Department withheld key documents from watchdog that flagged potential illegality of robodebt
A former investigator from the commonwealth ombudsman’s office broke down as she told a royal commission she feels like a “failure” because she could not convince her superiors to publish her legal criticisms of the robodebt scheme.
The lead investigator, the former senior assistant ombudsman Louise Macleod, became emotional on the stand when she was shown internal Department of Human Services emails showing a huge proportion of debts being raised under the program used “income averaging” – now known to be unlawful.The data was among several crucial pieces of information Macleod said were not provided to the ombudsman during the course of its investigation.
The passages, shown to the commission, included direct criticisms of the inaccuracy of income averaging and a suggestion the legality of the method was uncertain and best determined by the courts.
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