Very welcome news that the Labor Government has announced a Royal Commission into the blighted, destructive and discredited Robodebt saga.

Costing numerous quite innocent people their lives it really needs a through investigation and to tease out who was responsible for such a pathetic policy initiative.

What a surprise, Labor hasn't even managed a few months without a royal commission.

That no crime was committed and all the information is available in government records makes this another opportunity for virtue signalling and photo ops. That robodebt made a few mistakes is true, but it also recovered a lot of falsely claimed money.

Something else to take the electorates' mind off the lack of anything coming from the Albanese regime. The electorate showed what it thought of the things the Coalition did, and they acted accordingly (still more primary votes going to them than Labor, though).

'Pathetic' is the only word that describes Albowhine's mewling about a vanquished government that looks like staying vanquished for some time, even with the Dad and Dave show now in charge.

Shadowminister,

Usual bulldust from you.

“Services Australia announced in September 2019 that expenditure on the Robodebt program was A$606 million while recouping A$785 million.”

Wikipedia

Turned out most of if was incorrectly recovered.

“A total of $751 million was wrongly recovered from 381,000 people. A $1.8 billion settlement was ordered last year for people who were wrongly pursued, and government ministers were lambasted by Federal Court Justice Bernard Murphy over the "massive failure".”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-25/robodebt-royal-commission-to-probe-unlawful-debt-collection/101357198

A massive failure yet you are sitting there defending it?

Give it a miss mate, you have no idea.

Besides which this was an election promise from the Labor Government and they are rightly fulfilling it..

Given their obsessing over what the previous government did, pushing their apartheid system, and working out how on earth they will achieve 43% reduction in emissions without bringing the country to a grinding halt, the Socialists are not going to achieve much over the next three years except poverty and chaos.

SR,

Looks like you cocked it up again.

From the Guardian:

"Since 2015, a total of $2.1bn is estimated to have been raised through the income compliance – or robodebt – program, including about 200,000 debts the government still considers legal and which it is not proposing to refund."

The problem is not with the algorithm that helped locate welfare cheat but the aggressive nature of the ATO which treats all tax queries with the assumption of guilt and has been brought up many times in many different instances under both governments.

The problem with Albozo's royal commission is that all of this is well documented and unless the ATO has shredded the documents there is little to nothing more that a RC can achieve more than a non-royal commission can.

However, Labor once again is more than happy to piss money against the wall in the name of virtue signalling.

Shadowminister,

Sigh.

Please read your own link.

A debt being raised is not the same as monies collected.
As the article says: “The total value of the debts raised is much larger than the refunds being issued because much of the money has not been paid back, in many cases because people have sought payment plans, including through forced deductions from their Centrelink benefits. Overall, it means about three-quarters of all money banked from the robodebt program will likely need to be either repaid or wiped. It is also understood an estimate of the service delivery costs of processing the hundreds of thousands of refunds – which is expected to take about three hours for a complex debt – was in excess of $200m.”

Let me know if you require any further explanation.

We don't need an inquiry to find out why the scheme failed.

It was a government run programme....of course it failed.

I'm not sure what the Robodebt was all about
or why it even happened. However I do know that
innocent voters got badly hurt so it does seem
to be appropriate that an independent body would
provide voters with answers.

95 % of the Public Service is Labor. How can anyone expect any commission royal or otherwise to reveal what really happened !
They'll just blame the Coalition & that'll be it !

95% of the Public Service is Labor?

What's the basis of that "fact", considering the history of stacking the the upper levels of the Public Service with Liberal Party appointees? The role of the Public Service is to implement Government decisions. They are basically "drones" doing the bidding of their masters and not responsible for bad policy.

How is this one different from the Pink Batts Commission or the traditional ones into Unions held at every opportunity - apart from the number of casualties and the financial penalties subsequently funded by taxpayers? Even that amount doesn't compare to the wasteful Jobkeeper handouts given to big business.

One thing that's obvious is that Morrison's fingerprints were all over it at each stage of Robodebt's implementation.

I hope this is just the entree to a wide-reaching Federal ICAC to follow.

