Former human services Minister Alan Tudge was known as a “media tart” and requested the file of every public robo-debt complainant as he came under pressure from the office of the then-prime minister to shut the story down, according to former media adviser Rachelle Miller.
Former media adviser Rachelle Miller said she devised a media strategy to counter the negative publicity about robo-debt coming from “left-wing” media, such as the ABC, the Guardian and The Sydney Morning Herald. She said Mr Tudge had a co-operative relationship with the senior portfolio minister Christian Porter.“The minister requested the file of every single person who had appeared in the media,” Ms Miller said. These details would be used to correct stories using the “right-wing media”, she said.
Ms Miller said she tried to place stories with the right-wing media which had greater reach, such as Nine’s“The message [was ] ... the Coalition is cracking down [on welfare fraud],” she said.Ms Miller said Mr Tudge was very hands-on about his media. She told the commission that he approved all media interactions, even comments that did not mention him.Advertisement
“It wasn’t usual practice at that stage for ministers in that portfolio to do that. It was a risk. There weren’t, to my knowledge, previous cases of people using that particular loophole.In later testimony the then acting national media manager for the human services department, Bevan Hannan said it was a disgrace that the opportunity was not taken in January 2017 to correct the record over the legality of the scheme.
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