Christian Porter regrets not questioning robodebt legality years earlier

Christian Porter, who was the senior cabinet minister for the social services portfolio between 2015 and 2017 and later became attorney general, said public servants from his department did not bring their concerns about its lawfulness to his attention.

Asked by Commissioner Catherine Holmes if he took responsibility for the failures to address the scheme's legality, Mr Porter said he did.

"I look back on this and I see myself through the correspondence getting quite close at points to taking the next step of inquiry, and I didn't do that," Mr Porter said.

"I wish now that I had, but I also see the reasons why I didn't do that."

The first time he saw the Administrative Appeals Tribunal decisions against the scheme's automated income averaging approach to calculate a debt was in his later ministerial role as attorney general.

The commission had earlier heard evidence that the Human Services department, under the leadership of departmental secretary Kathryn Campbell, may have been keeping those cases from reaching the federal court where the scheme's unlawfulness would become public.

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Mr Porter admitted to not having a grasp on the details of the scheme as social services minister, including the legality of reversing the onus of proof on welfare recipients to establish that they had provided all necessary information to the department.

"I think it's fairly accurate to say that I didn't understand precisely how the debt was ultimately being issued and completed," he said.

He said it was not necessary for him to know the greater detail because the Social Services department had not been involved in the design.

But as a mounting criticism about the false debt notices grew in December 2016 and January 2017, while human services minister Alan Tudge was on leave and Mr Porter was also acting in that role, he grew frustrated with officials over inadequate responses about the scheme.

"As I received these complaints and then media articles which clearly required a response, I recall going through ... an acceptance of the position and talking points [provided by the human services department]," he said.

"That then turned at some point into circumspection. Then I became skeptical. In the end I was extraordinarily frustrated with the level of information and detail being provided."

He recalled calling Finn Pratt, the top official in the social services department, and asking "what the hell's going on here", but Mr Pratt was similarly not across the issue and directed Mr Porter to seek advice from DHS instead.

Mr Porter said he brought his expertise as a lawyer to his role as minister but did not question the scheme's legality at the time as he was focused on individual cases that were being raised as complaints.

Serena Wilson, a deputy secretary in his social services department, had obtained legal advice about the scheme's legality as early as 2014. She earlier gave evidence that she did not raise the advice with ministers.

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