Shadow,
You're correct that "The problem is not with the algorithm that helped locate welfare cheat" but you're wrong to blame it on "the aggressive nature of the ATO which treats all tax queries with the assumption of guilt" – for it was not procedures the ATO that was to blame, but the government ordering Centrelink to treat its output as debts to collect rather than potential debts to investigate.

What we don't know is why! Was it just another of ScoMo's cockups? Someone else's cockup? If so, why didn't procedures prevent those cockups from occurring?
Another more serious possibility is that it was deliberate. That's far less likely IMO, but considering its potential seriousness, it shouldn't be ignored. At the moment we can't be sure that no crime was committed.

As the Banking Royal Commission has demonstrated, Royal Commissions can find out a lot more than is expected at the outset. So although this appears at first to be a waste of money, it's likely to turn out to be money well spent.

Thanks Steele for the thread, I was going to put that very topic up myself this morning.

RoboDebt was run by RoboMorrison when he was Treasurer, says it all, Was Morrison the not so secret Minister for RoboDebt?

What's the basis of that "fact",
rache,
This is the reason why Coalition Governments in Australia will always have to put more effort into governing. The Public Service is working against them out of principle.
Labor Governments have the support of the Public Service but it is their policies & mentality that undoes whatever little positive a Coalition achieved !
Meanwhile, the working class cops it sweet as always !

With some members of the Coalition government having had an obsessive dislike of welfare recipient per se, believing most were undeserving lazy, worthless 'dole bludgers' it would be easy for them to embrace the Robodebt scheme as a means of punishing those deemed unworthy. The Royal Commission will find people like Morrison, Roberts, Ruston, Tudge and Porter will have a lot to answer for, not the least the suicide of many innocent victims of their failed Robodebt scheme. All part of the great legacy of ScumO'.!

Albanese has started slinging the old 'closure' nonsense around, totally ignorant (as in everything) of the fact that the victims of the Coalition’s witch-hunt were fully compensated and apologised to long ago, when their lawyer announced that they had "received closure".

If our increasingly nutty PM wants to spend $30 million on a Royal Commission, he should call for one into the Covid period, when freedoms were lost, lives and jobs ruined, the general economy wrecked, by mainly Labor premiers who caught the totalitarianism disease, and abused us as we have never been abused before.

And yes. I do remember the pink batts inquisition. Also wrong; also showing that our entire political class is rubbish.

Robodebt victims are still waiting for $112 million
in settlement payments.

Almost 400,000 victims of
Centrelink's Robodebt scandal are still waiting to
be paid money owned to them which equates to the interest
owned on money unlawfully collected by the then government
in unlawfully generated debts through its inaccurate
income averaging system which was used between 2015 and 2019.

Answers need to be given as to WHY this happened. To ensure it
does not happen again. An independent body like a Royal
Commission is the appropriate course of action.

Firstly, Robodebt was set up and run by the dept of Government services which did not fall under Morrison as SR and the village idiot claim.

Secondly, the use of algorithms to identify potential fraud or tax evasion is widely used by ATO and services to identify potential culprits. That 2.1bn of potential debt was identified showed that it was potentially very successful.

The issue is what happened after that. The Public service administered this and they wrongly made the assumption that everyone that was flagged was guilty and insisted on immediate repayment with harsh penalties if this was not done.

If this was done properly, the innocent could have had this fairly reviewed, the guilty would have been punished, and future rooting of the system could have been prevented.

However, all the above is not relevant to the point I was making i.e. None of this is hidden or unavailable to any inquiry. An RC is yet another display of virtue signalling.

Morrison introduces his new Robodebt collector to Cabinet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TstteJ1eIZg

It's good to see their ill-thought-out policies and flawed narratives crumble over time, and in hindsight.
- Incompetent fools.

Shadowminister,

What on earth are you talking about. Morrison was the minister for Social Services in 2015 when this was conceived and ultimately initiated.

I can't quite decide what is the motivation behind these various 'inquiries' into the previous government. Is it that the ALP remains so traumatised by Morison following his winning the unwinnable election (2019) that they are determined to bury his political corpse so deep that a revival is impossible?

Or is it that the government are well aware of the economic tsunami headed its way and want to get some runs on the board while the getting is good?

