The Coalition’s Robodebt scheme was illegal, flawed and grossly unfair and led to people committing suicide.
So far no one in the former Coalition government or senior members of the APS have been prosecuted for their involvement.
The SBS’s three-part docu-drama, The People vs Robodebt, tells the story of the disastrous automated Centrelink debt recovery scheme was exposed by whistleblowers, victims, digital activists, lawyers and journalists.
The Robodebt scheme was launched in 2016 and directly effected more than 400,000 people. It was an unlawful method of automated debt assessment and recovery implemented under the Coalition led by Tony Abbot, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison.
It used the Australian government agency Services Australia as part of its Centrelink payment compliance program, headed by Kathryn Campbell.
In September 2024, the Australian Public Service Commission announced that its investigation into the individuals had concluded, leading to several fines and demotions. No individuals were fired from their role. No prosecutions were launched.
Allegations levelled against the scheme include:
- Welfare recipients’ suicide after receiving automated debt recovery notices.
- Debt notices were issued to deceased people.
- Issuing debt notices to disability pensioners.
- Revelations that debt notices were issued to 663 vulnerable people (people with complex needs like mental illness and abuse victims) who died soon after.
The scheme aimed to replace the formerly manual system of calculating overpayments and issuing debt notices to welfare recipients, with an automated data-matching system that compared Centrelink records with averaged income data from the Australian Tax office.
Former Liberal staffer Rachelle Miller, also features in the film, trying to save her reputation. Miller fed News the Murdoch media the narrative that, “we were recovering debts because we were trying to protect the integrity of the welfare system.”
In July 2023 the royal commission’s report called the scheme “crude and cruel”, “neither fair nor legal” and a “costly failure of public administration”.
If so, where are the trials? Where are the prosecutions?