The Coalition’s robodebt scheme was illegal, unfair, cruel, failed to achieve its goals and was the result of the Department of Human Services misleading both the Department of Social Services and cabinet, and Scott Morrison allowing cabinet to be misled as to the legal status of the scheme.
That’s the conclusion of the robodebt royal commission report by Catherine Holmes AC SC, released this morning.
The report describes the near-complete collapse of proper process within the cabinet of the Abbott government and the Department of Human Services (DHS) — making for one of the worst moments in the history of the Australian Public Service — as an “ill-conceived, embryonic idea and rushed to cabinet”.
The legislative changes necessary to make the robodebt income averaging process legal were quietly removed from key documents as then-minister Scott Morrison took the proposal through cabinet — despite clear advice that income averaging as a basis for raising welfare debts was inconsistent with the Social Security Act.
Holmes is scathing of Morrison, who “allowed cabinet to be misled because he did not make that obvious inquiry. He took the proposal to cabinet without necessary information as to what it actually entailed and without the caveat that it required legislative and policy change”.
Moreover, Holmes concluded Morrison misled the royal commission as well, rejecting as “untrue Mr Morrison’s evidence that he was told that income averaging as contemplated in the executive minutes was an established practice and a ‘foundational way’ in which DHS worked”.
DHS’ leadership is also savaged for misleading both the Department of Social Services and cabinet, and minister Marise Payne, for downplaying or omitting entirely the role of income averaging, in order to avoid issues around the legality of relying on income averaging; its “officers … misled cabinet as to what it involved”. It identifies a number of senior officers as being aware that cabinet was being misled and failing to take any action, including then-secretary Kathryn Campbell.
In oral evidence, Ms Campbell accepted that the NPP [new policy proposal] was apt to mislead cabinet. She contended that her failure to eliminate its misleading effect was an ‘oversight’. That would be an extraordinary oversight for someone of Ms Campbell’s seniority and experience. The weight of the evidence instead leads to the conclusion that Ms Campbell knew of the misleading effect of the NPP but chose to stay silent, knowing that Mr Morrison wanted to pursue the proposal and that the government could not achieve the savings which the NPP promised without income averaging.
Not merely was robodebt disastrous as a policy process, but its implementation was also a catastrophe, “the result of its being put into operation in haste, rather than conscious decision-making”. Its “disastrous” effects became clear from September 2016, the report finds, and by the start of 2017, “robodebt’s unfairness, probable illegality and cruelty became apparent”.
Instead of amending or ceasing the scheme, the Coalition relied on a faulty Ombudsman’s report — the result of more deception — “as proof of the legality and appropriateness of robodebt against all comers”. “Meanwhile, the scheme trundled on, with the government engaging PricewaterhouseCoopers to assist with some of its clumsier components (although never taking receipt of a critical report prepared by the consultancy).”
The scheme completely failed to achieve any of its intended goals: none of the cost savings ever materialised — “the online component was an abject failure, with the result that large numbers of employees had to be drafted on short-term contracts or by way of labour hire into the DHS to cope with enquiries. And it became apparent, partly as a result of that factor, but also because of the overestimation in the first place of the numbers of debts and their average amount, that the touted savings would never be reached. The cover-up continued.”
The result was compensation of $746 million to 381,000 Australians targeted under an illegal scheme and multiple deaths.
A separate, unreleased chapter recommends referrals of individuals for both civil and criminal prosecution. The question of who misled whom may yet be played out in court.
What’s your view of the robodebt royal commission report? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
There must be a Psychology PhD on Morrison waiting to be undertaken by some bright spark. He undermined his Minister at Tourism New Zealand, he showed contempt for financial and procurement regulations at Tourism Australia, he undermined Michael Towke to get preselection for Cook, he hid behind “Operation Sovereign Borders” “on-water- matters”, he oversaw the establishment and implementation of Robodebt, he lied to the French over the subs, he gave Labor a 24 hr heads-up on AUKUS (seeking to wedge them on national security), and he so distrusted his own Ministers that he had himself appointed to overrule their decisions – and they’re just the standouts. Could also refer to his relationship with Brian Houston at Hillsong, his close relations with dodgy colleagues like Brother Stuie, Christian Porter, Barnaby Joyce and the rest, sports rorts, car pork rorts, defence of Gladys, corrupt process of appointments to AAT and ABC Board, abuse of Christine Holgate under Parliamentary privilege, and his constant lying to everybody.
