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Labor’s Robodebt U-Turn

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The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025 is an embarrassment and another example of this government’s hypocrisy and deceit. Before the 2025 federal election, Labor condemned the Coalition over the RoboDebt scandal, using it as a key issue to win votes. Many Australians believed Labor would fix the injustice. However, this new bill seeks to retroactively validate the same flawed income calculation method that caused the RoboDebt problem in the first place—something Labor previously opposed.

The bill proposes offering small compensation payments—up to $600—to people who were wrongly charged thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. Once someone accepts this payment, they lose the right to claim anything further. This is a deceptive tactic to avoid paying full compensation and to silence victims. The scheme is only open for 12 months, and is designed to quietly close the door on proper justice for those affected.

The bill lacks transparency and detail, with much of its implementation left to future decisions by the minister, bypassing parliamentary scrutiny. Advocacy groups like Anglicare Australia and the Australian Council of Social Service have raised concerns, saying the bill doesn’t properly address the harm caused. Instead of correcting past wrongs, the government is validating them.

This is not just a failure to act—it’s a deliberate attempt to avoid responsibility and cheat vulnerable Australians out of what they’re rightfully owed.

Transcript

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025 is an embarrassment and example of the Labor government’s hypocrisy and deceit. Before and during the last federal election, Labor used the robodebt scandal—and it was a scandal—as an election weapon to electorally gut the previous coalition government. It worked, and Labor won the election based on the incompetence of the coalition and on what Labor highlighted as the coalition’s cruel betrayal of robodebt victims. 

So what do we have here? Labor wants to pass this bill to retrospectively validate the unlawful income apportionment method that underpinned the robodebt rip-off. You pretended to oppose it, and now you want to invalidate it—the injustice, deceit and betrayal. To make matters worse, persons ripped off to the extent of thousands of dollars are being offered puny payments to a maximum of $600 when actually owed $15,000 or more. That’s not justice; that’s theft. Labor is inducing people to take $600 now so people go away and to ensure they never become able to reasonably claim what the government legally owes them. You’re conning these people. They’re already in misery, and now you’re conning them. 

Applications for the scheme will only be open for 12 months. Accepting a resolution payment will discharge the Commonwealth from any further liability. That ends it. In other words, the compensation scheme is completely inadequate. Worse, it’s deceptive, deliberately dishonest. Many robodebt victims likely voted for Labor to get justice on robodebt. That’s what you promised them. Those same people will now never get close to what they’re owed. The government is blatantly cheating robodebt victims out of thousands of dollars—in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars. 

This is not just an uncaring government, and on this issue its approach is not just lazily getting around paying lawful entitlements. No; this government is working hard to rip off innocent, vulnerable taxpayers. These faulty assessments extend back to September 2003—22 years. Instead of paying back exactly what each victim of the unlawful robodebt calculations is owed, the government is trying to introduce retrospective legislation to make what was unlawful then now lawful. And you wonder why we’re upset. This sneaky new bill is making what was illegal legal—the very reverse of your promise before the election. It will try to validate debts which were unlawful when they tried to collect them. I will say that again, in fact. This bill will try to validate debts which were unlawful when they tried to collect them. 

With potentially millions of unlawful debts to deal with, the government is using this bill to welch on its debts to innocent Australians who are victims of government dishonesty. There’s been little consultation with this bill, and it shows. There is little detail about how the scheme should work, and in some areas detail is totally missing. Instead, much of the detail is left to the minister’s use of future legislative instruments to bypass parliament, to bypass scrutiny. Now there’s Labor’s catchcry: ‘bypass scrutiny’—two words that tell us all about Labor in government at the moment. It is the complete opposite of transparency—bypass scrutiny. 

The government has not justified why it considers it necessary to rely on retrospective validation of the previously found unlawful means of calculation. The intention is clear: the government wishes to validate previous decisions that were made on an unlawful basis. You want to validate what you were supposed to fix. The rip-off that you were going to fix you are now validating, quietly cementing in place the Liberals’ violations that before the election Labor screamed about. Anglicare Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service and even the Commonwealth Ombudsman have indicated their concerns that the bill does not address cases where income apportionment wrongly resulted in debts and, in some instances, criminal prosecutions. This bill is an example of the government trying to cover up and weasel out of responsibility for the damage caused to innocent Australians who have been victims of the incompetence of governments, both the coalition and Labor. 

