Legislation Changes for Senior Public Servants to Face Accountability for Robodebt

The Albanese government is scrambling to change the law so that someone is held accountable for the Robodebt scheme ran between 2015 and 2019. The scheme saw the government unlawfully raise $1.76 billion (US$1.17 billion) in debts against 443,000 people. Several suicides were attributed to the stress caused by the receipt of demands to pay. When Robodebt Royal Commission handed down its report in July last year, it made adverse findings against several senior public servants, including former Department of Human Services secretaries Kathryn Campbell and Renée Leon. It also referred six unnamed individuals to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). Five of those people had also been referred to the Australian Public Service (APS) Commission....