The Robodebt royal commission is currently hearing evidence of tremendous hardship inflicted on people by a government that appeared to have little concern for the people its actions affected.
The bureaucratic process was malign, and it harmed and stigmatised welfare recipients.
Despite questions about the scheme’s legality, the program recovered about $750 million from around 380,000 people by a process called income averaging. This involved sending debt notices that came as a surprise to the recipients who had virtually no options to challenge these notices.
