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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcuttin woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: s right island and nations. We pay our respects to

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Speaker 1: the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Jesa heads up. This episode deals with issues surrounding mental

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Speaker 2: health and in particular suicide. If you need someone to

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Speaker 2: talk to, you can give Lifeline a call. On thirteen

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Speaker 2: eleven fourteen.

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Speaker 3: Good morning and welcome to the Daily Oas it's Monday,

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Speaker 3: the tenth of July. I'm Zara Seidler.

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Speaker 2: I'm Samkazlowski.

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Speaker 3: A landmark decision on robodebt has finally been handed down

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Speaker 3: by the Royal Commission, which has been investigating the scheme.

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Speaker 2: It was the debt recovery scheme that ruined lives.

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Speaker 3: It made me feel like a criminal, a cheat in

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Speaker 3: my mental health words.

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Speaker 2: There has been a lack of duty of care.

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Speaker 3: The powerful people are always able to take advantage of

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Speaker 3: vulnerable people and I hope this Royal Commission can change that.

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Speaker 3: So what were the findings of the Royal Commission and

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Speaker 3: what will the consequences for those who are responsible be.

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Speaker 3: TDA journalist Tom Crowley is going to let us know

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Speaker 3: in today's deep Dive, But first Sam what's making headlines.

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Speaker 2: Prime Minister Anthony Alberanzi is headed for Germany and Lithuania

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Speaker 2: this week to attend a NATO summit and meet with

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Speaker 2: European leaders. According to Alberanzi, Australia's presence at this forum

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Speaker 2: is firmly in our national interest as we work together

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Speaker 2: towards a peaceful and stable world.

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Speaker 3: The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags will be displayed

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Speaker 3: at all FIFA Women's World Cup matches played here in Australia.

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Speaker 3: The flags will fly next to Australia's national flag at

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Speaker 3: all thirty five World Cup matches. The World Cup begins

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Speaker 3: on Thursday, the twentieth of July.

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Speaker 2: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has wrapped up a four

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Speaker 2: day trip to Beijing, where she sought to repair freed

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Speaker 2: relationships between two of the world's superpower the Allen said

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Speaker 2: she believes the world is big enough for both of

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Speaker 2: the US and China to thrive economically.

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Speaker 3: And the good news, the US Drug Regulator has given

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Speaker 3: its first full approval to a treatment that is reported

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Speaker 3: to slow the decline of Alzheimer's disease. Was approved after

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Speaker 3: a recent trial significantly reduced the decline of patients who

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Speaker 3: took the drug. It'll now be available to a broader

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Speaker 3: number of Americans. Tom, welcome back to the Poet.

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Speaker 4: Thanks Sarah. Good to be back. And it's a big

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Speaker 4: story to talk about today, one that I've been following,

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Speaker 4: We've been following for a while, and that's the tale

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Speaker 4: of robodebt, the government's illegal welfare collection scheme. There was

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Speaker 4: a Royal commission into robo Debt and it handed down

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Speaker 4: its final report on Friday. It highlighted really the vast

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Speaker 4: scale of what went wrong across our system of government

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Speaker 4: in a way that had really significant human consequences.

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Speaker 3: I want to get into those human consequences, but I

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Speaker 3: think in order to understand all of it's in we

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Speaker 3: just need to define what robodet actually was.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So robodebt is this system that gets cooked up in

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Speaker 4: twenty fourteen in the Department of Social Services to and

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Speaker 4: this is the sort of language that the government used

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Speaker 4: to crack down on welfare cheating. So the idea is

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Speaker 4: that welfare payments, like so job seeker, the age pension,

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Speaker 4: depend on how much income you get, and you've got

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Speaker 4: to report your income to send a link every fortnight

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Speaker 4: to get your payment. The idea was you compare that

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Speaker 4: fortnightly income to the income that people declared to the

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Speaker 4: tax office on their tax returns every year, and if

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Speaker 4: there's a discrepancy there that suggests that the welfare recipient

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Speaker 4: has got too much money, then they get a debt

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Speaker 4: notice saying you've got to pay us back. Now this

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Speaker 4: sort of thing had been done before, but what was

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Speaker 4: particularly new about robodebt was that it happened automatically. So

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Speaker 4: a computer made this comparison, and if a computer saw

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Speaker 4: that there was a discrepancy, then it would issue the

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Speaker 4: debt notice without any human oversight. Now there are two

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Speaker 4: things that you've got to know about this. The first

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Speaker 4: one is that that was a flawed system. It produced

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Speaker 4: a whole lot of areas. It was not a reliable

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Speaker 4: way to figure out where the welfare recipients had been overpaid.

