How the sealed robodebt report chapter unwittingly assists the Coalition

It’s easy these days to forget the member for Cook is, in fact, the member for Cook, such is his determination to travel the world expounding the sanctity of war and democracy. 

Nevertheless, there’s a slippery rumour afoot that the nation’s foremost liar has his eyes trained on something extraordinarily ordinary — at least by his usual solipsistic standards — and that is to grace Parliament with his exalted presence next month. But as ever, and true to form, it would seem Scott Morrison’s purpose is not so much to advance the interests of his constituents but rather his own. 

Undaunted by the usual feelings one would expect unbounded public disgrace to unleash — humiliation, shrinking self-worth, even contrition — this crashing failure of a prime minister has conversely found himself wounded by the robodebt royal commission. Indeed, so wounded, and so consumed by torrents of self-pity and righteous fury at its findings against him, that he is reportedly contemplating addressing the House of Representatives on the commission’s error when he returns.  

Little is known about the likely contents of the speech, except that it will bear some similarities to the infamous rejoinder Morrison delivered in answer to Parliament’s historic censure of him over the unhinged secret ministries scandal. 

This, it would seem, is a polite way of saying he will do as he always does when the walls of truth bear down upon him, and that is lie and dissemble, leaving history to note the speech as yet another tawdry monument to his unparalleled self-interest, venality and unfitness for office. 

But none of this matters to the man. The short-term aims of this burgeoning mission of deceit would be to undermine, discredit and cast doubt on the inconvenient truths arrived at by the royal commission. His hope is that this in turn will lend him the latitude he requires to rewrite the history of robodebt, and to therefore elude anything remotely approaching personal political accountability as it is conventionally understood.   

This is why no one should be surprised if Morrison uses the opportunity to gaslight the nation about what’s real and what’s not, drawing on the void or vanishing maws of what passes for his conscience. 

And why everyone, not least the many thousands of people who fell victim to the unlawful and immoral scheme, should brace themselves for a tale about a good man with good intentions: a self-described “welfare cop” and protector of taxpayers’ interests, who fairly instigated a “crackdown” on rampant welfare fraud, and who as prime minister heroically presided over the end of the unlawful though well-intentioned scheme (brought undone by the incompetence of public servants), only to be felled by the revenge antics of his political enemies.  

In all this, he will find support in the shameless guile of Peter Dutton, who has long since hit the warpath brandishing the sanctity of the presumption of innocence and due process as reasons not to follow parliamentary convention and pressure Morrison’s resignation. 

It’s well-known that Morrison has always revelled in his sly contempt for norms and integrity in politics. But that doesn’t detract from the reality that some lies, more than others, carry a greater capacity to undermine public faith in democracy and public institutions.  

And this is one such context. There’s a distinct danger that this void of political accountability on the part of Morrison, coupled with the secrecy surrounding all civil and criminal referrals by the royal commission, will give way to an indelible impression of no accountability at all in the public’s collective conscious.   

A situation, in other words, where upholding the rule of law seems unfulfilled, and the accountability promised by the royal commission seems unmet, even partially thwarted. This is particularly undesirable given the scale and historic consequence of the robodebt scandal. And not least because of the public’s special interest in accountability, which ironically owes its existence to the former government’s appalling legacy.   

It’s in this way that the royal commission’s decision to seal the chapter on civil and criminal referrals can, and probably will, inadvertently assist the Coalition in its counterinsurgency against the truth about robodebt. 

As former New South Wales Supreme Court justice Anthony Whealy pointed out on Thursday, it would be possible to release the names of those directly implicated without prejudicing any potential proceedings by simply adding a caveat that no finding of guilt has been arrived at.

This at least would guard against an impression that those who presided over the most shameful public policy failures in living memory aren’t escaping the long arm of justice. It would also have the added benefit of removing the pall cast against those who aren’t named in the sealed chapter but who are nonetheless suspected of being so. 

This isn’t to say the reason for sealing the chapter on civil and criminal referrals was misplaced. Only that it seemed to wrongly proceed on the assumption that basic conventions of democracy — such as resignation in the face of scandal, or a public apology — would prevail.  

Neither of these are likely when it comes to Morrison. After all, he’s a man no more honest and no less unwilling to take responsibility than he ever was. 

Did the royal commission make a mistake sealing the chapter on civil and criminal referrals? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.