The Senate Community Affairs References Committee has tabled its fourth interim report into the Government's robodebt scheme.
"The Committee does not accept the Government's ongoing claim of public interest immunity in regards to the legal advice on the illegal robodebt scheme", Senator Rachel Siewert said.
It is very clearly in the public interest for the Government to release this legal advice and Government Ministers are simply avoiding accountability by hiding behind this claim.
The court case is over. There is no longer an excuse to hide this information.
People in the community want justice, people lost their lives and many more were ruined because of this illegal program and they deserve to know who knew what and when.
The information the Committee is seeking is vital to the conduct of this inquiry as it goes to the legal foundation of the Income Compliance Program and its administration and the Minister has shown a blatant disregard for the Senate as well as the Committee process.
The Senate supported the Committee's resolution for a number of documents related to legal advice be laid on the table by August 25th 2021.
The Committee will continue to pursue this matter with hearings scheduled for later this month.
The report can be found here.
