Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Photo: File.
Malcolm Turnbull never considered the legalities of Robodebt while he was prime minister, he has told the royal commission into the scheme.
The illegal automated debt recovery program began shortly before Mr Turnbull became PM and continued throughout his tenure.
Appearing via video link before the royal commission on Monday, Mr Turnbull said the scheme’s legal status was not something he even thought about.
“Look, I did not turn my mind to the legality of the program,” he said.
“It never occurred to us that it was unauthorised, because we assumed that it was as it had been represented.”
He said his major concern with the scheme was that the debts were accurate and fair, saying he relied on his ministers Alan Tudge and Christian Porter to make sure they were.
He referred to messages he had sent to those ministers, once possible problems with the scheme became apparent.
“There is a WhatsApp here where you can see on the 20th of January, 2017, where I say, ‘Alan, we need a frank assessment of what the problems are and what is happening to fix them. Are you sure your department is giving you the right advice on what is happening?’,” Mr Turnbull told the inquiry.
“So you know, I guess I was pressing him, commissioner, to do his job.”
When commissioner Catherine Holmes asked the former prime minister if he thought Mr Tudge really understood how the scheme was working, Mr Turnbull described his former Coalition colleague as a responsible minister.
“Alan Tudge, I always regarded as a technocrat. He was a management consultant,” he said.
“I didn’t regard him as being a negligent or incompetent or careless minister.”
Previously at the royal commission, a former director at the Department of Human Services said she was actively discouraged from raising concerns over the scheme.
Tenille Collins told the inquiry that the then-deputy secretary of DHS, Malisa Golightly, strongly discouraged bad news over Robodebt and told her she was “not a very good public servant” if she raised any concerns.
“She did threaten me numerous times with, you know, ‘You’ll be lucky if you have a job by the end of the week’,” Ms Collins said of Ms Golightly, who has since died.
Ms Collins said she was verbally and “irrationally” abused by Ms Golightly but she never complained to department boss Kathryn Campbell about it.
“I didn’t make a complaint about Ms Golightly’s behaviour at the time. It’s something that I feel embarrassed about,” she said.
“I think if I’d had it in my mind to complain, I would have been completely comfortable going to Kathryn Campbell.
“I always found her quite good to deal with, she was very supportive of staff.”
Robodebt was an automated debt assessment and recovery program employed by the Department of Human Services and its successor, Services Australia, for Centrelink compliance.
It began in 2016 and became hugely controversial due to its incorrect calculations and threat to issue illegal notices to welfare recipients.
It became the subject of numerous inquiries, leading to the Coalition government scrapping the scheme in 2020 and promising to repay 470,000 wrongly issued debts.
In 2021, Federal Court Justice Bernard Murphy ruled the scheme unlawful.
Following Labor’s election victory last year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese established the royal commission into the matter.
The inquiry is in its final week of witness evidence before reporting to the Government by the end of the financial year.
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