Final Report on Robotdebt RC

[bear]

 The Robotdebt Royal Commission Report has been handed down today 7 July 2023. It's expected to take some time for the report to be published to view on the government website, however, there's something of a media frenzy happening on the internet. Cheers 🐻

'Crude and cruel': Robodebt royal commission recommends criminal charges

The robodebt royal commission has recommended unnamed individuals involved in the scheme face criminal charges.r

The robodebt royal commission will recommend civil and criminal charges against individuals linked to the scheme.

KEY POINTS:
The robodebt royal commission was handed down today.
It will recommend criminal charges against some individuals involved in the scheme.
Some $721 million was wrongfully taken from around 381,000 people under the scheme, which ran from 2015 to 2020.
The robotdebt royal commission has blasted the scheme as "crude and cruel" as it recommended criminal and civil charges against individuals involved.

In a blistering report released on Friday, the royal commission said the scheme "traumatised (people) on the off-chance they might owe money" and said it should have been scrapped or drastically changed when its "probable illegality" became clear in 2017.

It does not name the individuals it has recommended to face charges, in an apparent attempt to avoid prejudicing future criminal trials.

The scheme, implemented by the former Coalition government, demanded victims pay debts they did not owe, after wrongly identifying them through an automated system.

Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes handed a 990-page report, which includes 57 recommendations, to Governor-General David Hurley on Friday morning.

"Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals," the report said.

"In essence, people were traumatised on the off-chance they might owe money. It was a costly failure of public administration, in both human and economic terms."

Today Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes delivers her report to the Governor General David Hurley at Government House in Canberra.

It said the scheme's "probable illegality and cruelty became apparent" as early as 2017.ay 

"It should then have been abandoned or revised drastically, and an enormous amount of hardship and misery, as well as the expense the government was so anxious to minimise, would have been averted," it said.

"Instead the path taken was to double down, to go on the attack in the media against those who complained and to maintain the falsehood that in fact the system had not changed at all."

In a letter to Governor-General David Hurley at the beginning of the report, Holmes said: "There is also an additional sealed chapter that is not part of the bound report. It recommends referrals of individuals for civil and criminal prosecution."

What happened at the robodebt royal commission?
Some $721 million was wrongfully taken from around 381,000 people under the scheme, which started in 2015 and was scrapped in 2020.

The commission heard numerous accounts from victims who complained Centrelink was difficult to engage with after they received a debt notice,

The report calls for a number of measures to ensure vulnerable people receiving debt notices are protected, including better “face-to-face” customer service and social worker support.

And after victims’ ability to effectively defend themselves legally was also thrown into question, it calls for extra funding for pro-bono legal services like legal aid.

“The public interest role played by those services [was] exemplified in their work during the scheme,” it said.

It recommended Services Australia should also install “processes for genuine and receptive consultation” with its staff, and consult with them more fully when new programs are being designed and implemented.

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten called it "Australia's greatest failure of public administration in social security".
READ MORE

'Robo-justice': What is 'robodebt' and how will a royal commission address it?

Labor promised to call the royal commission before the 2022 election and followed through soon after winning.

The royal commission's purpose was to investigate how the scheme went ahead despite government departments knowing the debt calculation method was unlawful, with concerns raised from the start.
READ MORE

Scott Morrison warned robodebt scheme would be illegal without changes, inquiry hears

The inquiry heard from former prime ministers Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull and ex-ministers Alan Tudge, Christian Porter and Stuart Robert.

Morrison was warned the robodebt scheme would be illegal without major legal changes but his department pushed ahead with the program regardless, knowing it wouldn't hold up in court, the inquiry heard.

Robert said he had to continue defending robodebt publicly despite personally believing the way debts were averaged was incorrect.
READ MORE

Former minister takes 'absolute responsibility', defends response to robodebt legal advice

Victims of the scheme spoke of their ongoing anxiety following their experience, the aggressiveness with which the debts were pursued by government departments and argued that the onus was on them to retrieve the money they were owed.

A pensioner described her "sheer terror" after being told she had less than a month to pay the Commonwealth $65,000, only to discover the warning was incorrect.

Another victim said he was left with thoughts of self-harm after he was wrongly ordered to pay money he had "not a chance" of repaying.

The inquiry hit a number of hurdles during its hearings, with commissioner Catherine Holmes at one point criticising the "ramshackle" approach from Services Australia staff to providing documents.

