The People vs Robodebt Season 1 Episode 1

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Transcript

00:00The government come up with a new computer system.

00:27There won't be a human in sight.

00:34Robots were going to take over our jobs.

00:40The power of a government to reach into someone's life and create trauma.

00:47They were committing fraud against welfare recipients at an industrial level.

00:53Why are they chasing me?

00:55When is it ever going to stop?

00:59When you're fighting against this big machine.

01:02$11,303.

01:05There's no way you owe this debt.

01:08Nurses, teachers.

01:10They were put in jail.

01:12They lost their homes.

01:13They lost their marriages.

01:14Lost their lives.

01:15Was I the one that pushed them over the edge?

01:18I didn't want to be Ciara's mum.

01:20I just wanted to attend.

01:22How could it go on so long?

01:26How could they not know?

01:28We all just said, yes Minister, we'll do that.

01:30Yes Minister, we'll do that.

01:31I wasn't going to give in.

01:33I was not.

01:35To take on the government is a really scary thing.

01:38The courage of that needs to be celebrated.

01:42It was David and Goliath.

01:44I couldn't live with not speaking the truth.

01:48When will there be justice?

02:11Here we go.

02:12Wild.

02:13Yeah.

02:18Hey, morning.

02:22Hi.

02:23Just those thanks.

02:32Thanks mate.

02:33Cheers.

02:34It's busy.

02:35I'll take things.

02:37Sure.

02:38What have we got?

02:39Eucalyptus leaves, gum nuts, banksia and four red roses for perfume.

02:43They're gorgeous.

02:45Happy Mother's Day.

02:46I mean, you're not my mum, but you know what I mean.

02:50I am a mum, so thank you.

02:52It's alright.

02:53See ya.

02:54Bye.

02:55Like bees to honey.

02:57You're good.

02:58Just doing my job mate.

03:01Rhys was very quirky.

03:03He always liked to make people laugh.

03:05Loved his art, loved his music.

03:07One of Rhys's first jobs was the very upmarket flower shop in Melbourne.

03:13He loved being able to talk to the people that were coming in.

03:16He just really enjoyed that job.

03:19My name's Jennifer Miller and I'm Rhys Corso's mother.

03:24He was able to use his creativity quite a bit.

03:34He liked it to be a little bit different.

03:35He didn't just want to use flowers.

03:37He'd add weeds to it.

03:42He did a really beautiful job.

03:49We'd often talk to each other.

03:51You know, relatively regular basis.

03:56We always kept in touch.

03:58His work was never constant.

04:20The jobs that he did have were either casual and or seasonal.

04:25So at times he would have to be on Newstart.

04:40Hey.

04:41Hey.

04:42That was a long day, you poor thing.

04:45That was work.

04:47Oh my God, that was insane.

04:50Well, you've made lots of mums very happy.

04:54Brett was his partner.

04:57Gorgeous girl.

04:59They loved each other.

05:02They clicked well together.

05:04What's this?

05:05I don't know.

05:06It's a letter from Centrelink.

05:09They reckon only over ten grand.

05:10What?

05:11You don't, do you?

05:12No, I haven't been on that doll in years.

05:13Maybe they just got your file mixed up with someone else's.

05:14No way I can pay this.

05:15No way I can pay this.

05:16No way I can pay this.

05:17No way I can pay this.

05:18No way I can pay this.

05:24No way I can pay this.

05:25No way I can pay this.

05:26No way I can pay this.

05:27No way I can pay this.

05:32No way I can pay this.

05:33No way I can pay this.

05:39No way I can pay this.

05:45No way I can pay this.

05:58In 2016, I was just on maternity leave and I received a letter in the mail.

06:12Dear Miss Button, you need to confirm your employment income.

06:15This may result in a debt that you need to repay.

06:19Yours sincerely, Compliance Officer of Centrelink.

06:25The letter was slightly odd because I hadn't been receiving Centrelink for quite a while,

06:30but I had just registered my daughter's birth.

06:33And I thought maybe that was a process in order to get my maternity leave put through.

06:39When I called Centrelink to confirm my employment, the guy on the phone didn't give me any further

06:44information.

