Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for Finance, Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Women, Minister for Government Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (10:25): My response to that is—and ministers did have detailed discussions about this—we would prefer that the money available that we have provided under both debt reform and the Income Apportionment Resolution Scheme went to people and wasn't chewed up in administrative and other costs.

Part of this is wiping the debts, which is a cost to the government. It is a cost to the budget, even though I accept it has an individual impact. We have to account for the costs because it's required under the rules around how we put budgets together.

We have looked at this. I want more of it to go there, just like in robodebt. I wanted more to go there than went to some of the legal processes around robodebt.

That's what the government is trying to do here. We want to minimise administrative and running costs and maximise repayments to individuals.