The Greens have called on Labor to finally end Robodebt amid growing calls from welfare organisations to fully implement the recommendations from the 2023 Royal Commission.
Two years on from the Robodebt Royal Commission report, Labor have failed to fully implement the commissioner's recommendations, and as a result, income support recipients continue to receive cruel and potentially unlawful debt notices and payment suspensions based on automatic Robodebt-style compliance.
The Greens call follows similar calls from the Australian Council of Social Services and from Economic Justice Australia, and comes ahead of an expected report from the Commonwealth Ombudsman into the so-called Targeted Compliance Framework.
Recommendations from the Royal Commission which the government have failed to implement include a statute of limitations on the recovery of old debts, establishing a duty of care for the Department, and automatically protecting people experiencing hardship from receiving compliance notices.
As stated by Greens spokesperson for Social Services, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:
"Robodebt lives on today. It's been two years since the Royal Commission and still Labor have refused to act on the commission's recommendations to protect income recipients."
"Labor continues to aggressively target income support recipients using questionable and potentially unlawful automated debt collection practices that can see people lose access to income support payments that are already below the poverty line."
"We know people are still being flogged with ridiculous debt notices for supposed issues dating back to the 1970s, and the government still has no protections in place to prevent individuals already experiencing severe hardship from being further punished."
"Fully implementing these recommendations is the least that Labor could do to correct this cruel system which treats welfare recipients as suspects."
"The Greens are calling on Labor to implement the Robodebt Royal Commission's recommendations in full now, and we'll continue to fight to restore the Commonwealth Employment Service and bring an end to the punitive mutual obligations system."
