Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme 110-22081650

The Royal Commission was established on 18 August 2022 and inquired into the debt assessment and recovery scheme commonly known as Robodebt. It was an independent inquiry supported by its own staff and was not managed by Services Australia.

On Friday 7 July 2023, the Royal Commission delivered a final report with its findings to the Governor General.

On 13 November 2023, the Australian Government published its response to the Royal Commission report. See the Resources page for a link to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s website for the full response.

The Government has accepted or accepted in principle all 56 recommendations made by the Royal Commission.

Services Australia will implement the recommendations specific to the agency and adopt those that apply to the broader Australian Public Service.

Robodebt is a commonly used term to refer to the operation of the Income Compliance Program, a debt assessment and recovery scheme. The program began operating as a pilot in early 2015. It progressed through various iterations under different names until late 2019, including:

• PAYG Manual Intervention Process
• Online Compliance Intervention (OCI)
• Employment Income Confirmation (EIC)
• Check and Update Past Income (CUPI).

Under the Income Compliance Program, the agency calculated some debts using averaged Australian Taxation Office (ATO) income information.

When there were unexplained differences between a recipient’s reported income and the ATO’s data, the agency used averaging to calculate those debts.

See Income Compliance Program for more information.

A Royal Commission is an investigation into a matter of public importance. It is independent of the government.

Each Royal Commission has broad powers to:

• gather information and documents
• compel witnesses to give evidence
• hold public hearings.

The Royal Commission determines who will be called as a witness, based on how their knowledge or expertise can help inform the inquiry.

See the Resources page for the Royal Commission’s website.