Or is it just pay-back for the pink batt and building union inquisitions that their predecessors unleashed?

One thing we can be sure of...its got nothing to do with good governance or uniting the country.

It remains fascinating that those who always allow themselves to be sucked in by these beat-ups have allowed themselves to be stirred up by the double ministry hysteria.
What Morrison did was certainly unusual and is probably now regretted. This was a time when most of the country were deranged by covid hysteria and ill-thought-out decisions abounded. But in the end it had precisely zero affect on the country, decision making and policy.
The notion that we need to know which minister made which decision is rubbish. Ministers implement government policy and it is the government that wears the praise or odium of each policy. And if there was a time when a minister was held responsible for a policy that was overruled by a second minister, it was always open to them to make that fact known. The claim that responsibility was compromised is merely an assertion to give the beat-up a veneer of sense.

As well as this example of gross maladministration I would also welcome an investigation into the Federal COVID response in the hope that we would perform better next time.

It was the State Premiers who kept the lid on the spread until planned vaccination levels could be reached in spite of the constant needling from Morrison & Co and certain parts of the media. However many could see what was really happening and later voted accordingly in respective State elections.

It was Morrison who threatened to withdraw funding from Aged Care homes from the beginning and later insisted schools were "safe" in spite of evidence to the contrary and then resisted recommended Jobkeeper and other measures until he no longer had any choice - yet (like Trump) later went on to claim all credit for saving lives while giving none to those who really did "the heavy lifting."

Robodebt, selling non-existent water-buybacks, vaccine supplies and quarantine, submarine contracts and provoking a Trade war were just a handful of examples from the last three years alone. From the six weeks of constant complaining about Albanese's pre-election "gaffe", imagine the screeching and foaming at the mouth if Labor did just of one of those things in Government.

Let's find out exactly what went wrong with Robodebt and let the chips fall where they may. It's the least that can be done for its many victims.

Hi Steele,

Don't worry about poor old shadowminister, the bloke doesn't know the difference between the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General. He got them confused and thought they were the same fella. Could say he doesn't know his 'A' hole from his 'S' hole.

Australia’s response to Covid was nothing to be proud of. As time goes by it is looking worse and worse. It certainly should be reviewed; highly unlikely with this government, because the biggest villains were Labor premiers.

In the age of information ignorance is a choice!

Foxy,
So what made you choose it ? At least that's how it looks from an everyday kind of perspective !

The little get together with Shaquille O'Neal, Albanese and Burney was pathetic, not to mention O'Neal's endorsement of the racist Voice.

Indyvidual,

As with pretty much everything in life, to do
something, you need to first understand what it
means.

In the long run, Morrison's indiscretion is nowhere near as serious or concerning as the abuse of emergency powers (Covid) demonstrated by the state Premiers, which have had, and will continue to have, dire consequences for people's lives and livelihoods, mental health, and the general economy of the country.

SR,

You cocked up again. Robodebt started in 2016 long after Morrison left HS.

Which minister was responsible for Robodebt?

"Back in 2015, then-minister for Social Services -
Scott Morrison and then-minister for Human Services -
Marise Payne flagged a service that would increase
budgetary savings by increasing the pursuit of
outstanding debts within the Centrelink System."

"The scheme was formally announced by the Abbott
government as a part of the 2015 - 16 federal budget."

http://abc.net.au/news/2022-08-26/robodebt-royal-commission-explained/101374912

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme#

Foxy,

For starters, the Robodebt was first publically announced Mid 2016 and did not start before that, so it would have been difficult to include it in the 2015/6 budget. I think the ABC screwed up again.

What we do know is the Coalition forced many Australians to commit suicide caused by their Robodebt. The Coalition once again has blood on its hands! Add that to the deaths they caused by bushfires, floods and Covid.

Albo needs to get a Federal ICAC up and running, so those responsible can be brought to justice.

Hey Paul1405,
"Albo needs to get a Federal ICAC up and running, so those responsible can be brought to justice."

They are the leaders, the decision making class.
They make the policies, the buck stops with them, ALL of them.
They put too much time and effort into focusing on what the other team is doing;
- and no-where near enough time in working together to create fool-proofed policies that result in the betterment of our nation.

