If the robodebt saga — one of Australian history’s worst stories about the political class and public bureaucrats cooking up a scheme that demonised some of the most vulnerable and marginalised groups — is not already seared into the national psyche, it soon will be.
While justice may be elusive for those hoping the people most responsible — ministers and public servants among the line-up of actors who facilitated the scheme and its ongoing harms — would face criminal prosecution, sacking, or other sanctions, more public shellacking is coming down the pipeline.
Journalist Rick Morton has condensed his research and coverage of what the robodebt royal commission exposed and several advocates and whistleblowers have been describing as dodgy for years before action was taken to examine the full extent of the scheme’s damaging tentacles.
Writing on Substack, Morton revealed the cover of his book Mean Streak last month.
The book is due for release in October and has been billed by publisher HarperCollins as “a scouring cautionary tale of morality in public life gone badly awry” in the mode of a corporate thriller.
Reddit users welcomed the news, with one person posting they did not feel a just reckoning had occurred.
“I look forward to seeing this, as a survivor of robodebt,” the account user named Draculamb said.
“The parasites responsible have still paid no real price. That is what Australia is all about, after all — Corrupt power with impunity.”
Lingo Pictures has confirmed it will be developing a drama mini-series for the ABC as an adaptation of Morton’s robodebt page-turner.
The drama will be written by Stuart Page, Magda Wozniak and Sophie Miller, and produced by Helen Bowden. It will tell the story of a slew of Coalition ministers keen to see the government’s automated debt-recovery scheme make money from social welfare recipients rather than cost the public purse — it will also tell the story of the bureaucrats who made it happen.
It has been just over a year since the report of the robodebt royal commission was handed to the government, and no heads have rolled over the Coalition scandal, which cost the taxpayers about half a billion dollars (on top of a $1.8 billion settlement for class action claimants in 2021).
In response to the royal commission’s 56 recommendations concerning the bureaucratic bungle, described by Catherine Holmes as a “crude and cruel mechanism”, the federal Labor government has invested millions into bolstering national oversight bodies and legal capability, and set about “rehumanising” the social welfare system.
A sealed section of the report prepared by Holmes was given to PM&C head Professor Glyn Davis, it included a list of those facing adverse findings and referrals.
The Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) used the list to pursue a number of investigations (only six of the 16 people investigated remain employed in the APS, four have been sanctioned, and two cases have been dropped).
Legislation is now also before parliament to extend the commissioner’s code of conduct powers and empower them to investigate former agency heads.
Three months ago, in June, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) announced that it had completed its probe into robodebt with no adverse findings against six named individuals.
Following public outcry, and an avalanche of almost 900 complaints about alleged corrupt conduct or maladministration relating to robodebt, a further inquiry into the NAAC’s decision not to pursue the matter further has been opened by inspector Gail Furness.
When the royal commission report was handed to the government last July, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese quoted from Catherine Holmes’ document to describe the harm the wicked scheme had caused innocent Australians.
“‘What is certain is that the scheme was 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’ — [It’s] an extraordinary finding from this royal commission,” Albanese said.
Official data shows that more than 2,000 people who were subject to debt-collection notices under the illegal scheme died during the period between July 2016 and October 2018.
Almost a third of these robodebt victims were classified as “vulnerable” and about one-fifth were 35 and under.
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten said Services Australia’s robodebt scheme, which was allowed to wreak havoc on welfare recipients over four-and-a-half years, also hurt democracy and trust in institutions.
“Today my thoughts are with the victims, the 433,000 vulnerable Australians who were identified in the Federal Court [class action], and tens of thousands of others,” Shorten said.
“They were literally shaken down by their own government; by a government who didn’t have the power to raise debt notices against them, and in fact, [broke] the law. [Robodebt victims] had the onus of proof reversed, they were treated as guilty until proven innocent.
“And for those who had the temerity to complain they were subject to vile political tactics — today is about these victims,” he said.
More recently, Shorten told the National Press Club (NPC) that those former Coalition ministers who were involved in the scheme would forever be marked by the scandal and that went some way to achieving robodebt justice.
“We learn new processes as a result [of the royal commission] and we’ve been responding to the recommendations,” Shorten said.
“You can never get true justice because it should never have happened — it was unlawful.”
The minister also mentioned that his efforts to convince the government to publish the royal commission’s sealed chapter now that avenues for recourse have almost been exhausted were not cutting through in cabinet.
“I don’t have the power [to unseal that chapter]… But anyway, I’ll just use whatever powers of persuasion… but I think [Labor’s amendment to make APSC code of conduct powers retrospective] is a pretty interesting and new development,” he said.
READ MORE:
The robodebt fiasco closes as it started — needing new legislation
