An emotional Scott Morrison has responded to the findings of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, saying that he is ready to apportion blame for the disastrous policy and that it was his wife’s idea to illegally pursue thousands of Australians for debts they didn’t owe.
“It’s time to take responsibility,” Morrison said today. “And Jenny is now willing to do that.
“It was her idea to set up the scheme. It was her idea to wrongfully issue 470,000 debts. I expressed my concerns at the time, but I would never want to tell a woman what to do – that’s not my style. If it was my decision, I would never have gone through with it. But I was only in charge of Australia’s entire social services department at the time, so there wasn’t a lot I could do to stop it”.
Putting on his special emotional voice for the benefit of those watching, the former PM said the scheme had taken a huge toll on him. “Sure, there were people who were relentlessly harassed into handing over their final few dollars under the threat of legal action, driving them to the depths of depression. But think about how it felt for me. I had it much worse”.
