Robodebt royal commission: Rachelle Miller, Alan Tudge, Christian Porter to give evidence

Senior counsel assisting Justin Greggery confirmed he will be introducing evidence about episodes when private information about welfare recipients who complained about the scheme was released to the media in 2017, in what officials at the time said was necessary to "correct the record".

Former ministers Alan Tudge and Christian Porter will give evidence, as will high profile spokesman for Services Australia, Hank Jongen.

A former Human Services national manager for media engagement Began Hannan will be examined on what client information was passed to staff working for Mr Tudge, including former Liberal party staffer Rachelle Miller.

Mr Greggery revealed that Ms Miller will also "provide insight into the former minister's media strategy and his knowledge of the inaccuracy of alleged debts calculated by the scheme".

Ms Miller, who reached a $650,000 settlement with the Commonwealth last year after making allegations of abuse by her former boss, will give evidence on a different day to Mr Tudge.

An investigation by the private and information commissioner Angelene Falk into the government's release of personal information about writer Andie Fox, following an opinion piece she authored describing being hounded by debt collections, found no wrongdoing.

One blogger, who wrote a column about being hounded by debt collectors working for Centrelink, had her private Centrelink information released to a journalist. An AFP investigation into the matter was dropped without findings.

A subsequent investigation by the privacy and information commissioner in 2018 found "the disclosure was permitted", and no wrongdoing had occurred in that instance.

The royal commission's hearings resumed with evidence from an aged pensioner traumatised by a faulty $65,000 debt calculation that took Centrelink four years to accept it had made in error.

Convinced that she had kept meticulous records of her income and reported it all to centrelink, Rosemary Gay, challenged the debt believing there was "no possible way I could owe them any money" from her time working two days a week for a transport and logistics company.

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The department conducted two recalculations that initially reduced the debt to a $6683 and then to $120. Ms Gay had already been convinced to repay Centrelink at $60 a fortnight, which was a struggle for her financially, she said.

In 2020, four years after the first faulty calculation, she finally received confirmation that Centrelink would repay all the money she was owed.

"It was just immoral it took them that time to admit they made that mistake. They only admitted they did because of the groundswell of victims," she said.

"It was a system that could destroy peoples' whole lives so simply."

Not My Debt co-founder Lyndsey Jackson also gave evidence on Monday, telling the commission the department had continuing to use the tactics learned from robodebt in other areas despite dropping automated income averaging.

"The department is still implementing the same data matching technology [approach] - and that's problematic," she said.

"Doing things at scale can be beneficial, but it can also be detrimental."

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