Former Coalition ministers incurred $2.5m of legal expenses linked to robodebt inquiry
Ex-PM Scott Morrison spent nearly half a million taxpayer dollars for legal bills while Christian Porter spent almost $800,000
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Taxpayers forked out $2.5m in legal expenses for eight former Coalition ministers, including two prime ministers, to be represented in the robodebt royal commission, with almost half a million for Scott Morrison.
Ahead of the release of the royal commission report on Friday, the Attorney General's Department has revealed the cost of legal assistance as of 24 May this year, including that the former attorney general and social services minister Christian Porter incurred legal bills totalling $795,053.
$795,053 for Porter, the social services minister from 2015 to 2017
$518,064 for Michael Keenan, the human services minister from December 2017 to May 2019
$477,528 for Scott Morrison, the social services minister in 2014 and 2015
$240,520 for Marise Payne, the human services minister from September 2013 to September 2015
$183,835 for Stuart Robert, the human services minister from September 2015 to February 2016, then government services minister from 2019 to 2021
$112,696 for Dan Tehan, the former social services minister
$98,935 for Malcolm Turnbull, the former prime minister
$5,626 for Anne Ruston, the minister for families and social services from 2019 to 2022
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