Mr GORMAN (Perth) (15:46): This government has created a truly evil machine in robo-debt. Robo-debt breaches, amongst many things, ethical requirements. As we said, it is unlawful and it is unethical, but it also breaches one of the three laws of robotics. One of Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics states: a robot must not injure a human being. This robo-debt is doing real damage to real humans. It's spitting out notices that, on average, demand debts of $2,184. Mathematicians, when they look at the number 2,184, would define it as an excessive number, where the sum of its divisors is greater than itself. It sums up the government's approach very well: this is an excessive regime. Coincidentally, that $2,184 is about the same as the cost of a certain minister's internet usage. I at least acknowledge that he did pay his 'Robert-debts'. It is a heartless decision. It comes on top of so many other— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The assistant minister on a point of order? Mr Howarth: The member opposite needs to refer to the minister by his correct title. There's nothing funny about it. I'd ask him to— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Perth will address the chair and refer to people by their correct titles. Mr GORMAN: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As I was saying, this government has a bad history when it comes to vulnerable Australians: refusal to raise Newstart; refusal to fund the CapTel handset service that people who are hard of hearing in Australia rely on to communicate with their friends and family and to participate in the workforce; cuts of $700,000 for Vision Australia Radio; penalty rate cuts; and the list goes on. We talk about the letters that are being spat out by the Department of Human Services. They are some of the most impolite letters I have ever seen. Mark Latham is more polite than these letters! They simply say, and I'll redact the name: 'Customer has a Centrelink debt. The amount outstanding is X.' It is incredibly rude. Imagine someone vulnerable, struggling to get by, receiving one of those letters just saying, 'You have a debt. You must repay it.' There's no explanation and no data to show how those calculations have been done by the department. I think we know why there's none of that data. It's because it's a bodgie system. The system is not working. By the minister's own admission, it spits out some 20 per cent of notices that are inaccurate and have to be withdrawn. If we look at the explanation, all we hear from the government is: it's Labor's fault. That is the only explanation they can come up with. You've been in government for more than six years. I should say that technology has also advanced a little bit. You could actually look at this system and see if there is a smarter way of running your own department. When it comes to this government, it's 'no care, no responsibility' if you look at the cases that have happened, again, on this government's watch this year—not when Labor was in office. I raise the case of Shirley from my electorate, who lives in Bayswater. Shirley received a debt notice from the Department of Human Services in August 2019. The Department of Human Services claimed that she was overpaid for the Newstart allowance. However, during the period that they claimed that she'd been overpaid she wasn't even receiving Newstart. Worse than that, for the period for which they said that she had a debt she was working for the federal government—a federal department. But do you know what's worse? She then goes to the department that she was working for, saying, 'I need to prove to Centrelink that I was working during this time.' She has had no help from the department in providing her payslips. She can't prove that she was working for the government because they won't give her the payslips. She's submitted her tax return, but now the ATO, another government department, are refusing to give her her tax refund because they're saying she has this debt. It is a ridiculous system. It is not working. It is punishing some of the most vulnerable in our society, and it is this government's fault.