By Adam Sharpe
Mean Streak by Rick Morton is a must-read for anyone interested in public administration in contemporary Australia. This book examines the Robodebt saga, which was described by Justice Murphy in Prygodicz v The Commonwealth (No 2) [2021] FCA 634 at [5] as “a shameful chapter in the administration of the Commonwealth social security system and a massive failure of public administration.”
‘Robodebt’ is a term that has been applied to a scheme implemented by the Commonwealth Department of Human Services between 2015 and 2019. The Robodebt scheme had two essential features. First, the scheme used ‘income averaging’ to determine whether a welfare recipient had been overpaid welfare entitlements. Secondly, the scheme imposed an onus on welfare recipients to disprove that they owed a debt that had been calculated using ‘income averaging’.
Both of those essential features of the Robodebt scheme were unlawful. The Social Security Act 1991 (Cth) requires welfare entitlements to be assessed on a fortnightly basis. The Robodebt scheme unlawfully ‘averaged’ a welfare recipient’s annual income, as recorded by the ATO, over 26 fortnights in order to assess whether a recipient had been overpaid in each of those fortnights. The Social Security Act required actual fortnightly income to be used to calculate welfare entitlements and any welfare debts. Further, the Social Security Act did not authorise a scheme in which welfare recipients were required to disprove that they owed a debt calculated using ‘income averaging’.
The evidence in the Prygodicz proceeding was that the Commonwealth unlawfully asserted debts against approximately 433,000 Australians, totalling at least $1.763 billion. Approximately $751 million of those debts were recovered from about 381,000 ‘debtors’.
A Royal Commission into Robodebt was established on 18 August 2022 and delivered its final report on 7 July 2023. The Honourable Catherine Holmes AC SC, who was appointed as the Royal Commissioner, found that “Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals.” (Report of the Robodebt Royal Commission, Preface, xxix.)
Rick Morton is a journalist who closely followed the proceedings of the Royal Commission. His book draws substantially on the findings of the Royal Commission but also delves further into the background and motivations of those involved in the Robodebt saga. Morton’s writing style is direct, blunt and occasionally coarse but it is always very engaging. It is in marked contrast to the writing style of the Royal Commission report, which is necessarily more reserved and formal.
Mean Streak is not a comfortable read. At times, it is harrowing. The Royal Commission reported that it was aware a number of people who had debts raised against them under the Robodebt scheme died by suicide (Report of the Robodebt Royal Commission, 181). Morton gives a human face to this tragedy through the stories of two people who died in those circumstances.
Strikingly, Morton commences his epilogue to Mean Streak with the sentence “Writing this book has made me unwell.” Evidently, Morton has written this book despite this personal cost because he considers the Robodebt story too important not to tell. What then do we learn from Morton’s work?
From the perspective of public administration, one of the most important questions of the Robodebt saga is how an unlawful scheme of such size and scale was able to continue in operation over several years. Morton’s book offers real insights into how this occurred although it remains unsettling that various accountability measures that ought to have brought this unlawful scheme to a halt were ineffectual.
For the legal profession, there are significant takeaways. Ultimately, it was legal proceedings that brought a conclusion to Robodebt. This was not before significant harm had been suffered by many people over a period of years. However, it does demonstrate the importance of the Australian legal system as the ultimate bulwark in defence of the rule of law. The story of Robodebt also reinforces the importance of the rule of law more generally. It shows that a failure by government to comply with the law has direct and practical consequences. The Robodebt saga has important lessons for government lawyers concerning their role in supporting the rule of law.
While Morton’s book is important as a historical record of the Robodebt scheme, it has a deeper purpose. Morton writes about observing his own mother’s difficult interactions with the social security system as a child. As a social commentary, Mean Streak is a cri de coeur for an Australia that treats welfare recipients with greater compassion. We should not understand the ‘mean streak’ that Morton identifies as being confined to those involved in initiating and administering the Robodebt scheme.
There have been many reforms made at the Commonwealth level to seek to prevent a repeat of the Robodebt scheme. Those reforms are to be welcomed and one certainly hopes that they will prove successful in achieving that end. Mean Streak should serve to bring awareness of the causes of Robodebt to a broader audience and, in that way, also assist in preventing the recurrence of a scheme of that kind.
