A royal commission has found two government departments failed to properly respond to the deaths of people who had automated debts raised against them.

A former coalition minister and government departments failed to properly consider the personal heartbreak and harm stemming from the illegal robodebt scheme.

In 2018 Social service providers criticised the government's decision to bypass protective safeguards for vulnerable welfare recipients.

The program, ostensibly designed to recover overpayments, placed the onus on the individual to prove the debt was not owed, rather than on the government to prove it was owed, was widely criticised for its harshness and inaccuracy since it began in 2016.

In July 2018 Centrelink began sending letters to a small number of welfare recipients which the agency has identified as "vulnerable" or who live in a remote location.

John Altman, an Indigenous affairs professor at Deakin University, said at the time that the system was:"...just a way of the government punishing the poor and punishing Indigenous people for being welfare dependent".

He told NITV: "It's very hard for people to meet burdensome bureaucratic requirements... We've seen that with the Cashless Welfare Debit Card and the Basics Card."

Professor Altman also warned the system could have "disastrous" effects on the government's Closing the Gap initiative.

"The algorithms that electronic systems use cannot take into account the living circumstances of Indigenous people living in dire circumstances," he said.

The final report of the royal commission into the scheme, released on Friday, included a chapter examining associated suicides.

"While each of those deaths may have prompted an internal review of the particular case, they did not galvanise either the Department of Human Services or the Department of Social Services into a substantive or systemic review of the problem of illegal, inaccurate or unfair debt-raising," the report found.

Commissioner Catherine Holmes said the scheme had been "responsible for heartbreak and harm to family members of those who took their own lives because of the despair the scheme caused them".

"It extends from those recipients who felt that their only option was to take their own life, to their family members who must live without them," she said.

However, she did not recommend an apology be provided as "an apology by direction is not worth very much".

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the report had exposed "the human tragedy" the scheme represented.

Senior bureaucrats sought to distance the January 2017 death of 28-year-old Rhys Cauzzo, who was being pursued for Centrelink debts, from the department's processes after media reporting.

The report said that approach was symptomatic of departmental executives' emphasis on controlling the narrative surrounding the scheme rather than dealing with actual concerns from many quarters about its fairness and legality.

It also found former minister Alan Tudge had sought an investigation so he could write to Mr Cauzzo's mother and convey that he was "confident that the department had done everything correctly".

Mr Tudge told her in a letter the department had handled her son's case "appropriately, professionally and sensitively".

However, the commission found those conclusions were wrong and the letter was misleading as the error was not minor and Mr Cauzzo's case was not handled appropriately.

The report identified a second case of suicide, without naming the deceased, saying there was "no evidence Mr Tudge was sufficiently concerned about the circumstances" of the death.

"By July 2017, (he) knew that at least two people had died by suicide and that their family members had identified the impact of the scheme as a factor in their deaths," it said.

"Nonetheless, Mr Tudge failed to undertake a comprehensive review into the scheme, including its fundamental features, or to consider whether its impacts were so harmful to vulnerable recipients that it should cease."

While the report did not recommend a general compensation scheme for families, the commissioner noted there was an existing scheme for "compensation for detriment caused by defective administration".

Mr Tudge rejected the observation he was indifferent to suicides that were brought to his attention, saying it was standard practice to investigate every suicide to be linked with Centrelink.

"Sadly, each year, social workers at Centrelink deal with about 5000 referrals for customers at risk of suicide."

Suicide Prevention Australia CEO Nieves Murray said public servants should be aware of issues beyond the legality of schemes.

"They should also be telling ministers about the potential risk to people's lives where a government initiative is going to exacerbate distress," Ms Murray said.

​She said a National Suicide Prevention Act would ensure government departments looked at policies and priorities through a suicide prevention lens.

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Paul Osborne - AAP

Giovanni Torre - NIT