The Royal Commission into the Robodebt scheme has come under fire as a senior public servant denied manipulating the truth about the legality of the program. Catherine Halbert, a former Department of Social Services official, appeared before the Brisbane-based hearing of the commission on Friday and was questioned about the legality of the scheme.
Robodebt is a controversial Australian government program introduced in 2016, which aimed to recover government overpayments made to welfare recipients. It used an automated system to compare income reported to the government against income reported to the Australian Tax Office, and raise debts if there were discrepancies.
Halbert, who was the chief operating officer of the department at the time, was asked whether she had misled or manipulated the truth about the program being unlawful. Halbert denied the claims and said the department had always been aware of the risks posed by the scheme.
Ms Halbert was involved in the drafting of the proposal for the Centrelink compliance scheme, which was later known as robodebt, and had a short stint as the acting secretary of DSS.
She endured numerous interrogations regarding the department’s transition from its original stance that using automated income averaging to calculate welfare recipients’ debt would be illegal without legislative alteration.
When the Ombudsman asked to see the department’s legal advice on the robodebt scheme from 2015, the royal commission heard on Friday that Ms Halbert had drafted a letter to them in 2017.