06:45He just riddled off everything that was in the letter.

06:48I said to him, I can't remember.

06:50He said, well, this is the ATO data.

06:53So, of course, I would agree with it because why would the ATO have incorrect information?

06:58I trusted him.

07:01I trusted him.

07:02I trusted Centrelink.

07:03Four weeks later, I got another letter in the mail saying that I owed about $11,100.

07:19And I was shocked.

07:24They gave me like a month to pay it in full.

07:27I had never heard of anybody having this experience before.

07:32When you are recently a mother, so you're learning how to be a mum, to a premie baby that has

07:39developmental delays.

07:42Navigating the maternal health visits, the doctor's visits, the mother's groups where you

07:47get to watch other women with their perfectly healthy babies that they're breastfeeding and

07:51you're sitting there going, she won't even take a bottle.

07:55And then having that debt looming over you, knowing that you have to do something about

08:01it quite imminently with no anchor is terrifying.

08:04It makes you feel like a failure.

08:25So before I start, I'm still employed by Services Australia.

08:31And I cannot say anything that's in breach of the Australian Public Service Code of Conduct.

08:41When I first started back in 2000, there were so many ways to help the community.

08:48So it was a really nice feeling.

08:50I wanted to feel value in what I was doing, that it was important to be able to serve those

08:57people that were most at need.

09:00People really didn't know where to go or what to do.

09:04And you could completely change their day, their life.

09:08It was around about 2015 that we first started hearing about the Robodet pilot.

09:19Compliance was going to be much more automated.

09:23Robots were going to take over our jobs and we wouldn't need so many compliance officers.

09:31We wouldn't need so many phone staff.

09:33Everyone would just go on and raise their own debts.

09:36Before Robodet, compliance was about doing the work correctly.

09:46Making sure that the debts were accurate.

09:49We'd look at the customer's record firstly.

09:53And then we would write to that employer saying we would like all the pay slips or payroll reports.

10:00So when I was ringing the customer, there were often quite reasonable reasons as to why

10:07sometimes people weren't correctly declaring their income.

10:11Once Robodet started, Centrelink were going to be sending out letters to everybody.

10:25And people would have to prove that they didn't have a debt.

10:30It doesn't think about anyone's individual circumstances.

10:35It's automated.

10:36So it treats everyone exactly the same.

10:39This felt like servicing of the customers was taken away.

10:44This just doesn't feel right.

10:47You were employed as a public servant to serve the public.

10:52Your job was to do the best thing that you could by the public.

10:56Rhys!

11:10Rhys?

11:13Rhys?

11:17Rhys?

11:22Sorry.

11:39Each phone call I made lasted anywhere from an hour to three and a half hours.

11:46The onus is on the person who owns the debt to prove their innocence.

11:54So I had to prove that I didn't have a debt when I didn't even know how they proved that I had a debt in the first place.

12:01I was stressed all the time. I was not sleeping. I was not eating.

12:09I'd never been a person that wanted to root the system or, you know, claim something that I wasn't entitled to.

12:19Ever since I was a little girl, I always had this uncontrollable desire to help my community and just help people around me.

12:28The reason I chose a career in nursing was because my mum is a palliative care and community nurse.

12:38My sister is an ICU nurse. My aunties are all nurses.

12:42So it's always been a very strong culture in my life.

12:45The debt made me feel like I had let my community down.

12:54That was probably the hardest part of the whole thing.

12:58Shit, sorry.

13:00That was probably the hardest part of the whole thing, was feeling like I'd let everybody down.

13:05Before RoboDebt, it would take months to get a file to a finalised debt.

13:23There's a box which logs every time a public servant have tried to call the employer.

13:30It was a deeply human-driven process.

13:37Getting rid of the humans was the heart of RoboDebt.

13:42They told the staff, you don't investigate the file any more.

13:48The assumption was people will take the debt, they won't query it.

13:53Our budget position looks a whole lot healthier.

14:00We appreciate your patience and understanding.

14:07Your call is important to us and has been placed in a queue.

14:12Bruce, you're home?

14:14Kitchen.