Holmes' previous comments
The commission was led by Holmes, a former Queensland chief justice who oversaw the 2011-12 Queensland floods inquiry.
READ MORE

'Shut this story down': Government released robodebt victims' details to stop them speaking to media

"Everyone says it was really someone else's doing and it's a bit hard to get to the bottom of whose doing it was," Holmes told a hearing in February.

The commissioner suggested public servants may have colluded to launch robodebt when they knew it was unlawful, though she also speculated workers at one of the two departments involved may have been dishonest with the other.
READ MORE

Pensioner tells of 'sheer terror' she felt over false $65,000 robodebt

Felicity de Somerville says it would be an act of "self-sabotage" if the government ignores the robodebt royal commission report.

The 35-year-old mother had $11,500 taken from her bank account by a debt collection agency in 2017, while on a payment plan for a robodebt raised against her, but had no correspondence from Services Australia.

"The government should be implementing all the recommendations ... (it) has to be quite naive and self-sabotaging if it doesn't," she told AAP.

De Somerville said reforming Centrelink and the department would signal the government won't allow such an "egregious mistake" again.
"I don't want an empty apology from people doing it to save their reputations publicly," she said.

What's happened before?
There have been numerous investigations and inquiries into the scheme since its introduction, with the Commonwealth Ombudsman finding multiple issues with the scheme in 2017.

In 2020, the government agreed to settle a class action brought on by 400,000 victims - paying out a further $112 million in compensation on top of the existing repayments.

The Federal Court had found the scheme was unlawful and there was no way for Centrelink to have been satisfied the debts were actually correct.

In June 2021, a settlement of $1.8 billion was approved by Justice Brendan Murphy. He described the program as a “shameful chapter” in Australia’s social security scheme.

In October last year, almost 200,000 people who spent years fighting to clear welfare debts they didn't owe had their active Centrelink investigations wiped.

About 124,000 people were told they were under review for social security payments they had received, while another 73,000 were never informed they were under investigation for potential debts.

www.sbs.com.au/news/article/who-was-responsible-for-robodebt-the-royal-commission-final-report-is-about-to-tell-us/1vvx875tj

[latindancer]

More detail here : au.news.yahoo.com/robodebt-royal-commission-report-handed-173000826.html

And this is the part we want to hear :"Senior personnel behind the unlawful robodebt scheme will be referred for civil and criminal prosecution as a royal commissioner lashes the "dishonesty and collusion" behind the program".

[bear]

Royal commission into robodebt : Report recommends civil and criminal prosecutions

Scott Morrison rejects robodebt royal commission findings but won’t say if he was referred for prosecution

Anthony Albanese highlights commission’s ‘extraordinary’ conclusion that former PM’s evidence was ‘untrue’

Scott Morrison has rejected the robodebt royal commission’s findings but not said whether he has been referred for further civil or criminal actions, in contrast to claims from former Coalition ministers Christian Porter, Alan Tudge and Stuart Robert ruling themselves out.

In a statement on Friday, the former prime minister said he “completely” rejects adverse findings, claiming they were “wrong, unsubstantiated and contradicted by clear documentary evidence presented to the commission”.

That followed Anthony Albanese highlighting the “extraordinary” conclusion that the commission “rejects as untrue” Morrison’s evidence that he was told income averaging was an established practice.

Robodebt royal commission final report: key findings on Scott Morrison, Stuart Robert, Kathryn Campbell and Alan Tudge
Read more

The scathing report, released on Friday, contains criticisms of senior Coalition ministers and public servants for their handling of the robodebt scheme, described as “crude and cruel” and “neither fair nor legal”. But the public has been left in the dark about who is the subject of civil and criminal referrals, contained in a confidential sealed chapter.

Commissioner Catherine Holmes’s decision to keep referrals confidential was taken “so as not to prejudice” civil or criminal actions, the prime minister noted. “And I think people want action as a result of this.”

At a press conference in Canberra, Albanese quoted findings that Morrison, as social services minister, had “failed to meet his ministerial responsibility to ensure that cabinet was properly informed about what the proposal actually entailed, and to ensure that it was lawful”.

Holmes also found Morrison had “allowed cabinet to be misled” because he did not make the “obvious inquiry” about why his department had changed its view on whether legislation was required to change social security law. “He chose not to inquire.”

“The commission rejects as untrue Mr Morrison’s evidence that he was told that income averaging as contemplated in the executive minute was an established practice and a ‘foundational way’ in which [the Department of Human Services] worked,” the report said.

