Scott Morrison has been called out for dancing around questions at in a tense hearing of the royal commission into the failed Robodebt welfare compliance scheme.

Commissioner Catherine Holmes asked the former prime minister if he was “listening at all” after he was told to directly answer questions put to him on multiple occasions.

Mr Morrison’s evidence has centred around “income averaging”, which resulted in around 400,000 people wrongly receiving debt notices.

He says the system was in use before he took over as Social Services Minister and his government only scaled it up.

4BC federal politics reporter Zac De Silva said the main question they want to answer is why the scheme continued after the then-government was told it was unlawful.

“We’ve heard from public servants and other politicians about that but from Morrison, we really don’t have an answer to that.”

Press PLAY below to hear Zac’s report in full