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Speaker 4: Thing number two is it was illegal. The department did

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Speaker 4: not have the legal authority to collect debts from people

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Speaker 4: in this way without any human oversight, and that was

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Speaker 4: something that the Department knew or had reason to know

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Speaker 4: way back in twenty fourteen when the scheme was first

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Speaker 4: dreamed up. But despite that, the scheme ran from twenty

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Speaker 4: fifteen through to twenty nineteen before finally the federal court

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Speaker 4: found it illegal, and in that time, over one point

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Speaker 4: seven billion dollars in unlawful debt notices had been collected.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that is just a huge amount. And we

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Speaker 3: can talk about the numbers, we can talk about the money,

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Speaker 3: but I think, as I said earlier, what is so

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Speaker 3: tragic about this story is the human cost that is

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Speaker 3: at the center of it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's huge, and it's I mean zero point seven

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Speaker 4: billion dollars. And when you break that down into individual terms,

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Speaker 4: we're talking about people who are getting debt notices saying

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Speaker 4: you owe us tens of thousands of dollars, pay it

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Speaker 4: back right now, and will stop paying you well there

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Speaker 4: until you pay it back. And this was money that

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Speaker 4: people didn't owe. These are people who are reliant on

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Speaker 4: government payments. It was money that they couldn't afford to pay.

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Speaker 4: Enormously distressing to the people who were on the end

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Speaker 4: of this illegal scheme, and yeah, there was a really

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Speaker 4: significant tragic angle. So the Royal Commission identified there are

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Speaker 4: at least three people who have died by suicide following

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Speaker 4: the issue of debt notices. The Royal Commission said that

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Speaker 4: it was almost certain there were more than that, and

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Speaker 4: that in general this caused a great deal of heartbreak

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Speaker 4: and hardship to an enormous number of people. As the

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Speaker 4: Commissioner Catherine Holmes said in her final report, people were

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Speaker 4: made to feel like criminals. People who were entitled to

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Speaker 4: wealthare payments, who needed that social safety net, in her words,

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Speaker 4: traumatized on the off chance that they might owe money.

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Speaker 4: So a really significant human cost.

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Speaker 3: I want to turn to the Royal Commission report. It's

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Speaker 3: the reason why we're talking about this today. It was

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Speaker 3: handed down on Friday. But what was the reason it

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Speaker 3: came to be in the first place. Why did we

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Speaker 3: have a Royal Commission into this?

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Speaker 4: So the Royal Commission was set up after changing government

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Speaker 4: by the new Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi, and a Royal Commission,

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Speaker 4: I mean, it has a whole lot of powers that

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Speaker 4: can help it to get to the bottom of something,

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Speaker 4: so it can access official documents, it can call witnesses,

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Speaker 4: It interviewed a number of politicians, public servants, etc. And

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Speaker 4: the Royal Commission was really tasked with using these powers

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Speaker 4: to get to the bottom of how did this happen

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Speaker 4: and why did it go on for so long? When

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Speaker 4: there was and I think it was on the first

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Speaker 4: day of the Commission that they identified this that in

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Speaker 4: twenty fourteen, before the scheme started, the Department of Social

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Speaker 4: Services had legal advice suggesting that there was no legal

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Speaker 4: basis to allow them to collect debts in this way.

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Speaker 4: So how did that happen? How did it go on

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Speaker 4: for so long? And I guess most importantly, how should

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Speaker 4: practices be changed to make sure that something like this

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Speaker 4: can't happen again? So a Royal Commission makes recommendations for

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Speaker 4: change and those recommendations are what we saw in the

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Speaker 4: final report that got released on Friday.

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Speaker 3: What did the Royal Commission actually find?