Albanese labelled this “an extraordinary comment about a former prime minister”.

In a statement, Morrison said: “I once again wish to acknowledge and express regret for the unintended consequences of the scheme and the impact that the operations of the scheme had on individuals and their families.”

Morrison said he had “fully cooperated” with the royal commission, which made no findings about his time as treasurer or prime minister.

In relation to his nine months as social services minister from December 2014 and September 2015, Morrison said: “I reject completely each of the findings which are critical of my involvement in authorising the scheme and are adverse to me. They are wrong, unsubstantiated and contradicted by clear documentary evidence presented to the commission.”

Anthony Albanese says robodebt was 'a gross betrayal and a human tragedy' – video
03:27

As the cabinet minister who brought the robodebt proposal to cabinet, Morrison said he had “acted in good faith and on clear and deliberate department advice that no legislation was required to introduce the scheme”.

Morrison said that he had “no reason to question the veracity” of advice that legislation was not required, and said executive government would be “completely unworkable” if ministers could not rely on advice.

“There is no evidence before the commission which establishes that I was responsible for the departments ceasing in their duties to stop giving frank or candid advice to me regarding the need for legislative change,” he said.

“The proposal was initiated within the public service and was not a government-initiated measure by ministers. It was initiated by departments before I became the minister for social services.”

In the report Holmes noted evidence from Morrison that robodebt was “initiated” by the public service and described the statement as “entirely correct”.

But she said this account “[ignores] part of the story” and “fails to take into account the context and environment in which the measure was conceived”.

Holmes said the robodebt proposal was “precisely responsive” to the Coalition government’s policy agenda communicated by the minister for social services “against the backdrop of a drive for savings”.

“The perceived need to ‘just get it done’ meant that concerns about the immature level of development of the proposal went either unexpressed or unheard”.

Morrison said it was an “offensive and baseless assertion” to claim he pressured public servants to say the robodebt scheme did not require legislation.

Holmes found that Porter, the former social services minister, “could not rationally have been satisfied of the legality of the scheme” and should have at least asked his department to produce any legal advice about its legality.

In a statement, Porter’s lawyers said he had “discharged his ministerial responsibilities acting in good faith based” on advice.

“Porter was not informed at any stage whilst he was acting minister for human services or minister for social services that there was any issue as to the lawfulness of the robodebt scheme,” the statement said.

“Mr Porter has not received any notice of referral (or proposed referral) to any investigative body for civil action, criminal prosecution, or otherwise.”

The report said Alan Tudge, the former human services minister, used information about welfare recipients “in the media to distract from and discourage commentary about the scheme’s problems”, labelling this “an abuse of [his public] power”.

In a statement Alan Tudge said he strongly rejects “the commission’s comments of the way I used the media and that I had abused my power in doing so”. “I reject that finding in the strongest term.”

“At no stage did I seek to engage in a media strategy that would discourage legitimate criticism of the scheme. It is part of a minister’s role to publicly defend government policy when that policy is subject to criticism.”

Tudge noted that individuals who had been referred had received prior notification. “I have not received notification that I have been referred.”

“My legal team has not identified any basis of which any civil or criminal prosecution could successfully be made against me.”

The former government services minister Stuart Robert appeared to rule himself out, telling Guardian Australia that he had “not received a notice of inclusion in the ‘sealed section’”.

Robodebt royal commission final report: what did it find and what will happen next?
Read more

The royal commission rejected Robert’s claims that he was obliged to publicly defend the scheme in its dying days, concluding that he had made “statements of fact as to the accuracy of debts, citing statistics which he knew could not be right”.

But Robert welcomed the report and its “sensible recommendations”, describing himself as “the minister that worked hard to get the legal advice and close down the income compliance scheme”.

The Coalition opposition has largely gone to ground, with no comment yet from the Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, who claimed ahead of the report’s release that criticisms are being “ramped up by [government services minister] Bill Shorten” a week out from the Fadden byelection, triggered by Robert’s resignation.

Dutton conceded there was “no question that there were problems” with robodebt but claimed the government had “politicised” the royal commission in a bid to smear the Liberal National Party ahead of the 15 July poll.

Albanese said he had released the report as soon as it was handed to government to be as “transparent as possible”.

The report found that Kathryn Campbell, the secretary of the department of human services, had done “nothing of substance” when information “brought to light the illegality of income averaging”.

“When presented with opportunities to obtain advice on the lawfulness of that practice, she failed to act,” it said.