Other than those, he’s a good Christian.
Morrison does not have a Christian bone in his body
Jesus would call out the thieves in the Temple – what a gullible nasty media aka Fordum bringing down the poor hero at The Unemployed Workers Union ! lot of middle man scam artists at the top like Ministers who swore under oath to serve the Australian Public ; uh not Big Pharma , not Pyne’s Defence Contracts , Not corporate aged care property developers creating ” jobs” of indentured casualised modern slavery !
Were not those “thieves” in the employ of the High Priest and temple priests to collect money from the poor to keep them and the temple in their “exulted” positions. And who was it that provided the “evidence” for the Romans to execute Jesus. Look what happened afterwards; you sell a set of “values” while developing a power and control system. Greed and Power & Control go hand-in-circular-hand.
One can only hope that our current “Christian” PM will heed those set of “values”, although, sadly, I suspect only partially for show.
DF, I think that an infinite number of PhD candidates, like the infinite number of monkeys, might struggle to give a clear understanding of this reprehensible person’s motivation.
Yep pigs selling us all out for a prosperity flim flam – its malfeasance in office ; abuse of power ; poor value for the public and an IPA wet dream failing demonstrated yet still perpetuated by mislabelled “public servants” and those pulling the strings of corporate pirates in the bloody neo lib labor and coalition – They seem inept and myopic and lazy
Jesus would have trouble classifying Morrison and would probably be saying ‘forgive me Lord, because I clearly had no idea what I was doing when I founded this religion’.
its like comparing apples and pears same but different blaming poor unemployed yet corporate handouts to the failed Qantas ( down 70 places as a trusted carrier how is that rewarded with a seat at the STC and 20 plus millions of our public purse ; theft of public resources for private profieers is theft -ugly hypocrites whatever label one places on the conduct
wish someone would
I think that you probably are not alone in that wish.
I think that’s an overly optimistic judgement Entropy, I imagine there would be many, many more examples of his malefice, and without a jot of contrition in sight, he seems smirking happy to let it define him, probably thinking it’s the ultimate Trump card, “Famous beats Notorious”.
Yes. He certainly knows all about turning the other cheek – anyone else’s but his own, the cheating, lying, dishonest SOB that he is.
As he gives us all a brown eye.
Well said! “Turn the other cheek – anyone else’s but his own”. Plus the rest of your post.
Though I am not a Christian, I still like the thought of a resurrected Christ visiting ProMo, fiery whip in one hand, camel being lead by the other, to explain with some emphasis how much the latter’s actions have always differed from WWJD.
But definitely not a good Christian in the widely accepted Christian meaning.
I used to think we would never see a PM worse than Howard, then along came Abbott.
I thought was unbeatable until Morrison got the job….
Dutton is trying hard to emulate the mendacity of his forerunners, but even with his worst efforts, he will not be able to beat Morrison.
The only good thing I can think of about Morrison is that he at least did not take us to illegal war like Howard, but he did have his eyes on that goal and now so does Albanese.
He wasn’t offered an illegal war by an idiotic US overlord. Where there is no temptation, there is no sin…
Not exactly – he was super keen to be involved in the hegemon’s war on Russia in the Ukraine, offering military materiel and bilious political support.
AND a shipload of coal… to one of the largest coal exporters in Europe.
Poor Russia being forced to kill so many (including their own) and destroy so much, just because someone (Biden? Hilary?) made them do it. Reminds me of George W. Bush who had unleashed untold death, destruction and misery on Iraq because someone (Saddam? Osama?) made him do it.
Always someone else’s fault. A common thread that joins Morrison, Bush and Putin.
You are denying Ukraine is a nation, why?
You are projecting, why?
BTW, Zelenskyy is still learning to speak the dialect, having campaigned as a Russian speaker on protecting the Donbass & Luhansk oblasts against the Azovs.
No, I’m not projecting, it’s there in your comment. You referred to ‘the Ukraine’, which designates it as a territory subject to another country’s sovereignty. It is therefore clear you are denying Ukraine is a nation.
Use of a definite article is correct, given that ‘ukraine‘ means “borderland” – as in the common English phrase “beyond the Pale” meaning outside settled society.
