Paul Menzies-McVey said he was 'not sure if I turned my mind to that' when asked if he worried about people who received debt letters while he waited on further legal advice.
abc.net.au/news/robodebt-scheme-government-royal-commission-former-lawyer/102001616A former top federal government lawyer has revealed he did not share legal advice that the Robodebt scheme was illegal with the department responsible.During the hearing, he accepted that if the advice were true, the scheme had no legal basisPaul Menzies-McVey, who was previously chief counsel at the Department of Social Services , fronted the royal commission into the scheme in Brisbane on Tuesday.
The inquiry is holding a final block of hearings into Robodebt, which used income averaging and tax and Centrelink data to calculate social security debts. Mr Menzies-McVey was grilled by counsel assisting Justin Greggery KC and Commissioner Catherine Holmes over the fact he was aware of three separate pieces of legal advice that determined the income recovery scheme was unlawful, but did nothing, while working at DSS in 2019.
Mr Menzies-McVey replied: "I wouldn't characterise the advice as saying that the program was unlawful".He told the inquiry the advice did not consider what inferences could legally be drawn if someone did not provide an alternative account of their income that disproved a debt notice, such as a bank statement.
However, he said he was not certain about the issue and did not seek legal advice about it because "the correct answer, whatever that may be, was being sought by the solicitor-general".
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