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Tudge tells robodebt inquiry of meeting with Turnbull in early 2017

Alan Tudge has revealed details of a key meeting he held with the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull at the initial height of the robodebt scandal in early 2017.

The former human services minister told a royal commission on Wednesday he’d kept Turnbull informed about problems with the scheme after the former PM sent him a news article that raised the prospect the scheme was unlawful.

Senior counsel assisting the commissioner, Justin Greggery KC, asked Tudge if he presented a “rosy picture” of the scheme, which had exploded in public controversy, in the short meeting with Turnbull. Others present included then social services minister Christian Porter and then secretary of the human services department Kathryn Campbell.

Tudge confirmed he didn’t provide Turnbull with any briefing on the legality of the scheme, an issue he said had not crossed his mind until years after he left the portfolio. He said Turnbull was presented with “materials” that “outlined some of the issues and what we’d done”.

I don’t think we went through in detail how the overall system works. My recollection is we very much went into what went wrong with the implementation…. It was, ‘What went wrong. OK, I get that. Now you appear to have got many of the things fixed, here’s what you should be doing in the future. You should have more testing.

Tudge added:

I recall him suggesting that the [digital transformation office] needs to be more engaged. He may also have suggested that [Data 61] be commissioned to help with identifying the highest likelihood of [identifying debts].

Tudge said he was only relying of his memory of the meeting, which occurred many years ago. He said Turnbull had been “guiding the questions” and said there needed to be more “testing”.

Greggery said it appeared that Tudge had been providing a “level of assurance” that the scheme was working well.

Tudge, who was not in cabinet, said he would have told Turnbull that the issues with the scheme were “under control”.

He has repeatedly said that only Porter and Turnbull had the authority to stop the robodebt scheme because it was authorised by cabinet.

Turnbull has not been called to appear at the royal commission.

The inquiry, before commissioner Catherine Holmes, continues.