I rise to speak on the Public Service Amendment Bill, an important bill which goes to the legislative core and commitment of the Albanese Labor government's Australian Public Service reform agenda. This is a reform agenda that seeks to rebuild the Australian Public Service, to restore integrity and transparency, and to ensure the principle of that renowned term 'frank and fearless advice'. Its purpose is to address the undermining of the Public Service during the 10 years of the coalition government—10 years in which those opposite actively diminished the role of the Public Service. Instead of preferring a dynamic public service, they depended on private profiteers through an excessive reliance on contractors and consultants through a policy of outsourcing right across the Public Service, thus outsourcing their responsibility to govern.

We have seen recently what happens when we outsource government policy and decision-making advice and analysis to contractors and consultants. It generally gets leaked to the media, and it's influenced and exploited in a secretive way, driven by one sole purpose: to appeal to the highest bidder at the expense of Australian taxpayers and at the expense of our national economy. It is done at the expense of reform and progress designed to benefit the Australian people and the safety nets that Australians rely on across all stages of their life.

There's a real difference between us on this side of the House and those opposite. Their standard operating procedure is to deal and govern in secrecy deliberately and on account of their incompetence, which they sought to hide from the Australian people. Ours is one of trust and accountability, and this bill is a clear reflection of this, because most of its amendments are recommendations of the 2019 Independent Review of the Australian Public Service and go to its intent. It's a reflection of this trust and accountability because the proposed changes have also been informed by a broad and transparent consultation with employees, representative groups, agencies, experts, the public and other interested parties, including the Community and Public Sector Union, the CPSU. State based public service commissions also support this bill, and they noted connections with their own reform agenda. We also saw public sector research bodies being largely supportive of the bill for continuing implementation of the review. It's a reflection of this government's commitment to restoring the Australian public's trust in our institutions and agencies, as this bill will strengthen the APS's core purpose and values, which are to build the capability and expertise of the APS and support good governance, accountability and transparency.

The people in my electorate of Calwell understand the importance of a trusted and properly functioning public sector, and in recent times they have felt this all too clearly through policies presided over by those opposite. My community knows what it's like and has seen what happens when the Public Service doesn't function correctly, openly and transparently, when there isn't good governance and when there is no accountability. What could be more damning of this reality than the so-called Income Compliance Program, what is now known as robodebt? This program was more than mere incompetence, although that would be damning enough. Robodebt was a disaster driven by a contempt for the Australian people, a contempt for the role and function of our public sector and a contempt for our most vulnerable citizens. In a remarkable and extreme display of audacity, the Leader of the Opposition called the royal commission 'nothing more than a political witch hunt', not robodebt itself a witch hunt against the most vulnerable. The opposition leader has stated that the independent inquiry into robodebt itself is the witch hunt, one in which Justice Murphy, the judge presiding over the case, approved the largest class action settlement in Australian history. He described the scheme as a 'shameful chapter' and a 'massive failure in public administration'. It was a shameful chapter which saw $1.8 billion of debt unlawfully raised against approximately 435,000 vulnerable Australians.

Under the scheme, some Centrelink debts were calculated using averaged Australian Taxation Office income information. Averaging was applied where discrepancies between income that recipients had reported to Services Australia and income data from the ATO were not explained. In November 2019 Services Australia stopped the use of averaging Australian Taxation Office income data as the sole basis for raising debts. On that day, ministers and senior public servants were going to have to give evidence in the trial of the class action. The Commonwealth was finally admitting it had no legal basis on which to raise the debts.

The royal commission into robodebt was an election commitment of the Albanese government. It was a commitment to introduce justice to a process stained by cruelty as government policy by those opposite. What we saw in those 46 days of public hearings and what we heard from more than 100 witnesses was equally heartbreaking and enraging. What we witnessed was stories of people who relied on the safety net being hounded by their government with no means of fighting back. That is counter to what we, as Australians, subscribe to as part of our belief in a fair and egalitarian society.

I also note the role of the former coalition cabinet in ticking off on major decisions in relation to the scheme, the cabinet of which the current Leader of the Opposition was a member. Between July of 2015, when what became robodebt was ticked off by cabinet, and November of 2019, when it was finally paused, approximately 435,000 Australians who relied on the social safety net were targeted by their own government in a cruel and unlawful scheme. The royal commission has gone some way to bringing a voice, visibility and justice to those who were hounded by their own government for 4½ years.

