Robodeath

Pic courtesy Kindpng

The title, gentle reader, is not a typo. Robodebt was implicated in seven suicides.

Whether the failed and unlawful scheme caused suicides or not, it has permanently stained the previous government, and the public servants who implemented it.

That's ignoring the fact that it cost the Australian taxpayer $1.76 billion in settlements, without counting $112 million in interest.

Think about it. A computer algorithm demanded refunds from people who had been paid social security payments. These refunds were based on income averaging, which apart from being unlawful, was based on a dodgy mathematical theory.

I've had some personal experience of dealing with the public service (in this case DVA) when it comes to demands for refunds. I retired in 2005, but was asked to return to work in an advisory position between 2006 and 2017. As an ex-serviceman (I don't much like the American inspired "veteran" term, so don't use it), I was drawing the old age pension from DVA earlier than my peers, and was obliged to report my financial circumstances to ensure I was receiving the correct amount.

I did so religiously, and because I wasn't always employed for the same fraction annually, my reporting was quite frequent. I probably should have smelled a rat when the pension didn't seem to change with my hours, but I kept reporting nevertheless.

Late in 2014, after two years in receipt of these regular payments, I was working in Goondiwindi when my mobile rang at 9:30 pm displaying a "private number" on the screen. I answered, and a woman introduced herself as a DVA agent working on a debt recovery team.

She began the conversation by saying "How do you feel about defrauding the Australian taxpayer?" After I'd picked myself up from the floor, I asked her to identify herself by name, but she refused. She told me that action would be taken to recover the debt ($16000) immediately.

When I got home, I went into the local DVA office (since closed) to try to work out what exactly was going on. They were courteous, but seemed to have little knowledge of the unit doing the recoveries, so gave me a number to phone whilst I was in the office. I was assigned a person who promised to follow up and get back in contact.

Thus began a series of conversations, and a flow of correspondence which lasted three years. It quickly became apparent that I had been overpaid, but the overpayments were not as a result of my failure to report, but of DVA's failure to adjust the payments. I needed evidence to show this, and requested a Freedom of Information disclosure of my file, which arrived as a CD.

This documentation showed my reports, but also included information from another file. It became obvious that they had me mixed up with someone else, whose wife or partner was also working and receiving an income. At this time my wife had been retired (without an income) for a couple of years. Eventually, I sent the material to the Commonwealth Ombudsman's office.

The upshot was an apology from DVA, and approval for me to repay the debt in instalments at the same rate that it had been accumulated. This was fair, although I had an advocate tell me that if I had insisted, the debt would probably have been waived.

The timing of this is interesting, and has a connection with Robodebt. Abbott's 2014 budget was a shocker, and Treasury made demands on a range of agencies (DVA and Centrelink) amongst them, to recover debts. This action was trumpeted by the Coalition government at the time as a way of fixing the debt problems it had inherited. It was political, not financial, in the same way that our commitment to Vietnam was political, and had nothing to do with national security.

Bashing Centrelink recipients in 2014 played well with some, as did fear of Communism with the same group in the sixties and seventies. Robodebt was the bureaucracy's answer to the political demand.

What remains to be seen is whether or not the politicians who introduced the scheme will be held accountable by the Commission when the report is published.

I won't be holding my breath....