This appeared last week:
Govt to pay back $721m wrongly raised through robodebt
By Justin Hendry on May 29, 2020 4:01PM
Finally bites the bullet.
The federal government will refund $720 million extracted from welfare recipients under the guise of 'debts' that were created and collected under the reviled robodebt program that was subsequently found not to be legal.
In a statement on Friday, Government Services Minister Stuart Robert said “470,000 debts raised wholly or partially using income averaging of Australia Tax Office data” would be repaid.
“Refunding of eligible debts will commence in July and will continue through the 2020-21 financial year,” he said.
“The total value of refunds including fees and charges is estimated at $721 million.”
Robodebt, officially known as the income compliance program, was introduced by the then Department of Human Services in 2016 to replace parts of a formally manual debt-raising process.
The system automatically matched earnings reported to Centrelink against employer-reported income data held by the ATO, with individuals asked to explain any discrepancies.
But last November, the government was forced to change the way debts are raised after a Federal Court ruling found the way so-called debts were raised failed the evidence test at the first hurdle.
A class action has also been brought against the government by Gordon Legal over the OCI program, with a potential trial slated for July.
More than 30,000 people are reported to have registered with the law firm and thousands more have been sent letters by Services Australia in recent weeks.
More here:
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/govt-to-pay-back-721m-wrongly-raised-through-robodebt-548745
There is some powerful commentary on the damage done to people’s lives here:
June 1 2020 - 4:30AM
Robodebt was an algorithmic weapon of calculated political cruelty
· Asher Wolf
Robodebt was a terror campaign against class mobility. The automated data-matching program cost almost as much to run as it was projected to recoup.
It was apparent the Coalition was stealing from the poor within months of Attorney-General Christian Porter (then social services minister) launching the scheme. The government hired debt collectors, made appeals difficult, imposed travel restrictions for those targeted and changed the statute of limitations on debt collection. Despite immediate complaints of false debts, the Coalition refused to change course.
The social media campaign erupted in late 2016, thanks to a few hundred key people consisting of hackers, data scientists, lawyers, policy specialists, union members, artists and activists. The movement centred around notmydebt.com.au, built by Lyndsey Jackson. The hashtag #Robodebt was soon monikered by journalist Ben Eltham and Swinburne University lecturer Belinda Barnet.
The campaign involved people of all political persuasions. Many reverse-engineered their own robodebts to unravel flawed maths behind false debts. Volunteers frequently received emails and phone calls from people distressed by debt collection harassment. People were victimised and criminalised simply for accessing social security.
In early 2017, activists occupied MP Alan Tudge's office and burned debt notices outside Redfern Centrelink. Welfare rights campaigners demanded that media use respectful language, and rehumanised welfare recipients in the process. IT industry veteran Justin Warren analysed policy documents and FOI'd operational manuals. Twitter account @CentrelinkDown analysed dropped Centrelink calls, discovering millions going unanswered. Centrelink whistleblowers took huge personal risks to expose the robodebt program. The government's founding chief executive of the Digital Transformation Agency, the late Paul Shetler, quit in disgust and became a vocal supporter of reform.
The Australian Unemployed Workers' Union, the Australian Council of Social Service and the Community and Public Sector Union were solid allies. Victoria Legal Aid (VLA) saw a 300 per cent spike in calls about robodebts and a 500 per cent increase in website searches for "Centrelink". I often wonder if robodebt would have been shut down sooner if legal aid was properly funded.
The government sparked backlash against robodebt when it attacked freelance journalist Andie Fox, who published her personal account of robodebt. The government responded by leaking her case details to the media. Acting Federal Information and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk cleared the government - but as my late friend and fellow digital rights activist Peter Tonoli shrewdly noted, the incident was chilling, both to activism and speech.
Robodebt was bureaucratic violence enabled by lack of government accountability. Its prime purpose was the dogmatic pursuit of a campaign of cruelty against the unemployed, disabled people, single parents, care-givers, casual and gig economy workers.
The Department of Human Services went on the offensive, claiming the program was working as intended. None of the software developers contracted to create the robodebt algorithm took responsibility for the decision to allow purposely flawed accounting to wreak havoc on people's lives.
The grassroots campaign supported thousands of people to challenge robodebts at the Administrative Affairs Tribunal, creating a case backlog and jamming up VLA's workload. Sydney University Emeritus Professor of Law Terry Carney was an AAT member and declared the program illegal. The government promptly removed Carney from the AAT.
More here:
To me there are a number of lessons that are relevant to Digital Health and the ADHA.
The first is the obvious problem that most politicians simply do not understand technology and how it can be both applied and misapplied. The lack of detailed understanding about how the robo-debt program and the #myhealth program works means that the systems are wrongly over-valued, and are seen to be successful.
The second is that simplistic policy that lacks any real evidence base can be funded and implemented by politicians who lack any real understanding of what the risks and consequences of what they support might be.
Thirdly the lack of in-depth understanding can lead to programs that do not add value or a plain illegal continue for much longer than they should and that the waste of public money continues way past the system’s use-by date.
Fourth systems like robo-debt and #myHealthRecord can have real world and un-intended bad consequences with the poor unfairly targeted and domestic violence victims not properly protected.
Political ignorance and naïve confidence in technology is a pretty dangerous brew!
David.
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