[2][3] These calls have been reiterated by university academics,[4] and by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), which stated that "although some restitution has been delivered to victims of Robodebt, they have not received justice".
[5] In May 2022, the final report from the second Senate inquiry into the Robodebt scheme recommended a Royal Commission, "to completely understand how the failures of the Income Compliance Program came to pass, and why they were allowed to continue for so long despite the dire impacts on people issued with debts".
[8] ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie welcomed this saying "The Robodebt affair was not just a maladministration scandal, it was a human tragedy that resulted in people taking their lives".
[9] Following Labor's election win,[10] Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, with Letters Patent issued by Governor-General David Hurley on 25 August 2022.
[21][22] The report also criticised the government's "obliviousness to, or worse a callous disregard, of the fact that many welfare recipients had neither the means nor the ability to negotiate an online system" to provide evidence of years old income information in disputing debts.
Holmes noted however that the effectiveness of the suggested changes hinged on the top-down culture and robustness of the Australian Public Service, and improvements in political rhetoric and social attitudes regarding people receiving welfare payments.
[23][24] The report contains a "sealed" section which was not publicly released, which "recommends the referral of individuals for civil action or criminal prosecution".