the scheme, he “completely rejects” the adverse findings against him.
He said the commission’s conclusions were “disproportionate, wrong, unsubstantiated, and contradicted by clear evidence presented to the commission”.
Morrison said he was “constitutionally and legally entitled” to rely on the advice from his department and his duties were therefore “fully and properly discharged”.
Morrison argued Labor had effectively committed “to continuing the scheme” at the time because their policy costings at the 2016 and 2019 elections did not delete savings the Coalition claimed would materialise.
The royal commission noted that Labor wrote to the government as early as December 2016 asking for the scheme to be paused. A class action over robodebt would later result in $1.8bn of debts being wiped.
On Tuesday Shorten told Sky News “the [Labor] opposition raised problems with robodebt once it started rolling out” in hundreds of questions and comments in question time, after their offices were “inundated” with complaints.
“What amazes me is that when people were complaining, Mr Morrison and his colleagues basically ignored all the red flags and warnings.”
Shorten explained Labor pre-election budget costings did not remove illusory savings because “the opposition didn’t know that the government was just making stuff up and didn’t have lawful authority”.
On Monday evening Dutton said that Morrison had put “a very strong case in relation to his position”.
“He is right to put it in parliament and he is right to serve in parliament after having been elected at the last election,” he told ABC’s 7:30.
Dutton argued for prime ministers have “a right to retire at a time of their choosing” and it was “entirely within his remit” to stay.
Before the release of the robodebt report, speculation in the New South Wales Liberal party was rife that Morrison would quit parliament mid-year, although he has never publicly confirmed his long-term plans. Colleagues fear adverse findings may have made it more likely he will dig in.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
