Scott Morrison has avoided an inquiry into claims he misled parliament over the unlawful robodebt scheme.
Greens MP Stephen Bates earlier this week sought to refer the former prime minister to parliament's powerful privileges committee for investigation over allegedly misleading the lower house.
The referral attempt followed the release of the royal commission report into robodebt, which singled out Mr Morrison for misleading federal cabinet about the legality of the scheme.
Speaker Milton Dick told parliament the former prime minister made comments that were "at odds with findings of the royal commission and on that basis may be considered to be incorrect".
However, he said there was not enough evidence to show Mr Morrison knowingly made misleading statements to parliament about robodebt.
"The fact that the member for Cook (Scott Morrison) disagreed with these findings and made comments to this effect in the house does not itself represent a misleading to the house," Mr Dick said on Thursday.
"The matter of deliberately misleading the house is a serious one, and rightly, there should be prima facie evidence that the house has been misled and the misleading has been deliberate.
"I'm not able to grant precedence for referral on this occasion."
Earlier, parliament voted to apologise to victims of robodebt and accept the findings of the royal commission.
The motion was passed 88 votes to 51, but Government Services Minister Bill Shorten urged the coalition to make a formal apology for its role in overseeing the scheme.
Mr Shorten told parliament the coalition needed to accept responsibility.
"The nation and the parliament cannot move on without accepting a genuine account of what went wrong," he said.
"Ceasing the scheme after four-and-a-half years is not enough. The royal commission is not enough.
"What Australians want to hear from the political class and the people privileged to represent them ... (is) that it was wrong, not just unintended."
Mr Shorten said robodebt represented a breach of trust
"The previous government was a government of law breakers. It's time to apologise to the victims, time to apologise for the staff," he said.
"It's time to show real repentance for the illegality of your actions."
The scheme, which ran from 2015 to 2019 under the former coalition governments, used annual tax office data to calculate average fortnightly earnings and automatically issue debt notices to welfare recipients.
Hundreds of thousands of Australians were caught up in the debacle, which illegally recovered more than $750 million and was linked to several suicides.
The royal commission report into robodebt, which was handed down last month, made several adverse findings against former coalition ministers in charge of the scheme, including Mr Morrison.
Mr Morrison is the only former minister singled out in the royal commission report who remains in parliament.
Alan Tudge and Stuart Robert resigned this year, sparking by-elections in their seats.
Opposition business manager Paul Fletcher said Mr Shorten was engaged in political point-scoring, noting the coalition had apologised to victims of robodebt.
He said there was a serious risk the passing of the motion could compromise the legal rights of people named in the report.
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