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Speaker 4: Well, it was scathing, really, I mean Commissioner Catherine Holmes

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Speaker 4: described this as a startling failure of the public interest

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Speaker 4: and yeah, she was scathing. I think of people across

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Speaker 4: the system, politicians, public servants, everyone who had some involvement

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Speaker 4: in the leadership of this everyone who oversaw it. So

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Speaker 4: I think it makes sense, I think to separate this

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Speaker 4: into two realms. There's the politicians. I'll come back to

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Speaker 4: the politicians in a moment, but I'll start with the

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Speaker 4: public service. So public servants are sometimes we call them

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Speaker 4: government officials. They work in government departments, They work for

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Speaker 4: the government, they give them advice and they help them

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Speaker 4: to implement their policy. But public servants, they work for us.

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Speaker 4: They're supposed to be politically neutral. What Commissioner Holmes found

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Speaker 4: was that the public service was going to what she

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Speaker 4: called alarming lengths to help the political aims of the

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Speaker 4: government and to help the government in a sense to

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Speaker 4: again conceal the illegality of this scheme. And so particularly

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Speaker 4: he were talking about public servants in the Department of

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Speaker 4: Social Services and in the government Body Services Australia, which

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Speaker 4: runs Center Link. So that's kind of obviously where the

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Speaker 4: robodette scheme was focused. And I think the overarching comment

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Speaker 4: that she made was that public servants, in trying to

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Speaker 4: please their ministers, gave little thought to the impact that

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Speaker 4: the scheme would have on welfare recipients. And so one

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Speaker 4: of the key recommendations was that some of the senior

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Speaker 4: leaders in the public service should be required to spend

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Speaker 4: time delivering frontline services so they have some more of

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Speaker 4: that understanding of the human cost of what they're doing.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so that's the kind of public servant side of

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Speaker 3: it all. But of course we know that politicians were

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Speaker 3: also involved in this. What did the report say about that?

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Speaker 4: Well, the first thing to emphasize is that this was

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Speaker 4: an idea that was devised in the public service, so

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Speaker 4: it wasn't the idea of government ministers, but they sort

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Speaker 4: of sit above this and I think that's the way

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Speaker 4: that the Commissioner Homes went about it, And where she

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Speaker 4: really laid the blame on the politicians was creating a

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Speaker 4: culture where something like this could have happened. And so

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Speaker 4: she blamed the government for really using anti welfare rhetoric,

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Speaker 4: for framing welfare recipients as a burden, and for signaling

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Speaker 4: that it wanted to crack down on what it called

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Speaker 4: welfare fraud, and that by emphasizing this and by emphasizing

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Speaker 4: its desire to save money in the welfare space, that

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Speaker 4: the government essentially pressured the public servants into coming up

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Speaker 4: with an idea like this, and so in particular that

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Speaker 4: started with Scott Morrison, a name that might be familiar

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Speaker 4: as listeners, who was at the time that Robodet came in,

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Speaker 4: the Minister for Social Services, and Morrison, when he came

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Speaker 4: into that job, described himself as a welfare cop, said

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Speaker 4: that this was a priority for him, and Commissioner Home

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Speaker 4: said that even though it was not Morrison's idea and

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Speaker 4: something that he could take personal responsibility for, again that

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Speaker 4: it was about that culture. She also criticized Morrison and

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Speaker 4: other government ministers for failing to ask the right sort

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Speaker 4: of questions to get to the bottom of whether the

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Speaker 4: scheme was legal and failing to do that sort of

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Speaker 4: due diligence as ministers. But more broadly her comments were

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Speaker 4: about that culture. That was kind of the first category.

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Speaker 4: The other thing that she said about politicians was then

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Speaker 4: once the scheme's problems became known, that they didn't do

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Speaker 4: what they should have done to get to the bottom

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Speaker 4: of it, and that in fact, in public their instinct

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Speaker 4: was to deny, to save face, to in fact attack

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Speaker 4: the critics of Robodette and attack the victims of Robodet

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Speaker 4: who were coming forward and saying what was happening to

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Speaker 4: them and there particularly, her comments were focused on all Touch,

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Speaker 4: who was the Minister for Social Services and Human Services

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Speaker 4: for a lot of this period, and she accused Touch

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Speaker 4: of running what she called a reprehensible strategy to counterattack

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Speaker 4: against victims and whistleblowers and people who were talking about

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Speaker 4: the issues with robo debt, even while in her view,

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Speaker 4: he knew about the human consequences of robodebt. So there

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Speaker 4: were criticisms both in the government's culture that allowed this

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Speaker 4: to happen and then in the way that the government

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Speaker 4: responded when the pressure started to come onto the scheme.