If they're looking to find the people responsible, they need only look in the mirror.
- They're a bunch of incompetent fools.

Do you know what a 'group' of weasels is called?
Answer = a 'confusion'.

A 'confusion of weasels' Paul, that's what they all are.

"In April 2015, measures to create budgetary savings
by increasing the pursuit of outstanding debts and
investigation of cases of fraud in the Australian welfare
system were first flagged by the Minister of Social Services
Scott Morrison and the Minister for Human Services Marise
Payne and formally announced by the Abbott government in the
2015 Federal Budget."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme#

Paul,

The ICAC should also investigate the 1200 people that Labor forced to drown and the imprisoning of 1000s of children.

Foxy,

According to YOUR link:

"The Robodebt scheme was .....Put in place in July 2016 and announced to the public in December of the same year,"

No connection to Morrison.

In the link I gave regarding the Robotdebt Scheme
under the heading of - "Creation and Announcement"
It quite clearly states the connection of Scott
Morrison to the scheme. And the Abbott government's
announcement of it in their 2015 federal budget.

We don't know the extent of Scotty's early involvement – the information isn't publicly available yet.
But what we can say with certainty is that he wan't entirely to blame. Whether or not it was originally his fault, his successors were negligent.

Maybe Morrison's 'Minister for Scams' Stewart Roberts can shed some light on the subject, he's not saying a lot about his involvement in "Greywolf Investments" which resulted in battlers being taken for a financial ride. This has been exposed by the ABC's 4-Corners program. More to come I'm sure, where is that Federal ICAC when you need it.

Worse than Robodebt is the Robopaying of useless bureaucrats' salaries & benefits.
Just read a moment ago that pollies with homes in the ACT & Qeanbeyan still receive $290/day travel allowance when sitting in Parliament.
Both rorts are unacceptable & two wrongs don't make a Right !
I wonder if Albo & gang & the Opposition will be looking into that over the next two days ?

Come to think of it Robopay should really be Robbingpay !

Shadowminister,

You wrote:

"Foxy,

According to YOUR link:

"The Robodebt scheme was .....Put in place in July 2016 and announced to the public in December of the same year,"

No connection to Morrison."

What utter rubbish. Morrison conceived of it, got it into the 2015 budget then as treasurer from September that year worked to ensure it was up and running the next year.

His grimy, dishonest, vindictive, small minded and punitive fingerprints were all over this from go to bloody woe and to even insinuate they weren't is dishonest of the highest order.

I'd imagine with decent bureaucrats this scheme would have worked rather well !

Indy,
Yes, that's because you're still living in the '70s! You refuse to acknowledge the changes that have occurred since then, because then you'd lose your convenient scapegoat.

Bureaucrats have to follow orders. They can (and if media reports are correct, did) warn the politicians, but can't override political decisions.

The global gang of moronic western leaders are as dumb as you can get anyway.
Maybe even dumber, their IQ level is about as low as a goldfish.
I may even be insulting the goldfish, as they're likely smarter.

Sanctioning Russia, especially in the case of Europe,
- Is about as dumb as Australians boycotting all supermarkets, petrol stations and the power grid.

It's about as smart and logical as playing Russian Roulette,
- Only you put a bullet in EVERY SINGLE CHAMBER.
Maybe we should call it Western Roulette, that's how dumb they are.
There's little hope for western society with these fools running the show.

can't override political decisions
Aidan,
Politician would not tell bureaucrats to be incompetent ! Incompetent bureaucrats provide incorrect feedback to politicians who have to rely on that information. So, if you have an incompetent or corrupt Labor supporting bureaucrat they will lead the conservative politician towards the inevitable.

Armchair,
Upholding international law is more important than short term economic considerations.
Standing firm against the evil you support will enable the world's military spending to be reduced in the future.

Indy,
>Politician would not tell bureaucrats to be incompetent !
Politicians have made incompetent decisions and ordered bureaucrats to implement them.
Do you think following those orders amounts to being incompetent?

If no, your post is a red herring.
If yes, please explain why you think politicians would not do that when the evidence indicates they have done it?

