Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme

But then he said that his department would actually have a role to play in deciding whether they cover the bills.

And, you know, we've seen in previous royal commissions millions of dollars be spent on former MPs' bills, including the RoboDebt Royal Commission, where...

Former Liberal MPs were called.

So, you know, we could be funding a whole heap of legal bills down here, and royal commissions are often a lawyer's picnic.

So th- uh, getting a much better operating process, lines of accountability, understandings about who's responsible for what is a, a critical lesson.

Welcome to The Westminster Tradition, where we are unpacking lessons for the public service, starting with the Robodebt Royal Commission.

My name is Alison Lloyd Wright, a South Australian public servant.

I'm on Kaurna land, and joining me today are two recovering public servants, Caroline Croser-Barlow.

But it does go to show that the focus of IBAC as the primary integrity body in Victoria is shifting or is directed more towards police misconduct.

But if we're talking about administrative law in Australia, then no podcast about that subject will be complete without reference to the Robodebt Royal Commission.

I don't think I need to explain what that was, but just in essence, that was the case where Centrelink essentially used a computer program, an algorithm to evaluate or to estimate the amount of debt that people on Centrelink needed to repay.

It was a bit of a disaster.

This is a me- a question for the Attorney General.

It's now been more than three years since the Robodebt Royal Commission recommended legislated guardrails around automation in government, but Australians are still waiting.

Automating critical decisions in aged care and the NDIS without consistent transparency or safeguards means Robodebt 2.0 might not be so far away.

When will you legislate a framework for automated decision-making that includes safeguards, human override, and transparency, like the bill I introduced this week?

Thorough and appropriate consultation is what is necessary to ensure that reform can actually be implemented, but also that we strengthen how services are delivered.

In order to best coordinate this reform across government, a dedicated task force has been established within my department to deliver this important work, and I can assure the member it is working at pace.

The Albanese government's approach is focused on delivery and the future, enabling Australians to adopt new technologies responsibly, deliver higher quality services more efficiently, and prevent the systemic failures identified in the Robodebt Royal Commission.

I know the honorable member will appreciate that this is a whole-of-government endeavor.

But certainly in the disability space and in the aged care space, there's increasing concern about its use.

And this goes back to the Robodebt scandal and the Robodebt Royal Commission, which recommended that there be a mandatory set of rules that apply whenever government is using an automated system to make decisions.

What do we know about the scale of problems? Well, the scale is huge, but also the impact on individuals is huge.

Robodebt involved 400,000 people.

The current system, under which secretaries are appointed for five-year terms at the Prime Minister's discretion, was diminishing integrity at the top of the public service, Professor Podger told the Canberra Times.

He said tenure was a contributor to failures at the top of the public service, exposed by the Robodebt Royal Commission and Virginia Bell's inquiry into former Prime Minister Scott Morrison's appointment to multiple ministries.

With many secretaries, most of whom are paid more than $900,000 a year, recruited from within the public service, he said private sector salaries like those of top executives in ASX top 100 ranked companies were not the appropriate comparator.

Professor Podger said his experience served as an example of how many senior public servants moved through the APS.

No.

Welcome to the Westminster Tradition, where we are unpacking lessons for the public service, starting with the RoboDebt Royal Commission.

My name is Danielle Elston of Good Government Advisory, and joining me today on Ngunjerri land are my two fellow recovering public servants, Caroline Crozabalo.

Hello, Danielle.

Unprecedented powers being handed to the National Disability Insurance Agency and the government, to the minister.

And I just don't think as a society, given what we're seeing with the issues of the use of algorithms, say in aged care, what happened in the Robodebt Royal Commission, and they had really clear recommendations that haven't yet been implemented.

I can't hand on heart vote for a bill that has those sorts of powers.

So I ended up voting against the gambling bill because it's nowhere near good enough and voting against the NDIS bill because some really good stuff, but then some really problematic things that make it hard to support.

They've never seen this sort of level of freedom for a, for a government, for, uh, the NDIA to make these decisions.

And I just think given where we're at with, um, AI and algorithms, the use of automated decision-making, and the Robodebt Royal Commission's recommendations around this not yet being implemented, I can't hand on heart say that, yes, this is something that we should be giving the government powers on.

The Robodebt Royal Commission obviously looked at this and just what can go wrong when this is implemented at scale without checks and balances, and they said we need an overarching act in Parliament that actually governs the use of algorithms, automated decision-making, and then we need this expert group or panel that can then interrogate algorithms.

One of the things, come back to aged care, one of the things that we're, we're having a fight with the minister as the, the, the Senate and, you know, people on the committee that are looking into this, is we keep saying to them, "Well, you need to actually show people how the algorithm's working." And they say, "Well, we can't do that because then people could game the system." And that's exactly why the Robodebt Royal Commission said you need an expert panel that can look at it and say, "Hang on, you've got that wrong.

You've got that wrong." And, you know, I think people's experience of social media doesn't give people a lot of trust in algorithms, uh, particularly when there's just no scrutiny.

It's this black box that we're not allowed to look into.