Royal commission hears Paul Menzies-McVey was awaiting ‘definitive advice’ from the solicitor general on robodebt’s legality
A top departmental lawyer has told a royal commission he didn’t turn his mind to the consequences for welfare recipients of continuing the robodebt scheme while awaiting further legal advice, despite what he conceded was “undesirable uncertainty” about its legality throughout 2019.
The commission is investigating why and how the unlawful Centrelink debt recovery scheme was established in 2015 and ran until November 2019, ending in a $1.8bn settlement with hundreds of thousands of victims.
It has already heard the responsible departments had received internal advice in 2014 that the then proposed program would be unlawful, as well further warnings in August 2018 and March 2019 from a top external firm and the Australian government solicitor respectively.
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The inquiry heard that by the middle of 2019, Menzies-McVey was aware of three legal opinions that suggested the scheme was unlawful.
Greggery said the failure to stop the scheme while they sought the solicitor general’s opinion had “very significant consequences” for welfare recipients and Menzies-McVey must have “appreciated that”.
“I’m not sure my mind turned to that,” Menzies-McVey replied.
Background here.
