‘Flawed assumptions’ underpinned department’s robo-debt decisions, commission hears

Bundy replied: “In hindsight … it was a flawed assumption.”

The public servant was quizzed on her department’s decision not to appeal any Administrative Appeals Tribunal rulings that wiped robo-debts on the basis the notices lacked supporting evidence.

She agreed the department would have had to appeal those decisions if it disagreed.

The commission was shown an email sent by one of Bundy’s colleagues, which said they would be concerned if Human Services did not appeal a “zero-debt” decision.

“If they don’t it will open up Pandora’s box,” the colleague said.

Terry Carney, who worked at the administrative tribunal for almost 40 years, repeatedly ruled the robo-debts could not be legally enforced.

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He found it was not the responsibility of welfare recipients to provide pay-slip data or risk being hit with a debt.

He found the practice of averaging income lacked “sufficient strength of evidence” and “simple mathematics”.

“From the very early stages, I read the budget papers and saw what was proposed – all sorts of alarm bells went off in my mind,” Carney said.

“The legal foundation was completely missing.”

Carney said it was common throughout his lengthy tenure that the Department of Human Services rapidly appealed decisions where a major government policy was at stake.

But the department never appealed any ruling that found a robo-debt was not legally enforceable.

The robo-debt program was eventually abolished in 2019.