I spoke earlier about the real difference between this side of the House and those opposite, which is why I want to draw the attention of the House to the words directly from the royal commission's final report. I quote:

There are different mindsets one can adopt in relation to social welfare policy. One is to recognise that many citizens will at different times in their lives need income support—on a temporary basis for some as they study or look for work; longer-term for others, for reasons of age, disadvantage or disability—and to provide that support willingly, adequately and with respect. An alternative approach is to regard those in receipt of social security benefits as a drag on the national economy, an entry on the debit side of the Budget to be reduced by any means available: by casting recipients as a burden on the taxpayer, by making onerous requirements of those who are claiming or have claimed benefit, by minimising the availability of assistance from departmental staff, by clawing back benefits whether justly or not, and by generally making the condition of the social security recipient unpleasant and undesirable. The Robodebt scheme exemplifies the latter.

Those opposite weaponised the agencies of government against our most vulnerable in a way that was neither fair nor legal. And there was a deliberate attempt at a cover-up, with revelations of dishonesty and collusion, to hide the fact that there was no legal foundation to the scheme. The words 'illegal' and 'cruel' are a damning indictment of the role those opposite played in this devastating affair that was 'varied, extensive, devastating and continuing'. How relentless and how ruthless and how cruel. I could use more words to describe it, but I think the report speaks for itself. It is worth repeating those words here today, because of this awful deadly saga—and I use the word purposely—and I quote:

Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals. In essence, people were traumatised on the off-chance they might owe money. It was a costly failure of public administration, in both human and economic terms.

And I further quote:

The ill effects of the scheme were varied, extensive, devastating and continuing …

The report went on to say:

The impacts of (Robodebt) on the people embroiled in it were vividly illustrated in the evidence before the Commission from the witnesses who spoke of the distress and damage they had suffered and, of course, the evidence of the mothers of the two young men who took their own lives, at least in part because of it …

Again, I quote Commissioner Holmes:

I am confident that the commission has served the purpose of bringing into the open an extraordinary saga, illustrating a myriad of ways that things can go wrong through venality, incompetence and cowardice," commissioner Catherine Holmes wrote in the report released Friday.

I want to say 'deadly' cowardice in this case. A real mark of shame is that those opposite, those responsible for this scheme, have taken no responsibility, no accountability—no justice. It's remarkable how little interest has been shown in the legality of their scheme.

Ours is a government committed to justice. We are committed to restoring trust in government, especially for those who rely most on government. Australians from all walks of life should know that government in Australia is there to deliver a social safety net and that government will now take time to consider the 57 recommendations in the final report of the royal commission, an independent process that has been overseen by Commissioner Holmes. The evidence that was given throughout the commission was incredibly disturbing, especially with regard to the former Liberal ministers that implemented and oversaw the scheme over 4½ years.

This bill would introduce amendments requiring all agency heads to uphold and promote the new APS purpose statement in addition to the APS values and principles to strengthen the Australian Public Service's core purpose and values. Importantly, it would clarify and strengthen the provisions in the act to make it clear that ministers cannot direct agency heads on individual APS staffing decisions. This will reaffirm the APS's apolitical nature. This bill also supports good governance, accountability and transparency. The bill will introduce amendments to require agency heads to implement measures to enable decisions to be made by employees at the lowest appropriate classification for those decisions. This will ensure decision-making is not raised to a higher level than is necessary, reducing unnecessary hierarchy and empowering Australian Public Service employees. That's the basis for the frank and fearless advice that we need and that the Australian public demand and deserve from our agencies.

As members of parliament, we have constituents who come to us for help in navigating what can often be complex service delivery processes relating to government agencies. When we assist, our offices assume that government agencies are acting in good faith in trying to get the best outcome in delivering to our constituents their rights. What the robodebt scheme did served to attack the public's trust in the integrity of our government agencies. Here is the real witch-hunt, if every there were one, in the public sector—a witch-hunt against people accessing a system designed to address the social safety net that this country's social fabric is reliant on. That is why I find it astonishing that the Leader of the Opposition speaks of witch-hunts—not against the victims of the scheme, but crying poor for those responsible for its design and implementation.

Recent estimates relating to unemployment data have shown my electorate to have among the highest rates of unemployment across all Australia. As economic headwinds change, access to entitlements and services is a right afforded to every single one of my constituents that meet the basic requirements. That's the value of residency and citizenship, the value of being an Australian and the value of a social safety net designed to benefit those accessing it as well as those contributing to it.

Those who broke the law through robodebt, cheated Australians and drove down our public institutions and the trust in and integrity of our Public Service were not those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Some we know of, but there are many whose scars and trauma we may never know of. Those who carried the burden were victims of those who, without shame, continue to this day to defend the circumstances behind this tragic and shameful chapter. That's why we need to restore trust in public administration and a serious and structural reform agenda that will restore integrity to the Australian Public Service. I commend this bill to the House.