Scott Morrison has accused the robodebt royal commission of “unfairly and retroactively” applying a consensus the debt recovery program was unlawful, while telling parliament Labor was pursuing a campaign of “political lynching” against him.
On Monday the former prime minister made a personal statement to a near empty lower house of parliament rejecting the commission’s central findings as “unfounded and wrong”.
Morrison also accused the media of a “disproportionate” focus on his role in the program and Labor of “rank hypocrisy” for not removing illusory savings from their election costings while the Coalition repeatedly claimed it was lawful despite expert warnings to the contrary.
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.
After the minister for government services, Bill Shorten, read these findings into Hansard during question time, 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”.
After an executive minute warned in 2015 that legislation may need to be changed for the robodebt proposal to go ahead, Morrison said he had asked his department to resolve any legal issues.
This resulted in a new policy proposal that “provided clear and explicit advice from the department that legislation was not required”, which “superseded all previous advice”.
Morrison said he was “constitutionally and legally entitled” to rely on advice and his duties were therefore “fully and properly discharged”.
“The Department of Social Services continued to maintain that the scheme was lawful and did not require any legislation until the provision of the solicitor generals advice, in 2019, five years after the cabinets submission was first considered.”
Morrison noted robodebt was one of 51 new policy proposals in his portfolio, and in more than 30 the department had indicated the need for legislation.
Morrison argued Labor had effectively committed “to continuing the scheme” 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.
Morrison argued the commission was “weaponisation of a quasi legal process to launder the government’s political vindictiveness”. He said it was part of a “campaign of political lynching” and a “further attempt” by the Albanese government to discredit him and his service.
“They need to move on … instead of trying to distract attention from their own failings by relentlessly pursuing these transparently partisan campaigns against me,” he said.
Morrison said the commission’s finding “unfairly and retroactively applies a consensus on the understanding of the lawful status of the scheme that simply was not present or communicated at the time”.
“This is clearly an unreasonable, untenable and false basis to make the serious allegation of allowing cabinet to be misled.”
The commission also said it “rejects as untrue” Morrison’s evidence that he was told by an unnamed public servant that the income averaging method was established practice.
Morrison rejected this as “unsubstantiated, speculative and wrong”. He argued the commission had effectively “reversed the onus of proof”.
“I stated in evidence what I understood to be true, the commission failed to disprove this and simply asserted it unilaterally as fact,” he told parliament.
The royal commission found the robodebt proposal was “precisely responsive” to the Coalition government’s policy agenda communicated by Morrison “against the backdrop of a drive for savings”.
Morrison said the finding that pressure was applied is “wrong, unsubstantiated and absurd”, arguing senior departmental executives “withheld key information” regarding the legality of the scheme, which he labelled “inexcusable”.
“The department had already initiated the proposal before my arrival as minister, how could I have pressured officials while serving in another portfolio?”
Despite speculation that Morrison could exit parliament mid-year, the member for Cook said he was “pleased to continue to serve” his electorate.
He thanked his colleagues for their “strong support”. Fewer than half a dozen opposition MPs were in the chamber.