Asked about the fate of public servants including Campbell, Albanese said “agency heads are of course are empowered to take immediate action, pending further investigations and I am very confident that they will”.

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/07/scott-morrison-rejects-robodebt-royal-commission-findings-but-wont-say-if-he-was-referred-for-prosecution

[nomadic]

Jul 7, 2023 13:04:05 GMT 7 latindancer said:

More detail here : au.news.yahoo.com/robodebt-royal-commission-report-handed-173000826.html

And this is the part we want to hear :"Senior personnel behind the unlawful robodebt scheme will be referred for civil and criminal prosecution as a royal commissioner lashes the "dishonesty and collusion" behind the program".

But only if an appropriate punishment is incurred by them will justice be served. Both as a punishment and even more so as a deterrent to all politicians and Beurocrats in the future. It could take years until we know.

[bear]

Tudge noted that individuals who had been referred had received prior notification

Can't wait to see that list!! This caveat though, if true, seems as though it may have ruled out all but one, of the main players. More than likey bureaucrats & public servants will swing for just following orders..... Cheers 🐻

[bear]

Robodebt royal commission final report: key findings on Scott Morrison, Stuart Robert, Kathryn Campbell and Alan Tudge

The royal commission report has levelled strong criticism of the three former ministers and senior public servant. Here are the main points from the inquiry’s findings

The royal commission’s report is scathing of the former prime minister Scott Morrison, former government services minister Stuart Robert and former department of human services secretary Kathryn Campbell.

Here are the key criticisms made in the report about each of the key government figures in the robodebt scheme.

Scott Morrison
The commissioner, Catherine Holmes, directly criticised Morrison in her report for not making proper inquiries in his role as social services minister about why his department went back on its 2015 suggestion that income averaging required legislative change.

It’s a key question because income averaging – the often false assumption that someone’s yearly income can be spread evenly across Centrelink’s 26 fortnightly reporting periods – is at the heart of robodebt’s injustice and illegality, leading to flawed debt calculations and untold damage.

How Morrison launched Australia’s ‘strong welfare cop’ – and the pain robodebt left in its wake
Read more

Holmes said it was “obvious” that Morrison should have asked about the sudden change. The failure to ask about it led to cabinet being misled, she found.

Morrison also failed in his ministerial responsibility, the report said.

Mr Morrison allowed cabinet to be misled because he did not make that obvious inquiry. He took the proposal to cabinet without necessary information as to what it actually entailed and without the caveat that it required legislative and policy change to permit the use of the ATO PAYG data in the way proposed in circumstances where: he knew that the proposal still involved income averaging; only a few weeks previously he had been told of that caveat; nothing had changed in the proposal; and he had done nothing to ascertain why the caveat no longer applied. He failed to meet his ministerial responsibility to ensure that Cabinet was properly informed about what the proposal actually entailed and to ensure that it was lawful.

Holmes said the commission “rejects as untrue” Morrison’s evidence that income averaging was an established practice and a “foundational way” in which the department of human services worked.


In a statement on Friday afternoon, Morrison flatly rejected the report’s findings in relation to his involvement.

“I reject completely each of the findings which are critical of my involvement in authorising the scheme and are adverse to me,” the statement said. “They are wrong, unsubstantiated and contradicted by clear documentary evidence presented to the commission.”

He said he had “acted in good faith and on clear and deliberate Department advice that no legislation was required to introduce the scheme”.

Morrison said he had “no reason to question the veracity” of advice that legislation was not required.

“There is no evidence before the commission which establishes that I was responsible for the departments ceasing in their duties to stop giving frank or candid advice to me regarding the need for legislative change,” he said.

Stuart Robert
Robert, the government services minister during the final period of robodebt, was also strongly criticised by the royal commission.

Robert claimed in evidence to the commission that he attempted to end the scheme as soon as possible and had serious concerns about income averaging. The royal commission rejected parts of his evidence, saying:

[The] weight of the evidence is strongly against Mr Robert’s having given any instruction to [secretary of human services] Ms Leon on 7 or 8 November 2019 to cease income averaging as a sole or partial basis for debt raising. What seems to have happened at the meeting on 8 November 2019 was a canvassing of options. It is reasonable to suppose that Mr Robert still hoped to salvage the Robodebt Scheme in some respects.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Robert was also criticised for using false figures about robodebt’s accuracy to publicly defend the scheme. Robert told the royal commission he was publicly praising the scheme, despite having private reservations about it, out of cabinet solidarity.

