Robodebt
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A phalanx of politicians announced the completion of the Robodebt Royal Commission and that the federal government would be accepting all its 50 something findings. This disgusting policy initiative by the previous Coalition government went after 500, 000 Australians accusing them of fraudulently taking social security money and owing the government thousands of dollars. Robodebt was wrong and illegal from its very start but the LNP ministers went on an ideological crusade to make half a million Aussies criminals and welfare cheats. This appealed to the downward envy of Australians groomed by Coalition political strategists. Tony Abbott masterminded Robodebt, Scott Morrison carried it out with gusto, Alan Tudge was complicit in it, and Stuart Robert got his hands dirty too.
Coalition Robocops & Robodebt
These LNP politicians bragged in the media that they were Robocops going after Australians rorting the system. It was a crusade to raise money and just as importantly to identify villains that working Australians could righteously despise. The overarching message was that folks on social welfare were second class citizens and many of them were criminals to boot. The whole thing blew up in their face eventually but not before some vulnerable Australians killed themselves in despair. A settled class action by those wrongly accused has cost the Australian tax payers $1.8 billion and counting.
Who Is Going To Pay For The Robodebt Crime?
The journalists asking questions of the phalanx of ALP government ministers announcing the Robodebt findings wanted to know who is being charged over this debacle. Talk of public service disciplinary reviews was not quite what they had in mind. The investigative journalists who had followed the inquiry over many months and listened to the repeated failures of oversight and the illegality of the scheme wanted to know who would be held to account. If this Royal Commission was more than political window dressing heads would have to roll. Australians are getting sick of these high falutin inquiries resulting in nix, nothing, and zilch, when it comes to individuals being prosecuted.
If lives were lost and billions of dollars wasted who is going to pay for it?
Centrelink Might Answer The Phone
Yes, the Albanese government are going to add 3 000 Centrelink workers so that someone will answer the phone within a couple of hours instead of the current 4 hours, if you are lucky. This state of affairs has been in place for more than a decade, including during the Rudd and Gillard governments. Tough love has been the unspoken policy for social welfare in Australia for a long time. The economics drive the bus. The message goes out to the electorate that welfare is bad and the people on it are second class. This was one of the reasons why it was so easy for Abbott, Morrison, Payne and Co to introduce and run Robodebt.
Making out that many Aussies were welfare cheats was just an extension of the messaging governments had been making for many years.
RBA Full Employment Means 500, 000 Aussies Out Of Work
The Reserve Bank of Australia predicate their idea of full employment for the economy on a 4.5% unemployment rate. That is 500, 000 Australians without gainful employment. This setting is their idea of what drives the bus for low inflation and economic growth. Michelle Bullock, the new boss, has emphasised this repeatedly of late. Therefore, these folks are necessary economic scapegoats for the Australian economy to flourish. At the same time government policy has been to beat up on these people by paying them below the poverty line welfare. Plus, to infer to the media that they are dole bludgers taking the rest of us for a ride.
Downward envy is an Olympic sport in Australia.
Show Us Some Blood, Cry The Media
So, you can understand the media’s scepticism when it comes to grandiose statements about the Robodebt Royal Commission. Show us some real blood, some real consequences, the media pack cried out. Kathryn Campbell, the senior public servant in charge, has been suspended, but what else? Politicians don’t like to see their political opponents actually get the chop, because of an attitude of ‘there but for the grace of god go I.’ It is all play acting to a large extent. It is only the little people, like you and I, who actually suffer and literally go under. These talking heads are just that. They pander for the cameras and make speeches. It is all about political mileage.
Robodebt was a crime against humanity. And we the people want to see someone go down for it.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt, and Financial Freedom.
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