That's not what I was referring to, mhaze.

//...someone prepared to doctor a quote to hide hypocrisy and then brazenly deny it.//

But since you've brought it up again, let's get two more impartial analyses:

--ChatGPT--

(Summary extract)
Verdict

John flagged the ellipsis. The omission changed nothing. The accusation is baseless.

mhaze’s claim is misleading.

He either didn’t read carefully or is deliberately trying to manufacture a gotcha where none exists. Either way, it’s a deflection tactic - not a good-faith response.

http://chatgpt.com/share/68bfab8e-6db8-8005-b68e-da74adb69ee3

--Gemini--

In the debate provided, mhaze's claim about the ellipsis is misleading.

John Daysh uses an ellipsis to quote mhaze's earlier statement: "True. But only if you utterly mangle the meaning of the word "subsidy".

Mhaze then accuses John Daysh of "mangl[ing] the definition" of a subsidy and "distracting from the fact that you have been caught lying". In the post a few minutes later, John Daysh quotes a more complete version of the original post, including a phrase directly before the ellipsis:

"For the EASILY DISTRACTED and those with comprehension issues...." John Daysh argues that this phrase was a literal flag for the shortened quote and the ellipsis.

Therefore, John Daysh did not add a misleading ellipsis; he used an ellipsis to shorten a quote and flagged the omission in the original post. It is mhaze who is misleading in his characterization of John Daysh's use of the ellipsis.

http://g.co/gemini/share/aebb80c7ae4c

Moving on...

Taken literally, your standard wasn't just a high bar, it was ludicrous. No policy gets warnings phrased as “deaths will follow.” Governments are warned of distress, harm, unlawfulness - and are expected to understand the implications.

Which is exactly what happened.

The RC confirmed multiple suicides were linked to Robodebt, including families receiving debt letters after their loved one had taken their own life.

So, even if your phrasing was “impending suicides,” the warnings about systemic harm were clear, loud, and repeated. Ministers pushed ahead anyway.

And the idea that such harm only matters if someone predicted specific deaths in advance? That’s not a neutral observer talking, that’s someone trying not to see it.

"Taken literally, your standard wasn't just a high bar, it was ludicrous."

Well you're the one who raised it. You thought you had a slam dunk and then reality smacked you behind the ear.

In the Pink Batts fiasco, ministers were warned that people would die...and they carried on regardless.

In the Robodebt fiasco, no one was warned people would die.

The end.

"In the Robodebt fiasco, no one was warned people would die."
- It's their job to consider the consequences of policies they support.
If they weren't warned, then they failed to do due diligence to find out what the consequences would be.

Either way, it's governmental incompetence.

Or better put: a nation run by idiots.

Actually, mhaze, that’s not "the end":

//In the Pink Batts fiasco, ministers were warned that people would die...and they carried on regardless. In the Robodebt fiasco, no one was warned people would die.//

It’s the start of a conversation about how power dodges responsibility using impossible standards.

You're demanding that someone had to literally warn that suicides would occur, or else ministers are blameless. But that bar is so absurdly specific it was never going to be met - not because no one foresaw harm, but because predicting suicide isn't like predicting electrocution or fire.

Mental health risk is probabilistic, not deterministic. It's shaped by stress, shame, debt, isolation, and individual psychology. It’s not physics, and those who work in the space don’t use terms like "someone will die by suicide", because they know they'll be accused of hyperbole or weaponising mental illness. They’ll be told they’re "emotional" or "alarmist."

That’s why most used phrases like "serious harm," "psychological distress," or "devastating impact" - and they absolutely did.

To take just one example, ACOSS warned Tudge in December 2016 and again in June 2017 that the scheme was causing harm, was distressing, inaccurate, and likely unlawful. But because the phrase "someone will die" wasn't written in black and white, you're claiming ministers are off the hook.

That’s not a standard. That’s a shield for plausible deniability.

If anything, this explains the scandal perfectly:

- Those in power banked on harm being hard to quantify.
- They relied on victims being voiceless, isolated, and dismissed.
- And when the worst happened? They could say, "Well no one warned us someone would die…"

That's how systemic cruelty operates. Not with mustache-twirling villains, but with goalpost shifting, implausible deniability, and pretending harm doesn't exist unless it's pre-labelled as death.

You set a bar so impossibly high that even if it was crossed, you'd say the language was "too emotional" to count.

If we applied that logic retroactively, no public health policy would ever be justified, no social policy ever reviewed, and no RC ever triggered - unless someone first predicted death in writing.

the start of a conversation about how power dodges responsibility using impossible standards.
John Daysh,
Power as in facilitated by incompetent Bureaucracy !

JD,

You're the one who set the test. You found me years ago talking about the pink batt deaths being predicted and then claimed that this was the same in the Robodebt situation. And now that I've shown your claims to be wrong you suddenly say its an unfair comparison even though it was your comparison.

Wouldn't it be easier (and a whole lot more honest) to just accept your error and move on?

Anyway, after all that, we end up with a monumental stuff up caused by an incompetent bureaucracy and facilitated by a ministry singularly incapable of managing that bureaucracy