On this issue, the coalition in government was incompetent, negligent and uncaring. People died because of this—suicide. Labor in government, though, is deceitful, deliberately dishonest. Only One Nation has the integrity to restore sound, honest and caring government. Only One Nation cares about the Australian people. Only One Nation puts our country, Australia, first. One Nation will always act to protect the interests of Australians, and we’ll oppose this pathetically woeful bill, this dishonest, deliberately deceitful Labor bill.  

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When Conflicts Aren’t Managed, Trust is Lost

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During my time with the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) in Senate estimates, I raised serious concerns about the handling of the Robodebt referral. The inspector’s report revealed that Commissioner Brereton declared a conflict of interest because he knew one of the individuals involved—yet despite that, his involvement in the decision-making was extensive.

The inspector found maladministration under the NACC Act. Mr Brereton contributed to discussions, settled meeting minutes, helped formulate reasons for the decision, and even shaped the media statement. That’s not how a conflict of interest should be managed. To make matters worse, the press release contained a false statement about investigative powers—an error acknowledged by the commission. For a former Supreme Court appeals judge, that’s a serious mistake. This isn’t about one error; it’s about trust.

Australians need confidence that the NACC operates with integrity and independence. When conflicts of interest aren’t properly managed, that confidence is undermined.

— Senate Estimates | October 2025

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: In relation to the robodebt referral, Mr Brereton declared that one of the people who was subject to the decision not to investigate was a person he knew well.

Mr Reed: That’s correct.

Senator ROBERTS: Where did he know this person from?

Mr Reed: The letter that was tabled here didn’t identify that person’s name. The inspector has investigated that matter, and her report was produced on 30 October last year. It goes into a reasonable amount of detail about how that conflict of interest was managed, and it made a finding of maladministration against the commissioner.

Senator ROBERTS: Maladministration?

Mr Reed: That’s correct, under the NACC Act.

Senator ROBERTS: Despite declaring the conflict of interest, his involvement in the decision-making was comprehensive. That’s what the inspector said.

Mr Reed: That’s what the inspector found.

Senator ROBERTS: I’m now quoting the inspector, who said Mr Brereton contributed to the discussion at that meeting, settled the minutes of that meeting and was involved in formulating the reasons for the decision and also the terms of the media statement.

Mr Reed: And all of those facts are on the record in the inspector’s report.

Senator ROBERTS: And the decision to not investigate someone who had a close association with him; that is correct too?

Mr Reed: Sorry, I think I missed the point of the question.

Senator ROBERTS: The decision to not investigate someone that he had a close association with was his decision?

Mr Reed: The decision taken in relation to robodebt was not a decision of the commissioners; it was a decision or a matter—it was under assessment. It wasn’t an investigation; it was under assessment. That matter was allocated to a deputy commissioner because of the conflict of interest. What the inspector found was that he hadn’t managed that conflict of interest effectively—

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for clarifying.

Mr Reed: and, therefore, the decision about robodebt was made by a deputy commissioner, not by the commissioner.

Senator ROBERTS: Is my understanding correct that the press release on the decision not to investigate robodebt contained a false statement that another commissioner had the power to investigate those people, and did he, Mr Brereton, suggest including that when he helped formulate the media release?

Mr Reed: All of that was covered in the inspector’s report and—

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, I know.

Mr Reed: the commission acknowledged, as part of that, that that was an error in that statement.

Senator ROBERTS: From a former Supreme Court appeals court judge who would have known this?

Mr Reed: People make mistakes.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s a hell of a mistake. He would have known this. It would have been ingrained in him.

Mr Reed: This has all been explored in the inspector’s report. We’re going back over old ground here.

Senator ROBERTS: The inspector said his involvement in the robodebt decision to not investigate his mates was an error of judgement, would you just acknowledge?

Mr Reed: I don’t think those are the words that were used.

Senator ROBERTS: Was it an error of judgement?

Mr Reed: No. I don’t think ‘mate’ was referred to in that report, but I might be wrong.

Senator ROBERTS: So what would you call it? A colleague? An associate?

Mr Reed: It was a colleague from a former life.

Senator ROBERTS: I’ve been through Mr Brereton’s former position in the appeals court in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. That’s arguably the second highest tier of court in Australia. Is he really trying to make us believe, through you, that, given his experience, he would make such a consequential error of judgement?

Mr Reed: The error has been acknowledged, and it’s on the record, so I’m not quite sure where this is heading.

Senator ROBERTS: It’s heading to a loss of confidence in the NACC. That’s where it’s headed.

Mr Reed: I think it’s unfair that one matter, one aspect of the work of the commission, one of the first decisions that was announced about an assessment, as distinct from an investigation, somehow undermines the NACC for the rest of time.

Senator ROBERTS: It’s a pretty serious issue.

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