No. You have it exactly back to front. See any number of explanation all over the web, such as The Conversation article “It’s ‘Ukraine,’ not ‘the Ukraine’ – here’s why”
The Gambia, the Azores, the Hague (Den Haag), the Netherlands (the Lowlands), the Ivory Coast (La Côte d’Ivoire), the Maldives, the Yemen, the Maghreb (le Maroc), the Highlands, the North (don’t try calling it northern Ireland unless safely with rump irredentists in the 3 remaining planter plagued counties of the 9 of Ulster).
As for The ShutUp, aka nonConversation, spare me.
And yet, despite all your bleating, you are wrong. Why not just admit it and save yourself further embarrassment?
My mum told me the best way to defeat temptation, as a good christian is to give in to it. No longer tempted
Its not over yet. Dutton still has a bit of time although to truly stuff things up he will need to be PM. Hopefully an unlikely scenario.
He is sitting at an uncomfortable axis to the AFP and he told overpaid shock jock climate activists( marching to save our environment) should be denied Centrelink benefits ; pushing the lie poor or unemployment is self perpetuated .bad and .. dumb is when conflicts of interest occur when one is a minister with private procurement of govt middle men contracting services when ya mate “partners” decimate a fair human services and provisions for a strengthen creative and sovereign democracy !
what Voldemort forget it he seems like he advocated a dictatorship with Ray Hadley he daid unemployed who marched against climate change or those who were ” activists” should be photographed by CCTV ; faces put on watch lists and prosecuted and denied unemplyment benefits cause of course it must be none of us have casualised jobs ?! It tells you something of the myopia and prejudiced world view – he is scary despite the image efforts within his PR team at headquarters
But our current leader of the Liberals, Peter Dutton, did his best to destroy relations with China and to isolate Australia within our region.
Why warp an eager young mind exploring that dross
It’s unlikely that there are (m)any “…eager young minds..” in the dumbed down diploma mill$ that currently abound.
Any with such an organ between their ears would be out in the real world learning by living.
A profoundly amoral man
immoral
I think amoral is right.
look it up in ya funk and wagnalls immoral is bad amoral is dont care so I guess both could be useful descriptors
I think the point is the total indifference to the morality.
It’s much harder to deal with amorality (and indeed shamelessness and nihilism) because the person you’re dealing with doesn’t believe in anything.
Morrison’s “faith” is not a typical Christian faith. His religion is one of the self – where his pretend god approves of basically anything a person does in the pursuit of money and material wealth because that is how his “faith” is judged.
The Morrison lobby sell off of the Public Service makes “Yes Minister” look like the good old days
Morrison is a conman and crook – the Liberal Party continued to promote him and employ him even from the fiasco in NZ. Why did this happen, for what purpose and by whom.
He eas head hunted by some neo lib genius- cmon own up who was it?
sic was
god only knows what his role in the Higgins affair was.
There has to be a better way of selecting a prime minster, as DF writes the warnings were there for all to see. He has now trashed our country, trashed the Liberal brand, plus a lot more. How did he get away with all of that? I don’t think he was that smart to do it all by himself. where were the whistle blowers?
The media pumped up his sovereign border tyres and looked the other way, and concentrated on “but Labor Labor Labor …..ad nauseum”.
The warning signs were there, all right. but kept away from public scrutiny. The public signs were all there with Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. I suppose we could think ourselves lucky we woke up during the 3 years following the 2019 election so that we aren’t quite in the same state as those 2 countries. However, we have lost approximately 2300 falsely targeted victims to Robodebt, caused undeniable stress, hardship and pain to hundreds of thousands others, trashed the public service, been conned by ministers who pressed on with an illegal debt collection, picked on the most vulnerable people of our society, whose only “fault” was to be eligible for social security. What great security that turned into!
And there was a period of time where quite a large number of Australian voters voted for him and his government.
There is no Morrison government without voters.
What does it say about the voters?
It says that voters are now mad and they are not going to take it any more. Yes, it is pathetic that they DID take it/ Morrison for so long.
However, we should all give thanks to those under 40 who do not ‘buy’ mainstream media. The influence of media empires is falling, as shown by various recent elections.
It was a pity that they didn’t get their acts together to stop Morrison from defeating Shorten in the first place (there was a record low voter turnout for that election, particularly among young voters).
Unfortunately it says Aus voters are greedy & fragile. We will never see a reformist agenda taken to another election.
I’d love to think we could be better, but I see the tactics & polling for the ‘no’. Australian’s thinking only about themselves (greedy) or fearing something new (fragile).
