Hiya Foxy,

I seem to be outa practice.

I posted a comment to ttbn's "wokeness" comment in the wrong thread.

Sorry about that, folks.

mhaze,
As an engineer I see it a bit differently. Do you know what "failsafe" means?

Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't mean failures will never occur; it means that if and when failures do occur it's still safe.

We can assume failures will occur, but the issue is what happens when they do.
Fail to danger situations (aka wrong side failures) must always be avoided.

Centrelink was having right side failures: a relatively small amount of money was being wasted, but our most vulnerable were still getting paid. A data matching system was being developed to reduce the instances of failure. But Robodebt misused data matching and was deliberately set to fail to danger. That's something that should never even have been considered, let alone implemented.

So this is not just "an enquiry to work out what systems we should implement to fix the failed system that was implemented to fix a failed system". We need to find out who thought it was acceptable to introduce wrong side failures to fix right side failures, and why. And we need to rid the Public Service of the incompetent sycophants who did nothing to stop it, and to introduce procedures to ensure all Public Servants are mindful of their duty to point out problems before they inevitably result in real damage!

And of course more government isn't the solution to all problems. But government is best placed to solve many problems, and they certainly won't be solved by reducing the government's capability.

Poirot,

I agree the word is rather imprecise, but when you writing a short paragraph or two (350 words) short-cuts are inevitable. Woke isn't quite the same as virtue-signalling but close. The woke community are those who accept reflexively the current 'progressive' tropes. We could try to define each subset of the group each time we post. but how tedious would that be.

Aidan,

I come at this from a computer programming perspective and ultimately this was a failure of computer systems. From my angle, it was an unforgivable error borne of a failure to adequately test. I've been involved in many a project where data is utilised in revolutionary ways, such a Robodebt tried to do with a range of financial data. But in private industry where business reputation is on the line, not to mention that of the programmers themselves, the by-word is testing.

It is astonishing that this thing wasn't tested up-hill and down-dale long before any letters went out to the public. Its even more astonishing that the early batches of those letters weren't thoroughly vetted as a form of sample-testing to ensure the system was operating as hoped. The notion of just sending out the letters hoping to fix it later is something only an entity with no concern for customers, reputation or profit would do.

"they certainly won't be solved by reducing the government's capability". Well they haven't been solved by increasing the government's capability.

Dear mhaze,

Your side of politics, whatever stipe you claim for yourself, want smaller government and by extension less government services as you have clearly stated.

The Coalition went ahead despite firm legal advice that the scheme was likely illegal. Are you really postulating that the public service would have done this without instruction from one of the worst governments in recent memory.

Again, your side of politics has been perpetually scathing of public servants as you are here. This denigration has left us with an overly compliant body, one that is able to be ramrodded by the likes of Morrison.

Firmly at your feet old boy.

mhaze,

This royal commission is not charged with determining the legality or otherwise of 'Robodebt', the Federal Court has declared it illegal by approving a $1.8 billion settlement between your Tory government and their victims. Albanese in announcing the RC said it would cover the establishment of the system (Robodebt), who was responsible for it, why the former government considered it necessary, its impact on victims, the financial cost to government, and how to ensure it can never happen again.

As for not voting Tory, I'm sure at the end of the night your vote is smack bang in the middle of the Tory pile, along with all the other One Nation votes in your electorate, defiantly as Steele said; "your side of politics".

So many lives ruined. Those responsible must be held to account.
Foxy,
Yes !
The bureaudroids who didn't do their job as per usual.