Robodebt: Illegal hunting for social services in Australia drove people to despair
Robodebt: Illegal hunting for social services in Australia drove people to despair
- Published
- July 7
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By Frances Mao
BBC news
A landmark study in Australia found that an illegal hunt for social services by the previous government made victims feel like criminals and caused suicides.
Locally known as “Robodebt,” it was an automated government program that falsely required benefit recipients to pay back their benefits.
People received letters saying they owed thousands of dollars in debt based on an incorrect algorithm.
More than half a million Australians were affected by the policy.
The plan ran from 2016 until it was declared illegal by a court in 2019. It had forced some of the country's poorest people to pay off false debts.
Many ended up in worse financial conditions: they took out loans, sold their cars, or used their savings to pay off a debt they were told to pay off within weeks. Others described being slandered and ashamed after being told they owed money.
On Friday, a royal commission investigation into the scandal released its final report, in which the plan was described as a “costly failure of public administration” with “extensive, devastating and persistent” adverse effects.
“Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals,” Commissioner Catherine Holmes wrote in her 990-page report.
A royal commission is the most powerful form of public inquiry in Australia. It ran for eleven months and attracted hundreds of public submissions.
On Friday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the previous administration's plan as a “gross betrayal” of citizens, which had harmed the most vulnerable.
The investigation found that at least three suicides were known as a result of the RoboDebt policy, and it was “convinced that these were not the only tragedies of this kind.”
The deaths by suicide included two young men, Rhys Cauzzo, 28, and Jarrad Madgwick, 22, whose mothers testified before the committee on their behalf last year. Kath Madgwick had previously told the BBC that she holds the government partly responsible for Jarrad's suicide.
Other victims told the investigation how the stress of a question of guilt had caused them anxiety and depression and led them to consider suicide.
One woman said she felt suicidal with the debt hanging over her head for months, with the 'lowest point' being the day the collection agency withdrew the money from her bank account.
“I felt desperate that day; it was so upsetting that I couldn't afford my daughter's medical expenses and I felt powerless to improve my situation,” she told the investigation.
Another victim, who had previously had a mental illness, said that when he received an $A11,000 (£6,300, $8,100) debt return, he was in “complete shock” because it would “take me back years and years and years.”
He explained that “from a generalized anxiety disorder perspective, this is just... the biggest trigger you can give someone”.
The final report of Friday's investigation criticized former prime minister Scott Morrison's conservative government for launching the plan that “took little to no account of the individuals and vulnerable cohorts that would be affected.”
The report also condemned Mr Morrison — who was social services minister at the time the policy was launched — for “misleading” the cabinet with advice that moving to an automated system would not require legislative passage.
In a response, Morrison said on Friday that he “rejected any of the findings that are critical to my involvement in approving the plan and are detrimental to me.”
He claimed that he had “acted in good faith and based on clear and considered departmental advice.”
The report also accused the government of continuing to cover up the plan even as its “unfairness, probable illegality and cruelty became clear in 2017.”
“It should then have been abandoned or drastically revised, and an enormous amount of hardship and misery... would have been averted,” the report said.
“Instead, the path that was followed was a doubling, a media attack on those who complained, and perpetuating the lie that, in fact, the system had not changed at all.”
Commissioner Holmes also described a politicisation of welfare policies that had exacerbated a stigma often felt by recipients of social services.
The government also falsely exaggerated incidents of welfare fraud, which were “minuscule” or less than 0.1% of the cases, the report said.
In a sealed section of the report, the commissioner also recommended that a number of unidentified individuals involved in the policy be referred to criminal and civil prosecution.
The Morrison administration abruptly ended the RoboDebt scheme in 2019 after victims challenged the legal basis in the Federal Court of Australia, where it was found illegal.
In return, the government was also forced to repay more than A$700 million in payments to the victims. It also settled a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by victims seeking compensation.
If you are feeling emotionally distressed and would like information about organisations in the UK that offer advice and support, please visit bbc.co.uk/actionline .
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