Scott Morrison, Christian Porter, Alan Tudge, Stuart Robert, Michael Keenan and Marise Payne have received approval for taxpayer-funded legal expenses related to the robodebt royal commission.
The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has approved the expenses for the six former ministers, who all 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 revelation comes as the commission confirms it is to investigate how former Coalition government ministers and top public servants established the program through the federal budget process.
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.
Documents tabled in the House of Representatives on Tuesday reveal that on 28 October 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”.
However, approval of expenses does not indicate whether Morrison will appear at the inquiry, which resumes in Brisbane on 5 December for two weeks of hearings into the establishment, design and implementation of the scheme and impact on individuals.
A spokesperson for Morrison said he is “appropriately cooperating with the royal commission as required and in accordance with the normal conventions that apply to such cooperation of former government members in their executive roles” – but declined to answer questions about whether he would appear.
Ministers and former ministers are eligible for “legal representation in relation to proceedings and other costs related to proceedings”.
In a set of five nearly identical approvals, Dreyfus noted Tudge, Keenan and Payne’s former roles as human services ministers, Porter’s former roles as social services minister and as attorney general, and Stuart Robert’s former role as government services minister.
According to a statement by the commission, the next hearings will focus on “the government’s response to identified shortcomings in the scheme” and “the role played by the budget process in establishing the scheme, the measures necessary for it to continue, and the involvement of portfolio ministers and SES officers in this process”.
The commission has so far heard the scheme went ahead because Morrison requested enhanced welfare “compliance” measures in February 2015 as part of the budget process.
But some senior social services department officials, including former deputy secretary, Serena Wilson, have said they failed to alert Morrison to the potential illegality of the scheme.
In a separate set of tabled documents, Dreyfus noted that on 22 September the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, approved costs for Morrison, former health minister, Greg Hunt, and former resources minister, Keith Pitt, related to Virginia Bell’s inquiry into Morrison’s multiple ministries.
Morrison’s approval notes that the inquiry “relates to the performance by the former prime minister of ministerial duties”.
Anthony Albanese launched the Bell inquiry in August after the shock revelation that Morrison had received five secret appointments to administer the departments of health, finance, industry, science, energy and resources, and home affairs, and the treasury in 2020 and 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Morrison has defended the arrangements as a “necessary” safeguard in “extraordinary circumstances” that were done with the “best of intentions”.
The Bell inquiry is due to report by Friday. Hunt confirmed earlier in November that he had provided a statement to the inquiry.
Pitt’s approval for legal expenses includes both the Bell inquiry and the Asset Energy federal court matter, in which the company is challenging Morrison’s personal decision to scuttle the PEP-11 permit to explore for gas off the coast of Newcastle.
