Tudge’s office used News Corp to ‘shut down’ robodebt media crisis, royal commission hears

The media strategy saw Alan Tudge’s media adviser plant stories with sympathetic ‘right-wing’ outlets and release personal details of victims.

Rachelle Miller (Image: AAP/Supplied)

Alan Tudge’s former media adviser Rachelle Miller told a royal commission that she placed stories with “friendly”, “right-wing” media outlets to counter critical media coverage of the robodebt scheme, before releasing the personal details of victims.

Miller told the commission in a statement on Tuesday that by early 2017, negative coverage of the robodebt scandal had cascaded into a “media crisis”, which Tudge gave “firm” instructions to “shut down”. 

The royal commission, which was established in August last year, is investigating how the illegal robodebt scheme was established in 2015 and was allowed to run until November 2019, before ending with a $1.8 billion settlement with nearly 400,000 known victims. 

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