Robodebt - a Frankenstein Monster ... Technology unchecked ... Liberal governments' traditional distain for welfare recipients ... Targeting the most vulnerable ... Legal concerns ... Failure at every level ... Duck shoving and deceit exposed by Royal Commission ... Hugh Vuillier reports
A rogues gallery of debt generating robots: Morrison, Tudge, Campbell, Robert (pic. ABC)
A new term has emerged from the halls of political philosophy: Algocracy.
The term, first posited by John Danaher, refers to a mechanism whereby algorithms are harnessed to gather and sort through data to inform, process, and communicate a public decision.
The philosopher at NUI Galway warns that these systems frequently surpass the understanding of those who are not directly involved in their implementation.
Those with technical knowledge are theoretically in control - not those answerable to the public. Consequent opacity and secrecy can erode the moral and political legitimacy of these decisions.
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When welfare recipients began to receive debt notices in late 2016, they were entirely ignorant of the automated system that pumped out the bills.
Previously, Centrelink compared averaged annual figures from the tax office to the fortnightly income that recipients reported.
Any significant discrepancy would be investigated by a compliance officer in finer detail. Income averaging was rare, only to be used after every possible means of obtaining the actual information had been attempted and failed.
A new expense measure was proposed during the 2015-16 budget by then Social Services Minister Scott Morrison, having asserted the need for a "strong welfare cop on the beat". It promised savings of about $1 billion to the budget.
The new automated system eliminated the human investigator. If it identified a discrepancy between the averaged tax figures with the fortnightly declarations, a debt was raised and charged to the welfare recipient.
Not only was average income no longer used in exceptional cases, but the recipients were now responsible for disproving the debt.
In 2020, the Commonwealth government settled a class action with victims of the scheme for $1.2 Billion. More than 443,000 Australians were laden with debts totalling $1.76 billion.
As part of the Labor government's response to the controversy, the Royal Commission was convened in 2022 led by former Queensland chief justice Catherine Holmes.
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DSS had raised legal concerns about the program as early as December 2014. However, such warnings had been watered down in the executive minutes to Scott Morrison in February 2015.
Moreover, references to the need for "policy and legislative changes", which had been included in these minutes were later omitted from the budget submission to cabinet.
As complaints against the debt notices arose in the media, the Commonwealth Ombudsman Richard Glenn, launched an investigation in 2017.
However, key documents had been withheld by the Department of "Human" Services, like the 2014 legal advice and evidence of disproportionate use of the average-income calculation.
Paragraphs raising legal and accuracy questions, were not taken up by the Ombudsman.
Meanwhile, appeals against the debts began to succeed in the Administrative Appeals Tribunals. Terry Carney, then a member of the tribunal, handed down several decisions in 2017 against the government.
He was not reappointed later that year.
Multiple reviews of the scheme by third parties had also been ditched. A PricewaterhouseCoopers report was shelved in 2017. Draft advice from Clayton Utz arguing that the scheme was unlawful was never finalised or acted upon by DSS.
After receipt of the Solicitor-General's advice, the scheme was finally shut down in November 2019.
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In 2021, Justice Bernard Murphy of the Federal Court found there was little evidence to suggest that the responsible ministers and senior public servants actually knew the weakness of the legal basis for income averaging in raising debts within social services.
All actors have since scattered the stage.
Malcom Turnbull, PM at the time the program was introduced, stated that he had not "[turned his] mind to the legality of the program" and that the government relied on submissions which had failed to raise any such concerns.
Scott Morrison, Human Services Minister, claimed that he had been provided "very explicit advice" that no legislation was required.
Acting in the same role in 2019, Stuart Robert told the royal commissioner he had expressed strong doubts about the scheme but had only acted after he had received the solicitor-general's advice that September.
In contradiction, his former departmental secretary, Renée Leon, told the inquiry that Robert's initial response was to dismiss the legal advice, allegedly telling her: "Well secretary, legal advice is just advice."
The actions of the public service were just as shocking.
Katherine Campbell, Leon's predecessor, acknowledged the “significant oversight" with the omissions and obfuscations by her department, which had misled the cabinet in 2015.
Asked whether beyond the issue of legality she had ever considered the scheme as fair, she answered "no".
The department's deputy secretary, Malisa Golightly, had policy responsibility for the scheme. She has been accused of verbal abuse to a DHS official after they had raised concerns about the scheme.
She died in 2021 and so her testimony was unavailable.
Golighthly's counterpart, Serena Wilson, blamed the former for misleading her with assurances that the scheme would not use income averaging.
However, in an earlier appearance before the Commission she admitted that she knew that this was not the case, yet lacked the courage to intervene.
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With doubts emerging as to the judicial oversight of automated decisions, it's understandable that we have grown worried if not mistrustful of government services.
This unease was underscored in 2019 when 2.5 million Australians opted out of the Federal My Health Records Scheme, which aimed to centralise health data.
Danaher's warning about Algocracy, and algorithmic decision-making in public governance, is timely: the abandonment of authority by those publicly responsible for the agents tasked with implementing the system; and a climate of opacity and secrecy, which leads to distrust of both the decision makers and their oversight.
The Royal Commission is expected to submit its report on June 30, 2023.