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In 2023, when the Royal Commission into the Robodebt disaster came to an end I wrote that the whole thing will go down as one of the darkest moments in Australian history. It was and is the clearest examples of the abject cruelty of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments.
From the get-go, the Department of Social Services (DSS) was warned by lawyers that the new method of using automated income-average estimations to determine Centrelink debt was unlawful. They implemented the policy anyway. Robodebt issued at least 470,000 incorrect debts — in many cases, completely inventing one where none existed. The DSS would then force these people to ‘prove’ that the debt was incorrect (how do you disprove a complete fabrication?) If they couldn’t disprove it, debt collectors would just take the money from them anyway by taking their wages, money in bank accounts, repossessing cars, and more.
One whistleblower reviewed between 200-300 of the Robodebt-calculated debts and found around 20 that are actually correct.
How this was ever allowed to happen in “modern Australia” is a hugely important lesson for us all. You don’t need to read me writing about it again.
You do need to watch The People vs Robodebt, the three-part SBS docuseries on the saga.
If you don’t know much about the specifics of what went down with Robodebt, the show does a great job of explaining what, how and why everything happened.
If you already followed the Robodebt story, still watch it.
I knew all the details… and it did not prepare me for the emotions I would feel.
White-hot rage anytime ministerial media adviser Rachelle Miller tries to justify her role in smearing welfare recipients in the press; bitter disappointment on behalf of Colleen Taylor, one of the public servants who tried to sound the alarm; and genuine grief for the victims of this illegal scheme.
Jenny Miller’s son Rhys Cauzzo took his own life after Centrelink pursued him over an inaccurate debt/a debt that did not exist. Almost every Robodebt victim in the series shares that they considered doing the same. The desperation and hopelessness of Sandra Bevan in particular brought me to tears.
‘News stories’ are never separate from human stories — even policy-focused news stories, which is what Robodebt is. Policy decisions don’t operate in a vacuum, they affect real people’s lives and often the day-to-day news cycle doesn’t allow for the human experience to be heard. A policy was ‘tweaked’, and people died. Lives were changed forever.
I also think it’s a particularly important watch for anyone who has become more interested in politics since the last election, or since Donald Trump’s re-election last November. You can only make change going forward if you have a good understanding of what has come before.
Robodebt is a crucial story — it exposes the systems and patterns that underpin so many of today’s ‘hot topic’ issues: gender inequality, the rise of the far right, the gendered violence epidemic, the housing crisis, wealth inequality, the rot of capitalism, the Murdoch media, and AI devouring us whole.
There are big lessons to be learned, not least of all because Australia’s welfare system still fails to help the people it is supposed to support. Our so-called “national safety net” is often cited as a source of pride for Australians in comparison to the dystopian and vampiric systems in the US.
The cruelty is on clear display throughout. Of the ‘dole bludger’ narrative, pushed out by politicians and eagerly spread by the media in a bid to get everyday Australians to hate the “other” — the same is done to Indigenous people, climate protesters, non-white immigrants, and women. Rachelle Miller is clear that the government released personal details of victims to the media so they would be dragged through the mud, and that would intimidate other victims into staying silent. It still happens today.
And the cruelty of Australia’s welfare system. Although Robodebt is no more, the core flaws still exist. That’s why a new story emerged just one week ago: a Centrelink IT error wrongfully terminated payments for 60,000 people.
Keeping the system the way it is is a political choice that has serious consequences. It makes people vulnerable and desperate, putting their health and mental health at risk, isolating them, leaving them open to be targets of violence. And it robs Australian society off the incredible gifts and contributions these people could offer if they weren’t having to spend every waking hour scraping together enough to survive or navigating the maddening Centrelink system.
Enough on this from me — just watch it!
*This reads sponsored as hell but I promise you SBS has not paid me a dime for this (nor has anyone else).
Smart stuff on the Internet 💭
All the stuff I found on the web that made me think, smile, or have an ‘aha!’ moment. Spend your Sunday reading them – you'll be better off for it:
Taylor Swift Chooses Chaos on Vulture
Please allow me to share one good Taylor Swift album review while I figure out my own feelings about it. “It’s in the lurid insights into intersections of love, money, and sparingly relinquished control that Showgirl really pops. Like last time, not everything entirely clicks. It’s slick, but there are skips. The pained subtlety of songs like “Ruin the Friendship,” about spiraling after an old crush dies, outshines the beef bait. But flaws and all, it’s better for Showgirl to access the joys and insecurities of Taylor Swift of today — engaged but still up for snarking an ex and his entire friend group, invested in pure pop but not in all the yelling on “Shake It Off” — than live in the past trying to make overly idealistic early-2010s pop happen again.”
ARIA Slammed for Spotify Partnership by 2025 Nominee: ‘We Hope More Voices Join the Conversation for Change’ on Rolling Stone Australia
“For the first time, the ARIA’s public voted awards will be integrated into Spotify, enabling fans to cast daily votes directly in the platform’s app … Gut Health took to social media last Friday to express their disappointment at the ARIAs and Spotify’s partnership. ‘We can acknowledge the global reach of the platform while also recognising the inherent ethical issues at play here. More and more, breaking through as an artist today means navigating contradictions like this, and we hope more voices join the conversation for change.’”
Pressure mounts on Meloni’s gov’t as Gaza protests paralyse Italy on Al Jazeera
Italians have staged a huge general strike in solidarity with Palestinians and in support of the humanitarian flotilla intercepted by Israel — 40 Italians who were on the boat have been detained by Israel. “Turin-based daily La Stampa reported that the mobilisation involved the public and private sectors, “halting rail, air, metro, and bus transport, healthcare and schools. Among the many acts of dissent, protesters blocked highways near Pisa, Pescara, Bologna and Milan and shut down access to the port of Livorno, said the newspaper … “This is not just any strike. We’re here today to defend brotherhood among individuals, among peoples, to put humanity back at the centre, to say no to genocide, to a policy of rearmament,” CGIL leader Maurizio Landini was cited by the Reuters news agency as saying.”