Scott Morrison 'had no reason to question' department advice over Robodebt lawfulness, royal commission hears

Mr Morrison appeared before the commission on Wednesday to answer questions about his involvement in the development of the Robodebt scheme, which resulted in more than 380,000 people being accused of debts and several taking their lives.

Mr Morrison was the social services minister, treasurer and prime minister throughout the span of the Robodebt scheme, from initial approval of the plan for Centrelink to recoup $1 billion from welfare recipients, through to the $1.2 billion settlement with the scheme's victims in 2020.

Mr Morrison said the Department of Social Services had been undertaking an "extremely resource intensive program that was going to be able to transform the department's capability to be able to manage the payment system" when he became the minister in late 2014.

"The Department of Human Services had already fashioned quite a bit of that proposal in some specificity," Mr Morrison told the commission.

The commission had already seen 2014 legal advice from Mr Morrison's then-department that legislation was needed to make the scheme's use of automated income averaging based on Australian Taxation Office data lawful.

The former prime minister said the advice from the Department of Social Services about whether legislative change would be required to make the proposal lawful had changed "by the time of the submission going to cabinet".

He said there was an "evolving understanding of both the proposal and the implications of that and what was ultimately recommended authoritatively to cabinet".

Mr Morrison was also shown an executive minute from the Department of Human Services from February 2015 which he signed and agreed to recommendations for the new policy "to strengthen the integrity of welfare payments".

Another agreed recommendation was that the Departments of Human Services and Social Services "progress consideration of additional policy and legislative changes in relation to payment integrity".

Mr Morrison said he agreed to the development of a package of new policy proposals and "further work being done".

However, Mr Morrison said he had not been provided with a package of developed policy or legislative changes, and was instead given "very explicit" advice by the Department of Social Services legislative change was not needed.

"They did come to a view in their formal advice that legislation was not required and that is what was contained in the cabinet submission that was drafted by the department," Mr Morrison said.

"That was the view of my department and that was a view that I had no reason to question."

Commissioner Catherine Holmes questioned Mr Morrison about why he was not concerned about the need for legislative change to make the scheme lawful and the change in advice from his department.

Mr Morrison said he "had great faith in the department" and "was satisfied that the department had done their job" and did not question the legality of the income averaging method.

He said it was "distressing" and "unthinkable" that internal department legal advice was not conveyed to him.

"There was nothing to suggest to me in the submission that went to cabinet that it was unlawful, and no evidence was presented about that submission that it was unlawful at that time, or at any other time until the Solicitor-General provided the minister for government services with advice in 2019."

Senior counsel assisting Justin Greggery asked Mr Morrison if he had asked Department of Human Services secretary Kathryn Campbell "to prepare a brief outlining the department's current approach to protecting the integrity of the welfare system" in December 2014.

Mr Morrison said he and Ms Campbell had "discussed generally the issue of integrity in the welfare system and I asked to see some suggestions about how we can do that better".

The former social services minister said he was focused on "cracking down" on people defrauding the Centrelink system and "overpayments to the extent of around 3.6 per cent of the annual payments", calling himself a "welfare cop".

"As social services minister, it was my job to ensure that the system was run appropriately, efficiently and there were not payments being made that were not supposed to be being made because that meant they would be lesser resources available for other important objectives of the government," Mr Morrison said.

A brief from March 2015 about the proposal was also presented, in which the Department of Finance said they did not support the new policy proposal for Robodebt.

However, Mr Morrison said the Economic Review Committee still decided to pursue the proposal.

Mr Morrison concluded his day-long evidence by conceding "had this measure required legislation, then we may well not have pursued it. In fact, it would have been unlikely that we would".

"I am obviously responsible [for the] submission to go to cabinet. I'd ask that this matter be progressed, to be worked up and it came back to me saying no legislation was required. If they'd come back and said legislation was required, then we might not be sitting here at all."

Minister for Government Services Bill Shorten called Mr Morrison's evidence "a shocking train wreck performance", saying he showed "no self-insight" and gave "a defensive lecture".

"Mr Morrison had the chance to engage in healing and accept responsibility and redeem the reputation of the Coalition government. Instead what we got was take vintage Morrison," Mr Shorten said.