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Speaker 3: I think it's fair to say that this was a

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Speaker 3: scathing report and that what it uncovered is deeply distressing.

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Speaker 3: But I'm really curious to understand how something like this

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Speaker 3: is stopped from happening again and what the consequences for

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Speaker 3: those who were responsible for it actually look like.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so there are a lot of recommendations. They get

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Speaker 4: a little bit dry and procedural, but recommendations to make

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Speaker 4: sure that these sort of decision making processes and education

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Speaker 4: processes for public servants, for politicians, for everyone who works

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Speaker 4: in these jobs are improved so that people understand a

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Speaker 4: little bit better what their responsibilities are in these roles,

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Speaker 4: and so you know, we can hope that that will

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Speaker 4: make it less likely that something like this can happen again.

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Speaker 4: And I think, you know the role of sunlight, the

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Speaker 4: fact that that we've talked about this, the fact we've

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Speaker 4: had this process, brought it out into the public eye,

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Speaker 4: should hopefully make it less likely that something like this

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Speaker 4: will happen again. There may also be consequences for individuals.

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Speaker 4: So Commissioner Homes recommended several people we referred to law

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Speaker 4: enforcement to consider whether they should face criminal and civil charges.

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Speaker 4: We don't know much about this, We don't know who

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Speaker 4: they are.

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Speaker 3: Why is that?

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Speaker 4: So I think it's quite reasonable in a sense. The

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Speaker 4: Commissioner's view was that it was better that this be

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Speaker 4: done anonymously for now, so that you know, the public

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Speaker 4: attention didn't kind of compromise that proceeding and that investigation.

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Speaker 4: I mean, we know in these sort of high profile

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Speaker 4: cases what publicity can do in terms of prejudicing potential

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Speaker 4: criminal proceedings. And so in fact, even Prime Minister angth

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Speaker 4: and The Albanezi said on Friday that he doesn't know

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Speaker 4: who the people are who have been referred. If it

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Speaker 4: gets to the point where charges are laid, we will

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Speaker 4: hear about it then, no doubt. But for now we

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Speaker 4: don't know, but that there certainly are individuals whose personal

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Speaker 4: actions commission are homes deem serious enough for that action

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Speaker 4: to be taken.

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Speaker 3: Tom, I think that we're in a unique position to

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Speaker 3: be having this conversation today because before you were a journalist,

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Speaker 3: you yourself were a public servant and obviously have an

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Speaker 3: understanding of the public service that I don't, and suddenly

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Speaker 3: most of the people listening won't have. So reading what

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Speaker 3: you did in that report on Friday, what does it

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Speaker 3: make you feel, think reflect from your time in the

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Speaker 3: public service.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I found it really hard. This was a distressing read,

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Speaker 4: and I think that there is a lot in here

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Speaker 4: that will make people angry. This was a really significant failure.

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Speaker 4: I mean, the commissioner was angry. I think think that

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Speaker 4: her contempt for what happened shone through really clearly in

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Speaker 4: this and how all across the system there was this

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Speaker 4: astonishing failure of people. And I emphasized that word system

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Speaker 4: because you know, this is I think bigger than any

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Speaker 4: particular individual. It's bigger than even any particular side of politics.

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Speaker 4: It's a broader question about how public institutions serve the

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Speaker 4: people they are supposed to serve, that is us. And

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Speaker 4: I think the thing that I find the most distressing

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Speaker 4: about all of this is the way the commissioner described

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Speaker 4: little regard that senior public servants had for the human

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Speaker 4: consequences of their actions, and that maybe the way that

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Speaker 4: the entire system was set up was focusing on politics,

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Speaker 4: focusing on you know what's in front of you, what's

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Speaker 4: happening on your desk, without that understanding of the people

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Speaker 4: that are supposed to be served. And in this case,

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Speaker 4: people were really really seriously let down by the institutions

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Speaker 4: that are supposed to serve them.

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Speaker 2: And if this episode raised anything for you, you can

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Speaker 2: give Lifeline a call on thirteen eleven fourteen. We'll be

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Speaker 2: back again tomorrow. Until then, have a great day.