But the royal commission said:

It can be accepted that the principles of Cabinet solidarity required Mr Robert to publicly support Cabinet decisions, whether he agreed with them or not. But Mr Robert was not expounding any legal position, and he was going well beyond supporting government policy. He was making statements of fact as to the accuracy of debts, citing statistics which he knew could not be right. Nothing compels ministers to knowingly make false statements, or statements which they have good reason to suspect are untrue, in the course of publicly supporting any decision or program.

In a response on Friday afternoon Robert maintained that he had tried to have robodebt shut down.

“As the minister that worked hard to get the legal advice and close down the income compliance scheme I welcome the [royal commission] report and its sensible recommendations.”

Kathryn Campbell
The royal commission report is scathing of Campbell, the former department of human services secretary, on multiple points.

Ms Campbell had been responsible for a department that had established, implemented and maintained an unlawful program. When exposed to information that brought to light the illegality of income averaging, she did nothing of substance. When presented with opportunities to obtain advice on the lawfulness of that practice, she failed to act.

It was damning of her handling of the policy proposal for robodebt that went to cabinet’s powerful expenditure review committee in 2015.

The policy proposal said nothing of income averaging or of the need for legislative change, despite prior advice from the Department of Social Services that such change would be needed.

The report found Campbell knew of both the intended use of income averaging and the DSS advice that legislative change was needed, but did nothing to change the policy proposal that went to government.

Stuart Robert admits making ‘false’ robodebt statements – but how real were his ‘personal misgivings’?
Read more

It found she did so because she knew Morrison wanted to “pursue the proposal and that the government could not achieve the savings” that were promised without income averaging.

In oral evidence, Ms Campbell accepted that the NPP [new policy proposal] was apt to mislead Cabinet. She contended that her failure to eliminate its misleading effect was an “oversight.” That would be an extraordinary oversight for someone of Ms Campbell’s seniority and experience. The weight of the evidence instead leads to the conclusion that Ms Campbell knew of the misleading effect of the NPP but chose to stay silent, knowing that Mr Morrison wanted to pursue the proposal and that the Government could not achieve the savings which the NPP promised without income averaging.

It was also scathing of her handling of a request for legal advice about robodebt, made by the acting secretary, Barry Jackson, while she was on leave in early 2017. Campbell returned from leave and “instructed DHS officers” to cease responding to Jackson’s request for legal advice.

The Commission finds that Ms Campbell instructed DHS officers to cease the process of responding to Mr Jackson’s request for advice, motivated by a concern that the unlawfulness of the Scheme might be exposed to the Ombudsman in the course of its investigation.

It also found that she knew her statements that there had “been no change to how we assess income or calculate and recover debts”, a key deflection used to defend the scheme, were false. She knew that because Colleen Taylor, a frontline Centrelink staffer, had told her in forensic detail why it was wrong and expressed concerns she was “being misled”.

When Ms Taylor expressly brought the falsity of that statement to her attention on 7 February 2017, Ms Campbell took no steps to correct it. Ms Campbell accepted that the persons to whom she had delegated the review of Ms Taylor’s complaints had not followed up and addressed them in any systematic way. The responsibility was hers, but she took no further action.

Campbell has been approached for comment.

Alan Tudge
Tudge was the human services minister in 2017 when the robodebt scheme was facing national scrutiny. The royal commission was damning of his handling of the controversy, describing some of his actions as a reprehensible “abuse of power”.

Holmes found that Tudge was “not open to considering any significant alteration, or cessation, of processes underlying those fundamental features”.

Holmes found Tudge used “information about social security recipients in the media to distract from and discourage commentary about the scheme’s problems represented an abuse of that power”.

She wrote:

As a minister, Mr Tudge was invested with a significant amount of public power. Mr Tudge’s use of information about social security recipients in the media to distract from and discourage commentary about the scheme’s problems represented an abuse of that power. It was all the more reprehensible in view of the power imbalance between the minister and the cohort of people upon whom it would reasonably be expected to have the most impact, many of whom were vulnerable and dependent on the department, and its minister, for their livelihood.

Holmes accepted that Tudge believed he was “bound by the cabinet decision to implement them, but that did not mean he could not have investigated the problems with them and raised any concerns with the appropriate senior minister”.

On Friday Tudge said he rejected the findings about the way he used the media and the alleged abuse of power “in the strongest terms”.

“At no stage did I seek to engage in a media strategy that would discourage legitimate criticism of the scheme. It is part of a minister’s role to publicly defend government policy when that policy is subject to criticism.”

