Robodebt scheme

... um, uh, in relation to costs.

But, but I think, I, I was just reading with interest that, uh, I think Justice Beach's decision in the Robodebt-

Yeah

... class action's just gone on appeal, so it'll be quite interesting, 'cause he shaved, I think, the-

Just a little clarification there.

Robodebt was a few years back, I think it was 2021 as well, they used another algorithm to try and search for overpaid benefits for Centrelink.

Centrelink is like a welfare system that we have here in Australia and some people were overpaid.

So they automatically sent out letters to all these people saying, we've overpaid you, you owe us 200 grand or 25,200, whatever the number was.

In 2024, the CFMEU criticised Ms Lee over the appointment a former Federal Department of Human Services General Counsel Lisa Carmody, to a senior role in the Chief Minister and Treasury Directorate.

Ms Carmody worked at Human Services during the Robodebt scandal.

Mr Barr said Under-Treasurer Russ Campbell would act as Head of Service and Director General of Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate, while longer-term arrangements are put in place.

And that ends Peter Jean's page 5 article, Farewell, First Woman to Lead ACT Public Service Retires.

Value in... remembering what the whole purpose of the founding of all of this was in relation to the services, relationship to ministers.

The first episodes of this podcast were about Robodebt and what you saw in all the evidence was public servants taking advice from Talkback Radio.

So taking cues from ministers saying, oh, I've got an idea about this and rushing off and preparing proposals instead of a more traditional, and I hate the word traditional, but of taking a brief.

Here's your brief to the service.

But do fix the problem, right? Fix that

first, and then you don't feel so bad about it.

Because that's one of the lessons of Robodebt, is that there were a sequence of sort of reasonably competent ministers who came through that portfolio, and they all sort of gave this evidence to the Royal Commission where they're like, well...

I don't know, like it had been signed off three years ago.

Absolutely.

Again, I don't want to harp on Services Australia and Robodebt too much, but if it had been a manual system or an older system, not manual, you would have been 300 complaints in and said, hang on a minute, we better have a look at this.

But,

you know, you're nearly half a million.

And Jay and I constantly are working on are we in total alignment here and where are we going and how's it going to look? So I think the power of what you're saying inside of this book will make a huge difference.

So I just want to quote something out of this because I – I keep going back to this particular piece in the book.

And in closing, so, you know, in all of the eight chapters, you start with this, you know, you start with Robodebt, you start with Amazon, you start with NAB.

And it's pretty confronting.

The decision to kill has already migrated upstream to whoever set the threshold.

Your Australian civilian twin is Robodebt.

And then Fusion and Decision Support, which is Maven now.

Each layer strips the uncertainty out of the one below, so the human at the top receives an icon rather than a probability.

Um, so we spoke to someone who was a, uh, compliance officer, um, within Centrelink, whose job it was to, uh, look at what was happening with these systems, um, and, and review debts where there were complaints.

Uh, and you know, this person told us that they had been tasked with reviewing the debts that were being spat out by Robodebt, and they came to the conclusion that only a fraction were actually genuine debts.

Uh, you know, this person told us that the system, um, was producing inaccuracies on a scale that was kind of hard to fathom, that, you know, um, debt notices, for example, were going out to incorrect addresses, and then when people weren't responding to them, a debt was being raised against them and, and they were being referred to third-party debt collectors, completely oblivious the whole time about, you know, the, the initial letter that started this process.

You know, letters were going out to people who were deceased.

Was it a critical moment to get that t-test case over the line?

Yes, it was.

It was, in my mind, it was the beginning of the end for Robodebt, absolutely.

And, uh, Victoria Legal Aid, who [clears throat] who ran that case, um, did amazing work.

Also with me are journalist and author of Mean Streak, Rick Morton.

His investigation into the Robodebt scandal won a Walkley and the Prime Minister's Literary Award.

And seasoned political scientist and welfare-to-work researcher, Professor Mark Considine.

And excuse my mispronunciation of his surname live on stage.

Yeah, so the reform and the new version of things will be interesting as well to see what other things they will tweak to allow for more flexibility.

Come back to Rick.

Rick, you investigated the Robodebt scandal as it was unfolding.

Mean Streak is one of the most excoriating, brutal reads I think I've ever, ever immersed myself in.

One of the things that we represent is regulatory certainty.

And particularly, this might seem like a kind of slightly random topic, but, you know, I think Robodebt probably really highlighted that in Australia, you have to comply with the laws.

Government doesn't get just to ignore the laws.

It must follow the laws.