The more the commission uncovers, the more you reach the conclusion that this is the worst dog act an Australian government can perpetrate on its own people. | OPINION by Malcolm Knox
If the robo-debt royal commission were an exercise in political grandstanding, it would have no point. Tarnish? Too late. Only in the bubble of their own imagining could the social services ministers at the time of the scandal, Morrison and Christian Porter, have any political reputation left to protect.
Ignoring a reality that Blind Freddy could see – that the working poor earn their income in patches – the robo-debt algorithm sprung them for overpayments by assuming they spread their money prudently over an entire year.
Jarrad Madgwick was also a human. An “Automated Compliance” process cut off his Newstart allowance until he repaid a fictitious debt of $2000. He took his own life just before he was due for a job interview with the army. If only Rhys and Jarrad and more than 2000 other people who died while being chased by robo-debt demands were themselves robo-recipients, the system would have worked perfectly.
The weasel words and the elaborate confusions Commissioner Holmes has had to listen to could be any large corporation, private or public. It is the world we live in, anonymously and autonomously “constructed” around us, and not about to vanish just because there has been a change of government.The more the commission uncovers, the more you reach the conclusion that this is the worst dog act an Australian government can perpetrate on its own people.
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