Libs will get back in one day. Fear & greed as the fuel
Any dimwit can see Scott Morrison for what he is. It won’t require a PhD, a single A6 size pamphlet will suffice for this grandiose c*nt.
An incurious aggressive buffoon driven by hubris, pentacostal faith and a misguided feeling that liars like Trump and BoJo represented history’s vanguard.
He knew a good pie when he saw one though.
I take your first sentence seriously: we do need serious psychological studies of Morrison (along with Trump and Boris Johnson). After WWII books were written and studies were done exploring what made authoritarians and their followers tick. It was seen as important to avoid it all happening again.
Kathryn Campbell was transferred/rewarded with appointment as Secretary of DFAT for her assistance to Morrison in setting up Robodebt. The utter political cynicism of that decision alone reinforces our understanding of Morrison’s contempt for integrity.
How is it that Campbell is still on the government payroll providing her “expertise” to AUKUS oversight, apparently for 900k a year ?
We don’t know who’s been recommended for prosecution.
Well the APS commission got a referral so I guess that’s going to kick off the Campbell saga
I don’t know, but a woman who has no qualms pushing Australians to suicide to please a master is unlikely to have any pushing us into WW3, either.
I think you are wrong about that – I think she was put on hold until the report was finalised.
I expect her career from here to be very short indeed.
Kathryn Campbell was transferred out of DFAT and parked in AUKUS when Labor gained government
She was parked on a million dollar salary.
With zero direct reports.
Well, that’s good because she won’t be at risk of ignoring their advice.
I expect her paper clip count is now reaching into the hundreds.
exactly same scam- vote Greens the only choice electable sad as it is
I can’t believe she didn’t get a DCM (don’t come Monday) notification today, it must be time.
How and when will the sealed envelope be opened and by whom? Who will take on the charges? We’d all love to see details of just about everyone named ASAP, but I believe that due process has to happen first.
And also the corrupted nature of the APS culture that tolerates political appointments as rewards for dirty work.
Corrupt political and public, not APS – While Morrison and co were thankfully thrown out in 2022, they and their culture received enthusiastic media and public support in 2013, 2016, and 2019 despite all obvious signs.
My open question is, when the politics and public overwhelmingly support cruelty, what is the role of the APS? Perhaps we need a few more Sir Humphries and not less…
welll what did the replacements do ? Leave the same idjots at Services Australia and set up worse contracts with truly inept greedy ” Job Training ” middle men – new Rishworth ? making people indentured and gaslit
Yes. ScoMo is not a conservative or a liberal. He has no respect for institutions so how could you call him a conservative? And he’s not in tune with the private sector except for where it means armaments companies selling hardware to central government. He’s been on the public payroll in one form or another practically all his working life.
KCs experience of institutions may hold her in good stead for the next phase of her life.
Might be quite a regulated lifestyle coming up.
I recall Morrison at the time gloating over the fact they were going to catch out all the dishonest leaners. They deserve everything coming to them.
Morrison’s favourite boast at the time, which he repeated often, was that he was the ‘tough cop on the beat’. If he replaced ‘tough’ with ‘bent’ he would not have been far off. Oddly though, while he was saying these things I don’t remember him back then indulging in his typical cos-play fetish by dressing-up in a fake copper’s uniform with all the heavy-duty accessories. An opportunity sadly wasted.
Drandy, I think they deserve a great deal more than what is likely to ever come to them.
Would charges of manslaughter stick? Perhaps difficult to prove the direct link, be it there or not.
I believe Involuntary Manslaughter would have a very good chance, as there is a direct line of causality from the decision to introduce Robodebt and numerous suicides. You don’t need to prove intent, only the logical chain.
If I was a family member of someone who had committed suicide as a result of Robodebt, I’d be contacting one of the litigation funders, as there is potential for a private prosecution even if no government agency follows through.
Involuntary Manslaughter? It would be pushing the definition right to the edge. In the USA,
A woman who encouraged her suicidal boyfriend to kill himself in dozens of text messages, including one in which she told him to go through with it when he had second thoughts, has been sentenced to 15 months in jail for involuntary manslaughter.
She was clearly a lot more directly involved and aware in pushing her victim over the edge than any of the senior people who devised and implemented Robodebt were with any individual Australian who subsequently killed themselves.
The aim of litigation funders is to make money from winning civil cases:
ln return litigation funders seek a commercial percentage of the recovery sum from a claimant’s settlement or court judgment in your favour.
