#royalcommission

It has cost us, the Australian tax payers, $1.8 billion so far. Robodebt disgrace: The legacy of the Coalition government. The Royal Commission into the Robodebt scheme is being handed down today. The findings are being made public post haste. Peter Dutton, the leader of the Opposition, is calling this a political decision. The debacle and disgrace of this Coalition government scheme is like an albatross to hang around the necks of all those involved in its instigation and execution. It was illegal and they all knew that it was both illegal and wrong. It cost innocent and vulnerable people their lives.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

Robodebt Royal Commission Report Handed Down

Robodebt was predicated on a belief that there were lots of welfare recipients rorting the system. Many Australians believed this and still do. It is not true and the Coalition and their public servant minions discovered this via numerous reviews. Indeed, one lengthy review was carried out by, yes, you guessed it PwC. Despite this, the Coalition pushed ahead with illegally ascribing debts to welfare recipients and going after them via debt collectors. “From 2016 to 2019, the Robodebt scheme raised more than half a million inaccurate Centrelink debts through a method of 'income averaging', which has since been ruled unlawful. Debts were imposed on people like Angelica which they then had to prove they didn't owe.” - (https://www.legalaid.vic.gov.au/learning-from-the-failures-of-robodebt)

Coalition Government Designed Illegal Robodebt Scheme

The frightening thing about this is that vulnerable people, many with disabilities were, put through the ringer and informed they had large debts to the government in the thousands of dollars. The calculations were factually incorrect because income averaging does not take into account the two week periods that the system is predicated upon. Plus, they made it the responsibility of the accused to prove otherwise, which is a reversal of the presumption of innocence. If you have ever tried to get in contact with Centrelink to get information from them, you know that they are so underfunded they don’t have the staff to answer the phone. Thus, you can spend hours attempting to get through and when you do you cannot get the information you require anyway. It is like something out of a dystopian Franz Kafka novel.

Photo by Hugo Heimendinger on Pexels.com RBA Sacrifices 500 000 Australians For Economic Reasons Australia has an economy run by a central bank, the RBA, which defines ‘full employment’ as an inflation rate of 4.5%. This means that half a million Australians must be out of work for their optimal economy to be functioning. This puts the necessary downward pressure on wages to prevent inflation from creeping out of their 2-3% band. Thus, these 500, 000 unemployed Australians are a prerequisite or sacrifice for the smooth running of their ideal economy. Is it then fair to punish the unemployed in Australia by paying a dole well below the poverty line? Is it just to accuse these people regularly of being dole bludgers and welfare cheats? In this country, according to the Coalition it is.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com The Coalition knows all this and doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the suffering of those living on welfare. It makes political mileage out of the ingrained lack of charity within many Australians, who begrudge the false liberty of the unemployed. People on the dole don’t live it up on the tax payer’s expense, this is a furphy, encouraged by politicians who enjoy societal villains other than themselves. Australians far prefer getting a decent job that will pay the bills but the economic settings, as we have seen, do not support this opportunity for all of us. This is an economic fact and it is time governments start making this crystal clear to their constituents.

Photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels.com The Coalition designed and brought in the Robodebt scheme in complete awareness of these RBA settings and the true state of affairs around the welfare state in Australia. Many lower level public servants railed against the unfairness and probable illegality of the scheme. They were threatened with removal and/or were moved aside. Labour hire staff were brought in to fill the gaps. The relationship between the Coalition and labour hire is an important one to remember, as it has undermined the working environment and prevented wage growth in this country. Those on labour hire contracts have much less job security and are more easily manipulated than those more established public servants and workers more generally. This is all part of the decade in Australia, which saw a massive imbalance of wealth going to a small coterie of business insiders at the expense of the greater majority of Australians. A decade of Coalition rule, where schemes like Robodebt flourished.

Stuart Robert, Alan Tudge, Scott Morrison, Marise Payne, Katherine Campbell.. these are just a few of the more prominent people named in the report, as key stake holders in the implementation and design of Robodebt. Will any of these figures be referred for criminal and/or civil prosecution? “The architects of Robodebt will be referred for criminal and civil prosecution after a royal commission handed down its report into the unlawful scheme today. Former Queensland chief justice Catherine Holmes's report into the coalition government's automated debt-raising policy has been tabled in parliament and released to the public. The three-volume, 990-page report, includes 57 recommendations – the culmination of hundreds of hours of evidence, thousands of exhibits, and nearly a million documents. A sealed chapter, separate to the bound report, recommends referrals of individuals for civil and criminal prosecution.” - (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-07/robodebt-royal-commission-findings-revealed/102531450) Robodebt disgrace: The legacy of the Coalition is a betrayal of the most vulnerable Australians for political purposes. Peter Dutton is right but not for the reasons he says. The Coalition played politics with the disabled, the unemployed, the sick and needy. It cost them and us, economically to the tune of $1.8 billion, but more than that it has cost Australia the trust in our governments, especially for the half a million people who were betrayed by this illegal and just plain wrong scheme. It is no coincidence that Stuart Robert and Alan Tudge have quit politics, the rats leaving the sinking ship. Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt & Financial Freedom ©MidasWord

