Hundreds of thousands of people were caught in a huge Centrelink stuff-up and now a major investigation will examine how things went so horribly wrong.
A royal commission into the controversial robodebt scheme is preparing to hold its first public hearing.
The commissioner and senior counsel assisting will make brief opening statements but no witnesses will be called in Brisbane on Tuesday.
The unlawful debt recovery scheme started in 2015 and falsely accused welfare recipients of owing money to the government.
The scheme automatically issued debt notices to people identified through a process called income averaging, which compared their reported income with tax office figures.
Similar techniques had been used in the past but the scale of the robodebt scheme was unprecedented.
More than $750 million was wrongfully recovered from 381,000 people.
The scheme was ruled unlawful in 2019 and a settlement of $1.2 billion was reached between robodebt victims and the former coalition government in 2020.
Speaking on Tuesday morning, Government Services Minister Bill Shorten called it "Australia's greatest failure of public administration in social security".
"It was a scheme which said it was targeted for getting Centerlink cheats to pay what they owed ... the truth of the matter is the scheme was unlawful," he told reporters.
"Once a machine ... a faulty algorithm, asserted a debt was owed, the onus was reversed and the citizen had to prove why the government was wrong.
"These were David and Goliath struggles."
Labor promised to call the royal commission before the election and followed through soon after winning.
The commission will be chaired by former Queensland Supreme Court chief justice Catherine Holmes.
Mr Shorten said the inquiry would examine how the scheme came to be and why warning signs were ignored by a string of coalition ministers.
It will also examine the use of third-party debt collectors and others concerns raised.
Anthony Albanese called the robodebt scheme a "human tragedy" when he revealed the inquiry's terms of reference in August.
"It is vital so that we get to the bottom of how robodebt came about so that we can ensure that it can never ever happen again," the prime minister said.
"People lost their lives. Every single one of my local constituents and every member of parliament can tell stories like this"
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has been a vocal critic of the commission, describing it as a political witch-hunt and a tool for Mr Albanese to "get square with Scott Morrison".
© AAP 2022