Canberra [Australia], August 26: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has established an inquiry into an unlawful debt recovery scheme.
Albanese on Thursday unveiled the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into Robodebt.
The Robodebt program was launched by the former Coalition government in 2015 to work out whether people had been overpaid by the welfare system.
The system unlawfully issued debt notices to 433,000 people, wrongfully recovering 751 million Australian dollars (about 520.4 million U.S. dollars).
In June 2021, the Federal Court ordered a 1.8 billion Australian dollars (1.2 billion U.S. dollars) settlement for people who were wrongly pursued for debt payments.
Albanese promised in the lead-up to May's election that his Labor Party would establish a royal commission into the scheme.
"The Royal Commission will examine the establishment of the scheme, who was responsible for it and why it was necessary ... how the scheme affected individuals and the financial costs to government, and measures to prevent this ever happening again," he told reporters.
"People lost their lives. Every single one of my local constituents, and every Member of Parliament can tell stories like this," he said.
According to data released by the Department of Human Services in 2019, more than 2,000 people died after receiving a Robodebt notice between July 2016 and October 2018 -- approximately 20 percent of whom were younger than 35.
Amanda Rishworth, the Minister for Social Services, said the inquiry needed to examine why the former government did not act on complaints.
"The Robodebt fiasco was something that should be of deep concern to all Australians," she said on Thursday.
"We know, as late back as 2016, there were members of the public flagging concerns that these debts weren't right, that there were problems with it, and we saw the government take no action whatsoever," she said.
The commission will hand in its final report by April 2023.
Source: Xinhua