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/07/robodebt-royal-commission-final-report-key-findings-ministers-scott-morrison-stuart-robert

[bear]

How the Coalition collaborated with ‘friendly media’ to silence robodebt victims

Alan Tudge’s office planned to use sympathetic outlets such as News Corp to counter reporting on scheme, royal commission report reveals.

Five years of lies, mistakes and failures that caused a $1.8bn scandal.

When Alan Tudge needed to promote what became known as robodebt in December 2016, he found willing media outlets in the Australian newspaper, 2GB and A Current Affair.

Read more:- www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/07/how-the-coalition-collaborated-with-friendly-media-to-silence-robodebt-victims

[Banjo]

Jul 8, 2023 6:42:46 GMT 7 bear said:

Tudge noted that individuals who had been referred had received prior notification

Can't wait to see that list!! This caveat though, if true, seems as though it may have ruled out all but one, of the main players. More than likey bureaucrats & public servants will swing for just following orders..... Cheers 🐻

Give the lot of them a good Tudging.

[bear]

Commissioner rejects PwC partner’s oral evidence

The robo-debt royal commission rejected the oral evidence of a PwC partner who testified he could not recall if the firm was preparing a report about the scheme for the Department of Human Services.

Royal commissioner Catherine Holmes said she instead accepted the evidence of three other PwC personnel who all said they believed the firm was preparing a report for Human Services. She also accepted the revised evidence of the first partner who admitted it was “likely” Human Services knew a report was being prepared.

Read more:- www.afr.com/companies/professional-services/robo-debt-royal-commission-rejects-oral-evidence-of-pwc-partner-20230707-p5dpmir

First robodebt royal commission scalp confirmed at PwC

PwC Acting PwC Australia boss Kristin Stubbins confirmed a partner who worked with the Department of Human Services had parted ways with the firm. 

The first round of departures in the wake of the delivery of the report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme has started, with embattled consulting firm PwC Australia acting swiftly to create distance between itself and those who worked on the ill-fated and ultimately illegal project.

The current acting chief executive of PwC Australia Kristin Stubbins confirmed on Friday that the partner who worked on the then Department of Human Services dissected by the royal commission had parted ways with the firm, just hours after the report was released at 11 am on Friday.

“Like all Australians, we have found the contents of this report deeply distressing,” Stubbins told The Mandarin. “For PwC’s part, we acknowledge the findings of the commission in relation to PwC’s work for the DHS in relation to robodebt.”

“A PwC partner who testified to the royal commission was asked to exit the partnership and is no longer with the firm.”

The swift action by PwC comes as the firm tries to draw a line under a series of government actions against it, ranging from de facto procurement bans in the wake of the leakage of confidential Australian Taxation Office information that resulted in a partner being booted from the Tax Practitioners Board for breaching confidentiality, unleashing a massive pile-on against the company.

The evidence and findings in the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme in relation to how the firm and Human Services interacted are fairly grim.

They revolve around how a very large report outlining robodebt’s many defects and potential fixes was somehow shrunk down to a PowerPoint deck for which PwC ultimately invoiced DHS around $1 million.

The royal commission report puts it this way: “On 7 June 2017, PwC issued its final invoice to DHS. That invoice contained two itemised “Phase 4” deliverables, which were described as an “implementation roadmap” and an “implementation strategy”.

“DHS later paid the invoice,” The royal commission report said.

“The report that had been prepared by PwC was never formally received by DHS. The total amount paid by DHS to PwC for the February to June 2017 engagement was $853,859 excluding GST.”

The report goes on to say that all of the PwC’s witnesses had indicated they had “formed an understanding” that Human Services would be OK with receiving an eight-slide PowerPoint rather than the 100-page report initially commissioned.

“What is significant for this Commission is that what this indication meant, in effect, was that DHS communicated to PwC that the draft report was not to be finalised and provided to DHS,” the royal commission report said.

The royal commission report noted the involvement of then DHS secretary Kathryn Campbell.

“It is worth noting that Ms [Kathryn] Campbell [the then secretary of DHS] made the decision to engage PwC, initiated that engagement, and approved the engagement letter, which included specific reference to the production of a final report as a deliverable under that engagement.

“Ms Campbell was involved in monitoring the work of PwC, including in personally attending presentations and the presentation to the minister. A communication by DHS that the ‘report’ deliverable component was no longer required, and that the presentation would instead suffice, either required, or amounted to, a variation of the official order,” the royal commission report said.

