Australian Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese says a Labor government would set up a royal commission, the country’s highest form of public inquiry, into the unlawful Robodebt scheme, which he describes as a “human tragedy.”
The automated matching of tax and Centrelink data to raise debts against welfare recipients, for money the coalition Liberal-Nationals government claimed to have overpaid, was ruled unlawful in 2019.
A $1.2 billion settlement between Robodebt victims and the federal government was reached in 2020.
But the centre-right coalition Liberal-Nationals government under Prime Minister Scott Morrison has never detailed who was accountable for the four-year scheme, and which ministers knew about its problems.
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