So your suggestion requires a very unusual litigation funder, one who is keen to take on a case with no possible commercial return. A private prosecution involves seeking a criminal conviction. If that succeeds the guilty person can be sentenced, for example fined or imprisoned. That does not compensate the person bringing the case nor the litigation funder, unlike winning a civil case. As one lawyer’s website explains:
Pursuing a private prosecution is not for the faint at heart. There are a number of risks that need to be considered as is the case with any other type of civil litigation. Two of the biggest things to consider are time and money.
It could also cost you even more for things like defendant court costs or costs related to being sued by defendant for malicious prosecution if you lose the case.
Even after you have committed all that time and money, the [DPP] could still decide to take over the case and either continue it, or worse discontinue it. That means whatever time and money you had put into the case could turn out to be all for nothing.
unless ya Called Smith and stokes likes the vibe of what ya sellin aka billions to maudlin war corporate culture
wheres Dutton and his apology ? For the malfeasance of office .. too close ?!
if it was an employer theyd be fined !
Sigh,
I expect you’re right…..
Well “Robodebt” did in part (‘catch out all the dishonest leaners’) in part….. Morrison, Robert, Tudge, Campbell etc …..
no still got contracts going at Workforce Australia – now labor take on tge ineptitude and middle nen contracts over public good
Smokin’ Joe and Conmann did get expelled to the USA and Paris, so crime doesn’t pay.
? Diplomatic wet dream jobs for what gaslighting ?
Depends what you call “expelled”. A Lifter’s expulsion is not usually a hardship – not for Smokin’ Joe at least. Not for Conmann either, he’s just keeping a lower profile than Smokin’ Joe.
When all the time the leaners were and are the Liberal politicians.
The punishment metered out to the hideous Morrison mob can never be too strong.
Get my knitting and ready the ‘widow’
Even if the law was changed to make it legal, taking the notional pro-rate fortnightly income calculated from annual income as the basis for producing debt notices for welfare payments which can only be properly calculated from actual fortnightly incomes is totally nonsensical. Whether or not the law was changed to make it legal, it must always remain nonsensical. So why is it implied that it would have been all right if only it was legal? Is it actually possible to make laws that allow imaginary debts to be recovered based on false calculations used as a substitute for proper evidence of debt?
Cassandra Goldie, the head of ACOSS, made a similar point when giving evidence to the Royal Commission. She said making it legal would not make it fair. It was an attack on the vulnerable. The government is meant to do no harm to its citizens, and Goldie reminded the Commissioner that this needed to be born in mind.
Concur and the costs of contracts to job providers exceed the savings ! Cut out Ai cut out the middle men costs – create public service and employ face to face and create more jobs here ! Not for Contracting out the country to the flippin Cayman ! whose locals do not enjoy the top down neo lib theft
Agreed, it’s like redefining pi in law to equal 3 for convenience. Still absolutely wrong and unworkable.
yep same illegal gaslighting continue to hurt our social services revenue streams to actual public who require support Not mutual obligations ! what because you receive below the poverty rate to live you are coerced into lining the lobbists derived contracts ” training”- the same corporates on millions and billions to take dignity and agency from often very experienced and capable ” mature” aged people – victim blaming – women work in aged care do child care whilst we raid Australia’s creative and valuable land resoucrces – oh and get on the neo lib media and use lies and platitudes to virtue signal our diversity and young people cred by hiring only those which fit the cool demographic – duh
Robodebt had to be stopped, completely and utterly. The sheer lunacy of a government creating ‘imaginary debts ‘based on ‘false calculations’ beggars belief.
The sheer audacity of a government trying to rip-off vulnerable Australian’s who had the least possible capacity to pay any sort of ‘debt’. The other perverse outcome is that Robodebt did nothing to encourage job seekers to get a job. If a welfare recipient didn’t have any past income to average or earnings to report, then they were not a potential target to be issued with a false debt under the Robodebt scheme.
That the government failed so many people because of their greedy, grifter attitude to reality just makes me so mad. That people gullibly, with the help of mainstream media, believed that something so cruel was acceptable. It isn’t just a dark day for our government, it is a dark day for Australia media and for the voters who allowed themselves to be sucked in by such cruelty.
Some of the mainstream media were complicit in the whole nasty affair. Newscorpse actively suppported Tudge and the government in demonising any unfortunate souls who complained. How anyone can use journalism and Newcorpse in the same sentence always confuses me – surely it’s an oxymoron….