Sunrise host Nat Barr has unleashed on Scott Morrison‘s former government over its ‘unlawful’ Robodebt scheme that destroyed the lives of countless Australians.
A ‘scathing’ report on the program spearheaded by Mr Morrison in his role as social services minister will be handed down on Friday.
Queensland chief justice Catherine Holmes will hand down her findings after interviewing more than 100 witnesses and examining thousands of documents.
Barr slammed the program as ‘mathematically flawed’ and asked Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie how those responsible should be dealt with.
‘It was ruled unlawful. There were 500,000 victims. People took their own lives. Bridget, you must have some kind of view on what should happen,’ she said.
‘It’s pretty obvious that people did the wrong thing here.’
Barr slammed the program as ‘unlawful’ and ‘mathematically flawed’ and asked Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie how those responsible should be dealt with
Senator McKenzie told Barr that in her experience ‘it doesn’t pay for politicians to comment on royal commission findings until they had seen the outcomes’.
‘I think the findings are going to be very fulsome and give us, I hope, ways to ensure that this cannot happen again,’ she said.
Education Minister Jason Clare said his thoughts were with Jennifer Miller, who lost her son Rhys, 27, to suicide after he was chased for $17,000 he did not owe.
‘I’m thinking about her and I’m thinking about families like that today, before we even get to the report says,’ Mr Clare said.
‘There were a number of people who committed suicide, others who try to take their own life, end up in hospital, they are still on medication today.’
‘Lets not forget the real life human tragedy here, people like Jennifer Miller who are still dealing with the loss of their son.’
Ms Miller told the commission she had travelled to her son’s home after his death to discover he was being chased by collection agency Dunn & Bradstreet.
She said she found five of the debt letters on her son’s fridge and a drawing of Rhys’ face with a gun, dollar signs around it and the caption ‘debt life’.
Who was responsible and whether they knowingly ran an unlawful scheme will be outlined in the Robodebt royal commission report set to be released on Friday.
Rhys Cauzzo is pictured with his mother Jennifer Miller before his death on Australia Day 2017
The inquiry, headed by former Queensland chief justice Catherine Holmes, was set up in August 2022 – three months after the Labor government was elected.
Its role was to look at the establishment, design and implementation of the scheme, its outcomes and the use of third-party debt collectors.
The former Department of Human Services launched a scheme to ‘detect, investigate and deter suspected welfare fraud and non-compliance’ in mid-2015, in an effort to save billions of dollars to the federal budget.
The scheme – which became known as robodebt – issued debt notices to people identified through a process called income averaging, which compared their reported income with tax office data.
As a swathe of coalition government ministers and senior public servants took charge of robodebt, more than $750 million was wrongfully recovered from 381,000 people.
Victims told the royal commission of their trauma and fear as they received notices and debt collectors made contact.
The inquiry also heard evidence of bureaucrats ignoring serious questions and advice about the legality of the scheme.
The scheme was ruled unlawful by the Federal Court in 2019, after robodebt victim Madeleine Masterton launched a challenge of her debt.
Mr Morrison will be in Italy holidaying with his family as the report is handed down on Friday
A settlement of $1.2billion was reached between robodebt victims and the former government in 2020.
Former prime ministers Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull gave evidence at the inquiry, along with ex-ministers Alan Tudge, Christian Porter and Stuart Robert.
Almost 200,000 people had their welfare debts wiped in October last year.
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten described the scheme as the nation’s ‘greatest failure of public administration in social security’.
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Mr Morrison will be in Italy holidaying with family as the report is handed down.
The former prime minister is now travelling through Europe after appearing at a series of meetings about the AUKUS submarine deal in the UK in late June.
‘Following his formal visit to the UK, Mr Morrison will be taking some time to spend with his family, who will accompany him to the UK, on a private vacation overseas, during the parliamentary break and school holiday period,’ his office said in a statement ahead of the trip.
Mr Morrison was a witness at the commission, where he argued he was never advised of the unlawful nature of the scheme.
He said he would not have proceeded if he was aware of any legal issues.
Grieving mother whose son, 22, killed himself after discovering a $2k Robodebt releases heartbreaking audio of his final phone call with the welfare agency
By Zoe Zaczek for Daily Mail Australia
A shattered mother whose son killed himself after he discovered a $2,000 debt under the Robodebt scheme has shared his final phone calls with the welfare agency.
Jarrad Madgwick called Centrelink twice in 2019 to find out why his Newstart claim was rejected.
Jarrad Madgwick (pictured) took his own life on May 30, 2019
The 22-year-old then went online and discovered a $2,000 Robodebt on his MyGov account. He took his life hours later.
His mother Kath has now gained access to her son’s final phone calls with Centrelink through a Freedom of Information request.
‘From the start of the year, I wanted the truth. I wanted Centrelink to be very open with me about what discussions they had had with him, what they had sent to him,’ Ms Madgwick told A Current Affair.
Ms Madgwick is adamant her son killed himself after learning of his debt. Services Australia advised Jarrad knew about the sum of money on May 28.
‘My question is, if Jarrad knew about this debt, why would he not have mentioned it in the two lengthy phone calls he had with Centrelink on the 30th?’ she asked.
In audio from the phone calls, Jarrad sounds distressed about his financial situation.
‘Um hello… I’m in a pretty desperate situation here and my claim has been rejected after I’ve waited a month and I’ve jumped through all the hoops and I’m just wondering why I haven’t even got an explanation?,’ he asked.
In another snippet of audio Jarrad said: ‘You’ve rejected my claim so I can’t get backpaid. So now I’m defaulting on all my loan repayments and everything. It’s f*****.’
Ms Madgwick said her son’s debt is not mentioned in either of the phone calls, one of which lasted for 19 minutes.
She hopes Services Australia will publicly apologise to those who fell victim to the Robodebt scheme.
‘An apology would help. Will it bring my son back? No. But, for the thousands out there that have been suffering through this I think they need the apology,’ she said.
‘There won’t be a day that I don’t miss him or want to feel him or hear his laugh or have him give me a big hug.
‘Never a day I will go by that I don’t think of him and wish he was here.’
Services Australia said senior leaders travelled to meet Ms Madgwick in person on two occasions and apologised for both her own and Jarrad’s experience.
In a statement to Daily Mail Australia Services Australia said: ‘Services Australia has done all we can to support Ms Madgwick and address her questions over the last year and we continue to offer social worker support.’
‘We recognise how difficult this period has been for Ms Madgwick which is why we have gone to considerable effort to give her information to help her understand her son Jarrad’s dealings with us.’
‘Income averaging wasn’t used in Jarrad’s case. He entered earnings information into the online system as part of his income review.’
‘On 28 May 2019 the online review notified Jarrad of an estimated debt based on the information he provided. It also advised Jarrad we would come back to him regarding the final outcome of his review.’
‘The outcome of Jarrad’s review was not finalised before his passing and he did not speak to us or receive any letters displaying a final debt amount.’
‘There was no interaction between the agency and Jarrad, either by phone or online, after speaking to us on the morning of 30 May 2019 when we advised his Newstart claim had been sent for final processing.’
For confidential support call Lifeline 24-hour crisis support on 13 11 14 or MensLine Australia