And it gets worse.

“The Commission finds that on or about 6 June 2017, Ms Campbell communicated to [PwC partner Terry] Weber that the report was not to be finalised and provided to DHS. Despite the importance of that indication from DHS, it does not appear to have been documented at the time.

“As detailed above, the report was far more extensive and critical of the Scheme’s failings than the PowerPoint presentation; it revealed that it would not deliver the projected budget savings, that it was producing a significant percentage of inaccurate debts, and, crucially, that the online process had been a failure.

“The Commission concludes that Ms Campbell made the decision that it should not be finalised and delivered to DHS. The rational inference is that although the report was contracted for and all but finalised, Ms Campbell formed the view that its detail as to the deficiencies of the Scheme was damaging and that it would be better for the department’s reputation, and her own, if it were not produced.”

www.themandarin.com.au/224720-pwc-confirms-first-robodebt-royal-commission-scalp/

[latindancer]

This issue was the very first article on the 7 pm ABC news last night, and it took up seven minutes...quite a long time.

Bill Shorten came on and said that the Australian public were gaslighted during and after Robodebt, which described various peoples' behaviour quite well.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim’s mind. Typically, gaslighters are seeking to gain power and control over the other person, by distorting reality and forcing them to question their own judgment and intuition.

Jul 7, 2023 20:26:57 GMT 7 nomadic said:

And this is the part we want to hear :"Senior personnel behind the unlawful robodebt scheme will be referred for civil and criminal prosecution as a royal commissioner lashes the "dishonesty and collusion" behind the program". But only if an appropriate punishment is incurred by them will justice be served. Both as a punishment and even more so as a deterrent to all politicians and Beurocrats in the future.

Don't get too excited, Nomadic. Many of us know you are hoping that Hank Jongen will go down , but I don't think he is implicated in all this. Pity he ain't.

[itsmylife08]

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in the victim’s mind. Typically, gaslighters are seeking to gain power and control over the other person, by distorting reality and forcing them to question their judgment and intuition.

Gaslighting don't you just love that word, sounds very Dickensian. Most if not all Centrelink staff were tutored in the dark arts to gain an advantage over their clients. I believe that the above paragraph describes most of them to a T in gaining an advantage over their fellow Australians including yours truly. The tactics are reminiscent of those used in the Robodebt Royal Commission.

Cheers Itsa

[bear]

Jul 9, 2023 18:47:09 GMT 7 itsmylife08 said:

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in the victim’s mind. Typically, gaslighters are seeking to gain power and control over the other person, by distorting reality and forcing them to question their judgment and intuition.

Gaslighting don't you just love that word, sounds very Dickensian. Most if not all Centrelink staff were tutored in the dark arts to gain an advantage over their clients. I believe that the above paragraph describes most of them to a T in gaining an advantage over their fellow Australians including yours truly. The tactics are reminiscent of those used in the Robodebt Royal Commission.

Cheers Itsa

Surely gaslighting goes against one UN Charter or another.

After all, if your having your reality distorted to the point of questioning your own judgement and intuition, shouldn't that be classed as torture? Cheers 🐻

[nomadic]

Jul 8, 2023 16:50:59 GMT 7 latindancer said:

This issue was the very first article on the 7 pm ABC news last night, and it took up seven minutes...quite a long time.

Bill Shorten came on and said that the Australian public were gaslighted during and after Robodebt, which described various peoples' behaviour quite well.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim’s mind. Typically, gaslighters are seeking to gain power and control over the other person, by distorting reality and forcing them to question their own judgment and intuition.

Jul 7, 2023 20:26:57 GMT 7 nomadic said:

And this is the part we want to hear :"Senior personnel behind the unlawful robodebt scheme will be referred for civil and criminal prosecution as a royal commissioner lashes the "dishonesty and collusion" behind the program". But only if an appropriate punishment is incurred by them will justice be served. Both as a punishment and even more so as a deterrent to all politicians and Beurocrats in the future.

Don't get too excited, Nomadic. Many of us know you are hoping that Hank Jongen will go down , but I don't think he is implicated in all this. Pity he ain't.

Actually LD, I didn't see Jongen at all during the R.C. But Morrison, Robert, Tudge and Campbell would be a great quadrella. Hank just tells lies to everyone after the events. He tries to justify everything the powers above him do with false but fancy words. And most of the sheeple believe him.

