Thread by @shalailah

Former Minister Stuart Robert is before the #Robodebt RC today, and I'll be tuning in and sharing key points with you.

Mr Robert says only 10% of people who were contacted by Centrelink regarding debt notices "engaged" with the Dept.

Mr Robert says that shortly after becoming Govt Services Minister in 2019 he raised concerns about debt raising through ATO data alone and asked for "further information"

The then Minister was briefed on the federal court case against #robodebt in early July, along with the Deputy Secretary of the Dept.

During this meeting Mr Robert asked those present if there was any legal advice regarding the use of income-averaging to raise debts, and he said he was told there wasn't.

Bear in mind, this is July 2019 - more than three years into the #robodebt program.

The next step was to obtain legal advice on whether using income-averaging PARTIALLY to raise debts (ie as not the sole device in debt-raising) was legal.

Draft advice from March of 2019 from the Solicitor-General the federal court case had a "good change of succeeding" due to the use of income-averaging.

The advice says averaging "produces inaccurate calculation of debts".

This is from the Govt lawyer, so very very senior advice.

(you know what I mean! Advice from a senior source)

Mr Robert says this draft advice was not relayed to him even up to his briefing in July of that year.

The dept had the advice for "almost 100 days and have
not informed me in writing in any way shape or form", Mr Robert says. #RobotDebtRC

Mr Robert says, had that advice been provided to him from his dept, he would have taken it to the PM and told him the program needs to be stopped, as he did in November when the Solicitor-General's advice was provided to him. #RobotDebtRC

If the Secretary had known about this information and not passed it on to the Minister, then that would have been a breach of the law, Mr Robert said. #RobotDebtRC

"How could a brief like that not be given inwriting?" Mr Robert asked, in response to a question that bad advice from the Dept was given verbally so there wasn't a paper trail. #RobotDebtRC

(The context to all of this is that previous evidence from departmental officials has cited a culture of fear in the Dept, where people were reluctant to raise negative aspects of policy for fear of reprisal.)

Mr Robert is asked about his staunch defence of #robodebt during a 730 interview with @latingle. The interview occurred after Mr Robert reportedly raised concerns about income-averaging.

Mr Robert says the basis of the Westminster system is that ministers defend policies.

Mr Robert acknowledges that what he told Laura in that interview was information he suspected was incorrect.

"I had a massive personal misgiving, yes. But I was still a Cabinet Minister".

Oh wow, so basically Mr Robert is saying he strongly suspected the information he was giving to the public via the media was wrong, but "as a dutiful cabinet minister" he had to uphold the Govt's policies. Wowsers.

"I've got to leave room for the fact that I may well be wrong [an that] the Solicitor-General will determine the correct path. But until that time comes, I cannot just give my personal opinion, I have got to continue to uphold government policy," Mr Robert tells #RobotDebtRC

Counsel-Assisting: Do you accept that your assertion of a 99.2% effectiveness rate, based on the state of mind that you say you arrived at on the 4 July 2019 was false?

Mr Robert: I do accept that now... [but] I'd still have to defend it. That is the job I've got. #RobotDebtRC

This is pretty extraordinary. A former Minister admitting that DESPITE strongly suspecting a Govt program WAS ILLEGAL, he continued to defend it USING FALSE INFORMATION.

Sorry for caps, I'm just a bit blown away. #RobotDebtRC

Counsel-Assisting: But do you take any responsibility for what the government of which you were part of did?

Mr Robert: Absolutely, as a senior member of the government to take absolute response ability as part of cabinet solidarity for this. #RobotDebtRC

Dept official Ms Leon claimed earlier this week that she rang Mr Robert on Oct 29 to advise that the Dept will need to pause income-averaging, given the Federal Court case. Mr Robert says he does not recollect that.

He says if Ms Leon had said the program was illegal, he would have put a stop to it.

Ms Leon earlier gave evidence that Mr Robert said "advice is just advice". He disputes this.
#RobodebtRC

What we can take from this is that some MPs think their allegiance is with cabinet colleagues rather than the public they represent.

Mr Robert says his dept "sat" on legal advice regarding income-averaging for six weeks while they worked out what to do before handing it over to the then Minister. Once he obtained the advice he went immediately to the PM to get the program stopped, he says. #RobodebtRC

Mr Robert says he met with the head of the Dept the following day, saying the program needed to be paused.

Mr Robert disputes Ms Leon's claims that he rejected her suggestion of apologising to the public, instead saying the govt "will double down".
#RobodebtRC

Mr Robert is now being asked about a Press Club address he made on Nov 14 - one day after the govt officially decided to cease income-averaging to raise debts.

He defended income-averaging in a response to a question by @Paul_Karp

Mr Robert is asked if it would be "truthful" to answer that question by saying they'd ceased use of averaging. He says "it may well be truthful but I was not permitted to".

#RobodebtRC

"I knew the decision was made, but I knew I could not communicate it."

The #RobodebtRC has adjourned for 10 mins, so let's recap.
- Mr Robert suspected using income-averaging to raise debts was illegal, but claims not to have received advice from his Dept to this effect

- Despite suspecting the program is unlawful, Mr Robert "has not choice" but to defend it in public via the media, including by using "facts" that are wrong
- Even AFTER reaching a decision to pause the program due to its illegality, Mr Robert defends it at Press Club

- He says he is not allowed to give journalists a truthful account of the program because other senior cabinet ministers have not publicly announced it.

Effectively, Mr Robert is saying that ministerial responsibility for a program - an ILLEGAL program - is actually the responsibility of cabinet, and that individual ministers are hamstrung. It's pretty extraordinary stuff.

I know this is Politics 101 stuff, but our system of govt centres around ministers - who are accountable to the public through Parliament and through elections - being accountable for the actions of their depts. Now we're being told, soz, that's not the case anymore? #RobodebtRC

I'm not saying by any means that there aren't SERIOUS questions to be answered by the Dept itself. But ultimately the culture of a department is the responsibility of the minister in charge of it. "Frank and fearless advice" is the cornerstone of the Westminster system.

The TL;DR of evidence presented by nearly every single person in Govt / the Dept in #RobodebtRC boils down to this gif:

OK the RC is back. I'll resume tweeting.

Mr Robert says "vulnerable coherts" were always meant to be part of #RobodebtRC . People who have a vulnerability indicator include people who have self-harmed, DV survivors, people with chronic illness and mental ill-health.

Part of #robodebt program, my apologies, not part of the RC.

Mr Robert was given advice by the Dept that if this cohort was not included, then the savings expected would not be met. Mr Keenan as Human Services Minister had stopped the vulnerable cohort from receiving debt notices.

Mr Robert says he "was facing pressure" from Cabinet to include this cohort to achieve the savings.

It's worth noting that stats released in 2019 show that nearly 1/3 of people who died after receiving a #robodebt notice had a vulnerability tag: abc.net.au/triplej/progra…

The fact that Cabinet was pressuring this cohort to be included, YEARS into the program, when several issues had been raised about it, is mind-blowing. I'm gob-smacked TBH. #robodebtRC

Mr Robert's testimony is adjourned now until 2pm Qld time. I'll pick up then.

In case you're wondering what the hold up is - the RC is in a closed session to decide how much Mr Robert can say about internal decisions regarding expanding #Robodebt to vulnerable people. The RC can only explore matters of parli privilege if it's in the public interest.

Stuart Robert has concluded his evidence to the #RobotDebtRC, and Marise Payne is up now. Senator Payne was Human Services Minister from 2013 to 2015.