Alan Tudge’s former adviser placed stories about robodebt victims in ‘friendly media’, royal commission told

Rachelle Miller tells inquiry the then human services minister was ‘very firm’ a media storm over the Centrelink debt recovery scheme needed to be shut down

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Alan Tudge’s former media adviser has told a royal commission she devised a strategy to place stories in “friendly media” – including the Murdoch press – after her boss told her to “shut down” the media storm over robodebt in early 2017.

The commission is investigating why and how the unlawful Centrelink debt recovery scheme was established in 2015 and ran until November 2019, ending in a $1.8bn settlement with hundreds of thousands of victims.

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