[bear]

Early robodebt critics outraged by how long Coalition persisted with unlawful scheme

Shocking to learn politicians and public servants ‘were basically just lying to us’, Andrew Wilkie says

Early critics of robodebt have said they are shocked, appalled and outraged by how long the Coalition government persisted with the unlawful scheme.

The independent MP Andrew Wilkie and former the administrative appeals tribunal member Terry Carney were responding to the release of the royal commission report on Friday.

The commission, which made referrals for possible civil action and criminal prosecution of unnamed individuals, credits some politicians, civil society and whistleblowers for speaking out about the scheme in its early days.

These include Wilkie, who repeatedly raised the issue of constituents’ incorrect debt notices, the former senator Nick Xenophon, Labor’s shadow human services minister, Linda Burney, the Australian Council of Social Services, and Carney, who warned the scheme was unlawful in 2018 after he was not reappointed to the AAT.

Carney, who as an AAT member frequently wiped robodebts due to the unlawful process of income averaging, said he was “appalled and outraged that it did take so long to confront the bleedingly obvious”.

Let’s be clear. Robodebt was ended by welfare recipients with their suffering
Read more

“It wasn’t a sophisticated legal issue, it was clear cut and as we now know lots of people within relevant bureaucracies did actually from early on appreciate it was illegal unless legislation was passed to authorise it,” he told Guardian Australia.

Carney said the royal commissioner, Catherine Holmes, was “spot on” in identifying the culture of demonising welfare recipients as a cause of the failure of administration. He said Australians were “the world’s greatest demonisers of dole bludgers”.

Wilkie said: “We all knew it was a flawed data matching system, spitting out incorrect notices, and damaging people terribly.”

But the member for Clark said it was still shocking to learn that “public servants and politicians knew it was illegal and every time they responded to … inquiries, they were basically just lying to us”.

“It was such a complete failure of governance, and potentially criminal behaviour. That has shocked me.”

Those accused of misconduct “deserve their day in court”, he added, but if the royal commission’s findings were accurate “then frankly they should throw the book at these people”.

“For many of the victims there is no satisfactory remedy. Their lives were impacted so greatly and, of course, the people who self-harmed and suicided, those families will never get their loved one back. Nothing will ever make this fully right.”

On Sunday Burney told ABC’s Insiders that Labor had publicly warned that “the algorithm was unjust and unfair and that there was no human involvement in it”.

“This is a shocking indictment of it not being stopped,” she said. “And it just it just says to me there has to be consequences.

“I can’t articulate exactly what they should be because I don’t know what’s in the sealed section.”

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has conceded that “mistakes” were made by “individuals” involved in the unlawful robodebt scheme, while warning against a “trial by media” on the findings of the royal commission.

The education minister, Jason Clare, said that Dutton had shown “all the empathy of a rock” in responding to the royal commission report.

“The fact that Peter Dutton on the day that this came down, went straight to politics showed that this bloke doesn’t get it,” he told Sky News.

Clare said Scott Morrison, his ministers and bureaucrats “are going to have to live with this on their conscience for the rest of their lives.”.

Morrison has said he “completely” rejects adverse findings, claiming they were “wrong, unsubstantiated and contradicted by clear documentary evidence presented to the commission”.

As the cabinet minister who brought the robodebt proposal to cabinet, Morrison said he had “acted in good faith and on clear and deliberate department advice that no legislation was required to introduce the scheme.

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/09/early-robodebt-critics-outraged-by-how-long-coalition-persisted-with-unlawful-scheme

[latindancer]

Jul 9, 2023 22:14:42 GMT 7 bear said:

Morrison has said he “completely” rejects adverse findings, claiming they were “wrong, unsubstantiated and contradicted by clear documentary evidence presented to the commission”.

As the cabinet minister who brought the robodebt proposal to cabinet, Morrison said he had “acted in good faith and on clear and deliberate department advice that no legislation was required to introduce the scheme.

Morrison is in complete denial and is a dangerously deluded, self-righteous fool. And saying that the findings were “wrong, unsubstantiated and contradicted by clear documentary evidence presented to the commission” is an utterly stupid thing to say. He's descending to the level of Donald Trump's denials and accusations. What a clown !

Catherine Holmes, who ran the royal commission, was appointed to it on account of her very sharp mind, having demonstrated in the past that she can see through confusion, gaslighting, obfuscation etc etc. That's why and how she was appointed to a Royal Commission !
Her mind is sharp as a knife, and utterly on another level from his warm rice pudding mind.