The “architects of Robodebt” are now in leadership roles at the NDIA. As The Royal Commission into this scheme continues, a regular Hireup contributor - who’s chosen to remain anonymous for this article - gives insight into the “culture of disdain” it has unearthed.
Content warning: suicide
Watching the Robodebt Royal Commission feels a little like being trapped in an episode of ABC’s Utopia. But this isn’t satire and nobody is laughing; it’s a true account of how Australia’s public service catastrophically failed the very people it is supposed to protect.
Robodebt was pitched by Coalition ministers as a program that would stop people “cheating” the welfare system. In reality, the government created a debt repayment monster, one that illegally clawed back $1.7 billion in welfare payments from vulnerable Australians. It’s since been linked to several suicides, including that of 27-year-old Rhys Cauzzo.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the many people with disability and chronic health conditions who were targeted by Robodebt, and what that must have felt like. I was terrified when I was forced to stop working last year because my health badly deteriorated. Disabled bodies are expensive to sustain and I had no idea how to survive on government payments. How would it feel if I was hit with a massive - and incorrect - debt notice, on top of the daily financial struggle?
Jamie* from Melbourne, told me they were struggling with severe mental health issues when they opened their MyGov inbox to see a debt notice of $4,600 back in 2018. “It felt like my heart stopped beating. I was on the Disability Support Pension at the time and it was extremely difficult to get Centrelink to review its decision. Twice, I convinced them to double-check and both times they told me the debt was correct.”
After their second review, Jamie received a letter saying their pension would be docked $126 every fortnight until the debt was paid. “By this stage I was suicidal. They were going to send me into even further poverty because they couldn’t do their jobs.”
To prove the debt was wrong, Jamie sent Centrelink all the paperwork they could find - payslips, bank statements, group certificates - even highlighting key transactions. Finally, they adjusted the debt down to $285. “No explanation was given for what happened to the other $4,315 and there’s been no apology for this mistake that nearly killed me.”
The Royal Commission into Robodebt commenced in October last year and at the first round of hearings, Scott Britton and Jason Ryman were called to the stand. Both men worked at the Department of Human Services (DHS) in 2014 and are now employed in senior leadership roles at the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA); Ryman is head of compliance and Britton leads fraud intelligence and investigations.
Under questioning, Ryman confirmed he authored the original paper on Robodebt, which was approved by his boss, Scott Britton. The duo, which has been dubbed the “architects of robodebt” by the media, were also responsible for the use of “behavioural insights” to “influence compliance behaviour”. This meant employing tactics to push people into paying debts quickly and without challenge; like neglecting to include contact details on debt notices so people didn’t know who to call for help.
In December, The Saturday Paper reported Ryman was hiring an assistant director of behavioural insights at the NDIA, to work on projects to ‘address non-compliance by participants and providers’.
Unsurprisingly, Jamie is anxious that the same people who engineered Robodebt are now in leadership roles at the NDIA. “As someone on the NDIS who received a Robodebt notice, this blows my mind. What automated compliance programs are they dreaming up? They didn’t care about destroying lives back then, why would they worry about destroying them now.”
Writer and disability advocate El Gibbs agrees with this sentiment, but says the cultural and attitudinal problems in the public service are far bigger than any one (or two) individuals. “The culture of disdain, for those of us that use and need government services, has been laid bare in the Robodebt Royal Commission, and can also be found in the National Disability Insurance Agency.
"Proposals like independent assessments and the personalised budgets were symptoms of this, based on mistrust and disrespect of disabled people. While they’ve been shelved, the attitudes behind them remain and there is still much work to do to make sure the Agency actually puts disabled people first.”
The Royal Commission into Robodebt continues, with the next set of hearings scheduled to start on 20 February.
*Name changed to protect identity.
The ABC, The Guardian and The Satuday Paper are covering the Royal Commission in detail, as is welfare activist Tom Studans on Twitter.
Sarah Jones
Sarah Jones is a pseudonym for a regular Hireup contributor who wants to remain anonymous because of the technicalities of an insurance claim they are pursuing.