CANBERRA (AAP) Dr. Majid Khan -The former official became emotional after learning that important documents that would help bring the Robodet program to an end were withheld from her investigation.
The Royal Commission on Illegal Schemes seeks to understand the role of the Federal Ombudsman, and while its 2017 report identified a number of shortcomings, it does not simply outlaw Robodebt’s “income average” debt calculation process.
Former deputy ombudsman Louise MacLeod said her team had concerns about using averages during personnel surveys.
However, she was unable to persuade her manager, Deputy Ombudsman Richard Glenn, to include these concerns in the final report.
She was shown several never-before-seen documents, including her 2014 email pointing out legal issues with income equalization. MacLeod said the ombudsman would have publicly called for the system to be abolished had legal advice been provided to her office.
She was also presented with documents showing that income equalization was not used as a “last resort” to collect debts, as the department claims.
Instead, an internal email, undisclosed to the ombudsman, showed that her 76% of debt was based on average personal income.
Mr. McCloud became emotional.
She added that she “feels like a failure” for not being able to convince her boss that there was a problem with her program. More than $750 million from 380,000 people were illegally confiscated through the program, and automated debt reporting has been blamed for several suicides.
The Commission had previously heard that all departments under investigation by regulators were expected to provide relevant information and that it would be a crime not to provide it.
The Ombudsman’s report was widely used by the former coalition government to advocate for the continuation of the program.
MacLeod later said the report should have been more direct about limiting robo-debt.
She said former Secretary of State Alan Tadge singled out aspects of the report to defend the program in media releases. The regulatory investigation was sparked by a dramatic spike in complaints from people who received Centrelink’s debt assessment notices.
McLeod said Social Security complaints accounted for two-thirds of his overall complaints, but he nearly doubled from October 2016 to December 2016 since the scheme went into effect.
“An increase in complaints is always a red flag for the ombudsman’s office,” she said.
Former ombudsman Michael Manthorpe, who took the role after the 2017 investigation closed, said HR was staunchly resisting suggestions that the system was illegal.
“All Department of Human Services officials expressed a high level of confidence in the legitimacy of the program,” he told the committee. But Manthorpe had his doubts and asked for follow-up in 2019.
This was also dismissed by the ministry for comments on the legality of the system pending a court challenge.
By that time, however, the ministry had already received a draft opinion from an Australian government lawyer stating that averaging was illegal.
Mr Manthorpe told the commission he was unaware the agency had such advice.
“I wish we could have seen more open and transparent engagement on some of these issues,” he said.
