Morrison repeatedly told to answer robodebt questions directly and avoid unnecessary ‘rhetoric’

Scott Morrison has repeatedly been reminded to answer questions directly and to avoid waffling with unnecessary “rhetoric” while giving evidence to the royal commission into the robodebt scheme. 

The former prime minister appeared on Wednesday to explain his role in creating the unlawful debt recovery scheme that wrongfully claimed nearly $2 billion in payments from hundreds of thousands of people. 

In the first few hours of his evidence, Morrison frequently responded to questions with lengthy statements that sometimes veered off topic, before being told to reel it in. 

“Mr Morrison, please just listen to the question,” commissioner Catherine Holmes told him at one point.

She also told him to keep his answers shorter and stick to the issues at hand. 

“Mr Morrison, can I get you to stick to answering the question a bit more? I do understand that you come from a background where rhetoric is important, but it is necessary to listen to the question and just answer it without extra detail, unnecessary detail, if you can.”

The senior counsel assisting the commission, Justin Greggery KC, sounded exasperated at one moment, asking Morrison to “please” stop straying off topic.

“The last 10 minutes have been consumed because the simple answer ‘no’ to my question about ‘Did you ask why these things were provided to you?’ has strayed off into other areas,” he said. 

Morrison said he would make himself available for one or two more days of evidence, if necessary. 

Among the revelations in the first half of the day was that the advice around the robodebt scheme had changed by the time it reached cabinet. 

The responsible politicians had previously been told by bureaucrats legislative change might be needed to go ahead with the program, but by the time it reached cabinet that advice was no longer there.

“By the time of the submission going to cabinet, the view had changed … and advice was given that legislation was not required by the department,” Morrison said. 

That evidence filled in a gap left by another former Coalition minister, Senator Marise Payne, who gave evidence the day before.

Payne failed to recall much about how robodebt came to be created and could not explain why advice from department staffers that legal changes might be necessary was later left off the cabinet subcommittee submission.

Robodebt used annual Tax Office income data averaged over 26 fortnights to falsely claim many recipients had received too much Centrelink money and put the onus on the individuals to prove the authorities wrong.

The scheme was later found to be unlawful.