SR,

You really are loathsome sometimes

Before posting another snivelling post read fully posts that you intend to attack before making yourself look like a moron again. I was commenting on Foxy's post which had two sources contradict each other.

I also understand that you have a pathological hatred of anyone right of the centre and don't need any evidence to make claims. Perhaps you could show exactly how Morrison personally designed and implemented robodebt so I don't have to call you a liar.

Hi Steele,

You might find this interesting:

http://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/scott-morrisons-robodebt-to-society,14035

Foxy,

The Independent Australian is remarkable in that just about every article is riddled with factual inaccuracies and outright lies.

Media Bias/Fact-Check has rated "Independent Australia"
highly for factual reporting due to proper sourcing.

shadowminister,

Firstly you calling me a liar will be the least significant thing that has occurred to me on this forum.

You have zero credibility to be given any regard on that matter at all.

Your pathetic and utterly incorrect attempted correction of Foxy read:

"For starters, the Robodebt was first publically(sic) announced Mid 2016 and did not start before that, so it would have been difficult to include it in the 2015/6 budget. I think the ABC screwed up again."

Yet here is the announcement in May 2015.

"The Government will cut $1.6 billion out of the welfare budget over four years in an aggressive pursuit of claims fraud and historical debtors.

In the budget's second-biggest projected savings measure, compliance officers in the Department of Human Services will be pursuing outstanding debts from 2010-2013, and investigating cases of fraud."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-12/federal-government-to-cut-$1.6-billion-from-welfare/6464320?nw=0&r=HtmlFragment

How was this to occur? Through Morrison's already formulated scheme.

Give it away, the horse is dead already.

Hey Aiden,
"Upholding international law is more important than short term economic considerations."

What international law?
The US carved off a chunk of Syria and has deprived them of food and been stealing their oil for 10 years.
they even were using Islamic State to try and remove Assad from power and even now they keep a chunk of Syria, hoping to have some leverage over Syria's future by using food as a weapon, and stealing their resources.

It's the rules-based-order where the US makes the rules, do as I say, not as I do.

"Standing firm against the evil you support will enable the world's military spending to be reduced in the future.

Pffft.. I'm scoffing at this.
The worlds finding out that they needed Russia more than Russia needed them.
The have the food and the fertilizer and the energy.
http://www.rt.com/business/561831-gazprom-shares-rally-huge-profits/

"Russian energy major Gazprom's stock jumped 31% on Wednesday to 267.25 rubles per share (just over $4.43) on the Moscow Exchange, following the company’s announcement of bumper profits and dividend payments to shareholders.

The gas giant said its board had recommended a dividend of 51.03 Russian rubles ($0.85) per ordinary share for the first half of 2022. In its first-half earnings report released on Tuesday, Gazprom announced a record 2.5 trillion rubles ($41.75 billion) in net profit."

The US thought it could start a war in Ukraine, keep killing Russian speaking citizens in Donbass for 8years via their Ukrainian proxy... keep poking the bear.
They thought a war would create an economic crisis which would in turn lead to a political crisis in Russia that might unseat Putin, but they miscalculated, and it's all gone horribly wrong.

China Is Quietly Reselling Its Excess Russian LNG To Europe

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/China-Is-Quietly-Reselling-Its-Excess-Russian-LNG-To-Europe.html

"Local media have said that Sinopec alone has sold 45 cargoes of LNG, or about 3.15mn tonnes. The total amount of Chinese LNG that has been resold is probably more than 4mn tonnes, equivalent to 7 per cent of Europe’s gas imports in the half year to the end of June.

Make no mistake: all of this 'excess' LNG was soured in part or in whole in Russia, but since it has been 'tolled' in China, it is no longer Russian. It is instead - drumroll - Chinese LNG.

The good news is that the 53 million tonnes that the bloc purchased surpasses imports by China and Japan and has brought Europe’s gas-storage occupancy rate up to 77%.If this continues, Europe is likely to reach its stated goal of filling 80% of its gas storage facilities by November (at which point it will start draining the reserves at a breakneck pace to keep warm during the winter). But while China’s economic slump has brought much-needed relief to Europe, it comes with a major footnote. As soon as economic activity bounces back in China, the situation will quickly reverse, and Beijing will no longer re-export Russia LNG to keep Europe warm.