The Coalition had run a narrative about Australian dole bludgers and welfare cheats for decades. It was part of the right wing playbook of creating villains for the electorate to focus their frustrations and hate upon. The enemy is all those Aussies gaming the system and not doing their fair share. Robodebt was their policy initiative to clean up Dodge, as welfare cops on the beat clawing back billions for the budget. Robodebt abuse was built on Coalition lies to Australians. Scott Morrison was in such a hurry that he didn’t want to waste time on dotting the I’s and crossing the t’s when it came to the legality of the scheme. Kathryn Campbell, the public servant responsible in Human Services, would make the bullets for Sheriff Morrison to fire at the legion of welfare cheats downunder. A lot of paper shuffling went on between senior bureaucrats in the social security and human services departments. Pleasing the boss was paramount in the minds of these highly paid functionaries.

Mikhail Nilov at Pexels

Robodebt Was Wrong & Illegally Applied To 100, 000s of Australians

Hundreds of thousands of Australian welfare recipients were wrongly accused of owing thousands of dollars via income averaging. The only problem was that the income averaging was wrong because it did not comply with the department’s own rules governing how and what these individuals could earn. Figures provided by the ATO only told them what they earned over the whole financial year, it did not break it down into the relevant 2 week periods.

Scott Morrison’s Robodebt Scheme Cost Lives

Some vulnerable people faced with bills to Centrelink in the tens of thousands of dollars killed themselves. Collateral damage in the mind’s of Scott Morrison, Marise Payne, Alan Tudge, and Stuart Robert. Disabled Australians and very old Aussies were slammed with huge bills. These welfare cops beat up on all these welfare cheats without fear or favour. The only problem was that the scheme was illegal and wrongly applied. The Coalition who pride themselves on being the better managers of the economy were so incompetent they completely stuffed up on getting the numbers and the rules right in Robodebt. It would cost all of us, the Australian tax payers, $1.8 billion in a settled class action.

What is a Royal Commission into Mental Health supposed to do?

Even though I'm currently away for work, I still grab the opportunity to keep up-to-date on Business News where I can and today, a report from The Australian Business Review really jumped out at me.

Since the royal commission, there has been a significant drop in lending which is causing the national median house price to drop 6.3 percent with Sydney leading the decline at 10.4 percent.

Well no shit.

This is and always was going to be the result of a royal commission and it pains me to say, its only going to get worse because as finance becomes harder and harder to get, and the myriad of bad loans throughout the country become more prominent, borrowers won't have the ability to simply refinance to ease stress when things start to get a bit tight because they are paying a million+ mortgage for a two bedroom shoebox on the outskirts of the CBD when they earn 65k to 80k a year so they will have to put the property to market and find something more suitable to their budget.

Enter "Supply and Demand"

With all these loans going south and an influx of property heading to the market in an attempt to escape bad debt, that is going to drive the property market further into the ground because no one will want to buy your shitty two bedroom shoebox for the million you paid for it when there are hundreds of others to chose from.

+ “When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.” ~ Patrick Rothfuss

This past week I have been following the the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. When I read of the many innocent lives impacted upon at the hands of some members of the Catholic Church I’m shocked and appalled by the extent of abuse and my heart breaks.

As a Church we hang our heads in shame as we answer for those who have acted so wrongly. Through abuse members of the Church shattered the lives of many. It is a clear corruption of the Gospel that our faith proclaims.

During the Royal Commission victims and survivors have courageously come forward to share their story and their pain. Far too many have been robbed of the innocence of their childhood. The statistics presented aren’t just numbers, each represents a child, a young vulnerable person, that we a called to protect. Each case represents an indefensible crime against the inherent dignity of another human being.

The Catholic Church can no longer deny or hide this chapter in its history. For the dignity of those who have had their trust severely broken, and for the sake of those who continue to seek hope and compassion in Jesus’ mission, the Church must do everything to ensure such crimes never occur again by committing to justice and healing. The Royal Commission has highlighted the fact that children’s safety is the whole community’s responsibility. As an educator this is paramount.