Centrelink would be shut down for fraud for its conduct in the recent botched "debt" recovery efforts if it were a private company, according to the Commonwealth's former digital government chief.

Former Digital Transformation Office chief Paul Shetler also says the Turnbull government lacked the political will to push through its ambitious "digital transformation agenda".

Mr Shetler, who resigned from his job in November, told ABC radio on Monday morning that a private company would be shut down for fraud by regulators if it had behaved like Centrelink in sending large numbers of demand for repayments of bogus debts.

"If that company, if it was operating in any sort of a free market, would go out of business, and if it didn't go out of business, it would be shut down by regulators for fraud," Mr Shetler said.