Hilariously, it also means that instead of being dependent on Russia for gas, Europe is now becoming dependent on Beijing instead for its energy - which is still Russian gas, only this time imported from China - which makes a mockery of US geopolitical ambitions to defend a liberal international order with its own energy exports.

Worse, while Europe could buy Russian LNG for price X, it instead has to pay 2X, 3X or more, just to virtue signal to the world that it won't fund Putin's regime, when in reality is is paying extra to both Xi and to Putin, who is collecting a premium price thanks to the overall market scarcity."

All the West has done is destroy itself and made Russia and China wealthier.
How dumb can you be to sanction your own food and energy?

EU citizens face mass poverty – expert
http://www.rt.com/business/561900-europeans-face-mass-poverty/

France accuses Russia of using gas as ‘weapon of war’
http://www.rt.com/business/561796-france-accuses-russia-gas-weapon/

These EU people would have to be the dumbest people you can find.
Did they forget they sanctioned Russia themselves?
They we're the ones who proudly said they didn't want any more Russian gas or money going to Putin.

Have fun with your blackouts, hunger pains and cold showers this winter you idiots.

Tucker Carlson: Things are falling apart very quickly
http://youtu.be/Zn6c-UkqlHo

inflationary depression coming...

SR,

Another cock up. That was not an announcement of the robodebt. That was an announcement of an intention to claw back money from welfare fraud.
The announcement of the automated debt system only came a year later in July 2016 and was only implemented later.

An easy mistake for a simpleton.

AC,

I see that you are quoting the Russian propaganda mouthpiece RT.

Some facts.
-Russia is burning off about $10m of gas that it cannot sell because it does not have the capacity to turn it into LNG
-Europe has already replaced nearly 60% of Russia's gas and while more expensive this is already costing Russia nearly as much as the EU.
-American HIMARS systems and now the HARM missiles have beaten Russia into stalemate and Ukraine is getting air superiority.

From what I hear the Russians are taking a huge beating near Kherson.

It's not propaganda.
That's just what the West calls 'Truths that make us look bad'

"-Russia is burning off about $10m of gas that it cannot sell because it does not have the capacity to turn it into LNG"

Yeah so what, they can afford to rub it in Europe's face while they freeze through winter because of their weak politicians and stupid policies.
Gazprom made 40 billion profit in 6 months.

"-Europe has already replaced nearly 60% of Russia's gas and while more expensive this is already costing Russia nearly as much as the EU."

Yes, with the help of Russian gas which they paid 5 times the price of, talk about shoot yourself in the foot...

"-American HIMARS systems and now the HARM missiles have beaten Russia into stalemate and Ukraine is getting air superiority."

No they haven't, at least half have already been destroyed, and Russia has HUNDREDS of multi launch rocket systems.

"From what I hear the Russians are taking a huge beating near Kherson."
Ukraine had at least 2000 dead in the last 3 days from their failed counter-offensive, and sometimes Russia even falls back deliberately so that when Ukrainian troops move forward ending up taking heavy losses.
Russia's not on any time-clock, it can keep this going indefinitely, and damage to western economies is much worse than the damage to Ukrainian forces.
The multi-layered defensive lines in the east which Ukraine built over 8 years will be lucky to hold for another month tops, then Russia will be taking a lot more territory.

"Ukraine is getting air superiority."
You must be completely delusional, where did they find a new air force?

Britain May Need IMF Loan As Europe And The UK Head Towards Economic Meltdown and Socialism
http://youtu.be/VHR8RomnMAM

AC,

What you post is complete bollocks. Not even RT claims the losses that you do.

Ukraine has air superiority in Kherson because Russia has pulled its aircraft out of Crimea. Over the last month or so Ukraine has been wiping out Russia's S300, S400 and BUK systems with the hundreds of HARM missiles Supplied by the US.

Ukraine has been bombing Kherson with impunity.

While Russia does have many MRLS systems all them are unguided and don't have the range of HIMARS. PS. none of them have been destroyed by Russia yet.