Billion-dollar robodebt settlement reveals massive scale of welfare crackdown disaster

Deal will effectively limit scrutiny of unlawful and damaging compliance checks

In March 2017 Alan Tudge, then the human services minister, was under pressure over a different scandal.

Fresh from releasing the personal information of a debt recipient who had written an article critical of the robodebt scheme, and threatening so-called welfare cheats with jail, Tudge told the ABC's Fran Kelly that critics who believed the program was flawed had a philosophical objection to widespread compliance checks".