By Luke Costin

Attempts to hide the next robodebt scandal from independent oversight of the public service will be punished by thousands of dollars in fines.

Bureaucrats and agency bosses would be bound to help investigations while those stonewalling access to files could be dragged to court.

The changes proposed by the Albanese government are aimed at ensuring Commonwealth agencies are subject to stronger and more rigorous scrutiny.

They fulfil two recommendations from the robodebt royal commission, which found more than $750 million was illegally recovered from welfare recipients.

The scheme relied on a flawed algorithm to identify individuals who owed the government money.

It affected 381,000 people over five years.

Robodebt was known to be unfair and probably illegal in early 2017.

But dishonesty and collusion inside the public service prevented the scheme’s lack of legal foundation coming to light, the royal commission found.

It was finally stopped by the coalition government in 2019.

Following the damning royal commission, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus stressed the need to rebuild trust in government.

Impartial, independent and robust oversight was central to this commitment.

“The robodebt royal commission made it clear that strong and effective oversight is necessary to safeguard the community in their dealings with government,” Mr Dreyfus said.

“Trust in government depends on this.”

Under the proposal, an offence would be created for withholding reasonable facilities and assistance from the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

Anyone penalised for breaking this law could be fined more than $3000.

The watchdog would be able to access agency records remotely under enhanced information-gathering powers.

And the tax ombudsman would also receive the same powers.

The coalition has apologised for its role in the robodebt scheme and opposition leader Peter Dutton acknowledged his side of politics needed to learn from the saga.

Labor has committed to implementing all recommendations from the royal commission, bar one watering down automatic cabinet confidentiality.