The Robodebt royal commission has heard details of bureaucratic involvement in the unlawful scheme. 

The official inquiry has been looking at the way the Robodebt scheme was designed and implemented.

It heard that Andrew Whitecross, the acting group manager of social security policy at Department of Social Services (DSS) in early 2015, was told to “tone down” his criticism of the Department of Human Services proposal which became Robodebt. 

The proposal was referred to as “income smoothing” when Mr Whitescross was in the role.

Mr Whitecross says he received a phone call from Catherine Halbert, then acting as the deputy secretary for social security at DSS, in which Ms Halbert told him she had had a conversation with Malisa Golightly - a senior bureaucrat at DHS - where Ms Golightly had “expressed concerns” about the strength of the DSS's comments.

“She wanted me to tone down the comments … before she provided comments back to DHS,” Mr Whitecross said.

“Did she say why she wanted you to tone down the nature of the comments?” asked Senior Counsel Assisting Justin Greggery.

“I think … I don't know whether she conveyed it to me in so many words, but the gist of it was, something along the lines of; ‘Malisa's unhappy with what we're saying’,” he replied. 

He said Ms Halbert suggested they simply say; “It'll present legislative problems”.

“The tenor of it was, yes they would still work with us, they just didn't want us to go in so hard, I guess,” Mr Whitecross said. 

Ms Halbert said she could not recall such a request to Mr Whitecross. 

Additionally, the commission was shown emails from within DSS, providing advice about the process - using data collected by the ATO as a default, unless customers want to and are able to provide information that varied the outcome.

“As you understood the proposal in these terms, the concept of the application of smoothing of PAYG data does not appear to be a last resort, does it?” Mr Greggery asked. 

“This proposal clearly wasn't using ATO data as a last resort,” Mr Whitecross responded.

“Would you say that the proposal in those terms represented a radical departure from existing compliance activity?” Mr Greggery asked.

“Absolutely,” Mr Whitecross said.

“It was a completely different approach of pursuing the question of whether overpayments had occurred at all and how the Department [of Human Services] would interact with customers in relation to those debts.”

Earlier in the week, the former head of the Department of Human Services, Kathryn Campbell, was asked if she cared more about recipients engaging with the welfare system than whether their debts were inaccurately calculated. 

She said she had concerns that there were not enough efforts made to contact people who had received debt notices.

Ms Campbell said that in early 2017 - when the scheme was attracting considerable negative attention - she wanted to ensure that procedures and engagement with people was taken in a way that “procedural fairness was afforded”.

Mr Greggery asked if that included informing people about how their debts had been calculated - by means of income averaging.

“I'm referring to the fact, to clarify that the recipient had received the letter… that there was a contact phone number where people could contact a person, a staff member of DHS [Department of Human Services] … that people could use bank statements rather than pay slips, to help facilitate the rollout of the program,” she said.

“None of those features address the risk of overpayments or underpayments and the calculation errors though, did they?” Mr Greggery asked.

“I was working off the advice that had been provided in January 2017 as part of the Ombudsman's report, that averaging could be used as a last resort,” Ms Campbell said.

“The focus I had in the first months of 2017 was to make the system user-friendly and allow recipients to be able to engage in the system.”

Additionally, lawyers for former prime minister Scott Morrison have pushed for his full response to the Robodebt royal commission to be made public.

They want a current public interest immunity claim to be lifted, so the ex-PM’s full response can be published. 

Mr Morrison, who is also a former minister for social services and treasurer, has been called to appear before the commission in coming days.