Welfare advocates in this country can now forcefully critique any government program that trades on stigma or vulnerability and ignores real-life suffering.
Articles on Department of Human Services
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In a swingeing indictment of the scheme, the commission says: “Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals.”
The combination of community activism, journalistic investigation, political scrutiny and the legal aid system has ultimately provided a remedy to the victims.
The Department of Human Service’s customer compliance staff will now be required to seek “additional proof” rather than solely relying on income averaging when determining if there is a debt.
Despite a public focus on punitive approaches to welfare fraud, the number of social security fraud prosecutions has fallen in recent years.
We created a graphic to explain what’s really going on when Centrelink says its wait time is under 16 minutes.
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Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
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Professor, Digital Sociology and Social Policy, The University of Queensland
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Lecturer, School of Law, University of Wollongong
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Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
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Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law, La Trobe University