Robodebt scandal: leak reveals unlawful debts predate 2015 but government has no plans to pay back money

The Australian government has privately acknowledged the robodebt scandal may go beyond the unlawful 470,000 debts already identified for refunds, but it has no plans to pay back the money because it believes it would be too difficult to identify victims.

Amid growing fears unlawful debts could date back decades, the Guardian can reveal ministers were told in February the now unlawful ATO income averaging method was a longstanding “last resort” practice used to enforce Centrelink overpayment debts.

Confidential advice seen by the Guardian said: “As the identified invalidity would apply to all versions of the practice, there is a risk of Commonwealth liability for all actions outside the Programme including pre-1 July 2015 actions.

“The proposed approach would not address that potential liability. Any claims will be managed on a case-bybase basis.”

The government on Friday conceded the practice – which enforces debts using ATO annual income data compared against fortnightly pay reported by Centrelink recipients – was unlawful as it vowed to repay 330,000 people affected by faulty debts.

But it only promised to issue refunds to “all income compliance debts raised from our use of income averaging since 2015-16”.

The advice does not state the potential number of debts issued to people before 2015 that were raised using income averaging, or their value, but experts said it was likely to be much smaller than the post-2015 debts.

However, the Department of Human Services has previously told the commonwealth ombudsman it had used the practice since the early 1980s. Guardian Australia has seen records from one likely case dating back to 2008.

In the ministerial submission, prepared for Stuart Robert, Anne Ruston and Christian Porter by Services Australia, it was claimed that pre-2015 victims would be too difficult to identify.

The ministers were also told the