/ 10 March 2023

Robodebt Royal Commission hearings wrap up

Image source: Getty
Image source: Getty

…and the evidence delivered by witnesses has been a doozy. To refresh: Robodebt was a Coalition Government scheme that aimed to recoup Centrelink overpayments, except some dodgy maths meant that, in practice, debt recovery notices were sent to Aussies for debts that were wildly inaccurate or completely false. That happened to hundreds of thousands of Australians and has been linked to several suicides. The scheme was later found to be illegal. During hearings, the Royal Commission learned that the departments running Robodebt had advice about the scheme’s illegality before it was implemented and that those same departments misled the Ombudsman during a 2017 investigation. Several former ministers, including Alan Tudge, Christian Porter, Scott Morrison and Stuart Robert, also faced the Royal Commission for their part in the cluster disaster. That’s not the end of it – the report will be handed to the government on 30 June.

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