Member for Menzies,Keith WolahanAlex Ellinghausen
In a speech in parliament on Tuesday,the delivered the strongest repudiation of the robo-debt disgrace by a Coalition figure to date,sharing his frank views on the controversial scheme that helped drive three people to suicide and damaged the lives of thousands more.
It was a speech rare in both its honesty and its intellectual framing. On the former,Wolahan told MPs:“There are times when we have to acknowledge when things were wrong on our side and there are lessons to be learnt. There are a few reasons for that. One is that it’s not honest to do otherwise. Opposition is a time to reflect on how you can do better if your party is given the honour of being in government again. People won’t listen to you when you actually have valid criticisms if you don’t look within.”
On the latter,the former barrister and special forces captain said robo-debt had offended principles the Liberal Party should hold dear:“As someone who’s a Liberal and believes in the sanctity of the individual,due process and the presumption of innocence,it offended all of those,” Wolahan said. “It was illiberal,it reversed the onus and it hurt people. And it hurt people on a large scale. We now know – I didn’t know at the time – that close to 500,000 people were affected. The scale of that did warrant a royal commission.”
Compare Wolahan’s remarks to the pattern of denial and obfuscation from senior opposition figures in the five weeks since commissioner Catherine Holmes handed down her damning findings on July 7.
Former prime minister Scott Morrison has rejected three of the key findings against him – that he allowed cabinet to be misled,that he provided untrue evidence to the commission and that he pressured departmental officials over the scheme – as wrong,declaring Labor guilty of a “campaign of political lynching”. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has at least acknowledged mistakes were made but he has stopped well short of offering any sort of apology on behalf of the Coalition. Many Liberal frontbenchers know the scheme was a disaster but are too gutless to say so publicly.
Last week,the Coalition opposed a motion calling for parliament to accept the royal commission findings,to express its “deep regret” to victims,to apologise to them and frontline Centrelink staff,and to commit to ensuring this cruel,unlawful chapter in political history never be repeated.
The manager of opposition business,Paul Fletcher,did say during the debate that the opposition expressed “regret” over what had happened and that he was sorry to those who had received an unlawful debt notice. But he then went on to offer a series of excuses,and the Coalition voted against the motion. Fletcher at least said “sorry”,but the word should have been uttered by Dutton in his role as opposition leader.
TheHerald believes Government Services Minister Bill Shorten got it right when he told parliament that robo-debt’s demise and the subsequent royal commission were not enough. “What we have is a Coalition and opposition who haven’t learned the first lesson of losing an election — you’ve got to show some contrition to the voters,” he rightly observed. “Not on everything;you don’t have to abandon your legacy. But sometimes,when a nation changes government,the party that was in government and is now in opposition needs to reflect on ways that they can demonstrate they hear some of the lessons.”
TheHerald agrees. The Coalition’s unwillingness to own up to its history suggests it has learnt nothing from this grave affair and that it risks making the same mistakes should it ever be handed the reins of government again. It is a chilling thought.
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