Robodebt commissioner blasts top lawyer as ‘oblivious’

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The royal commissioner examining the unlawful robodebt scheme has blasted a top government department lawyer on her involvement in the program.

In her second day of questioning at the royal commission, former chief counsel for the Department of Human Services Annette Musolino was asked how the robodebt scheme was allowed to continue, despite advice the scheme was not legal.

The Centrelink debt recovery scheme used annual tax office data to calculate fortnightly earnings and automatically issue welfare debt notices.

The controversial program recovered more than $750 million from over 380,000 people and led to several people taking their own lives while being pursued for false debts.

During questioning, royal commissioner Catherine Holmes took aim at the lack of response by the department and Ms Musolino following tribunal decisions on the legality of the scheme.

“You were chief counsel, you were supposed to keep an eye on this, weren’t you? You seem to have been oblivious to what was going on in the (Administrative Appeals Tribunal),” the commissioner said.

“It seems to me you let this system run, getting decisions from the AAT that told you there was a fundamental problem with its legality.”

However, Ms Musolino said the department had operated in the framework that had been laid out by government departments in charge of the scheme.

“Each and every one of those decisions was looked at by a lawyer, reviewed and a recommendation was made. I couldn’t do the work of every lawyer in the division,” Ms Musolino told the commission.

“But I was confident that there were systems in place.”

The former chief counsel said the department had “tight timeframes” to respond to AAT decisions on the robodebt scheme.

“We were following the operational statements that we had from the Department of Social Services. They basically required that we consider an appeal or we implement (the findings).”

The commission will later on Tuesday examine the response from media advisers in ministerial offices once significant concerns with robodebt emerged.

Rachelle Miller, the former adviser to then human services minister Alan Tudge will be among the key witnesses at the commission, as well as Bevan Hannan, the former acting manager of media engagement within the Department of Human Services.

Mr Tudge, along with former social services minister Christian Porter, will appear at the commission later in the week.

– AAP