14:16We appreciate your patience and understanding.

14:23We don't hold for over an hour.

14:26Extend the link.

14:27An hour?

14:28It happens every time I call them, you can't talk to an actual human.

14:33And they've got this bloody awful music that plays over and over again.

14:36I must have called them at least ten times.

14:38You can't talk to someone, you can't explain that it's just a mistake.

14:41And then there's this deadline and...

14:45Please try again.

14:47Goodbye.

14:48Oh, for fuck's sake, I've been cut off.

14:51I've got a total waste of my time.

14:57Reece had run me really, really distressed.

15:00So I flew down there and we spoke about this letter.

15:06My reaction was, just forget about this for the moment because this is bullshit.

15:10There's no way that you owe this debt.

15:21I said, OK, well, your mum will sort it out.

15:26As mothers do.

15:27What people have to keep in mind, at that point, no one had heard about RoboDebt.

15:38We were all in the dark.

15:39Reece hadn't heard about it.

15:41So we were flying blind.

15:46115.

15:47Oh, finally.

15:48So there's been a mistake.

15:57My son hasn't been receiving Centrelink payments for over five years.

16:03And no word from you people.

16:06And then these letters appear out of the blue.

16:10He submitted all his paperwork and his pay slips, didn't you?

16:14Yeah.

16:15So the first letter said that he owed $10,283.81.

16:21And then he got one that said he owed $17,000.

16:27Are you disputing the amount owed?

16:31I'm disputing that he owes anything.

16:34Fuck!

16:37All right, mate, just calm down.

16:38What are you going to do about it?

16:40I told you to calm down.

16:43Just get out of here.

16:44Oh!

16:49Jeez.

16:52Sorry about that.

16:55Um, best thing for you to do is call the Debt Inquiry Number.

17:01I tried calling.

17:02Yeah.

17:03And we're here now.

17:05Oh, we don't deal with debt notices at this counter.

17:07Well, I know.

17:08You sent it.

17:11Call them.

17:12They should be able to sort it out.

17:15Sorry, I can't help.

17:17He spent hours trying to call you people.

17:21Let's just call the number.

17:24The system is useless.

17:26116.

17:28I'm Colleen Taylor and I'm a retired compliance officer.

17:31I was 32 years in the Australian Public Service.

17:32My last job was as the compliance officer in Centrelink.

17:36You find out that people's lives are just so complicated and just can't make assumptions about, you know, why someone's in a certain situation.

17:49The idea of empathy is an essential requirement in my job.

17:51My mother, she was very socially minded.

17:55It was just something that maybe came naturally, I suppose, when you're brought up in the public.

17:59It was just something that came naturally, I suppose, when you're brought up.

18:02That way.

18:262015, I was in Brisbane.

18:28in Brisbane. I was part of the compliance team that did data matching. Initially with

18:35RoboDebt there was a whole lot of debts that were going to go out that were fully automated.

18:41So no human being had looked at these. RoboDebt was raising a debt on the raw tax office data.

18:50We knew that the raw data with the tax office was actually next to useless when it came

18:56to raising a debt. You couldn't rely on it because the tax office isn't interested in

19:02whether you worked six weeks there, three weeks there, four weeks there. All they're interested

19:06in is what was paid in the financial year. These were manufactured debts. They didn't

19:12exist because we knew a discrepancy does not mean a debt. It was almost like the letters

19:21were designed so that people wouldn't reply. Trust us, it's a debt, please pay. I thought

19:27someone's got to have some humanity and understanding. So I sent an email. My concerns are that this

19:36directive will result in an increase in admin error waivers and unnecessary appeals. It goes

19:42against duty of care. And as a compliance unit, we should not be the ones stealing from our customers.

19:51We are being asked to ignore evidence that no debt exists and to collude in raising a debt

19:58when none should exist. Big bold letters and underline, you are asking us to commit a fraudulent act.

20:12There does need to be a strong welfare cop on the beat and I'll certainly be looking to do that.

20:22I think Australians generally are quite happy to have a system that helps people who are genuinely

20:27in need and deserve our support. But what they won't cop, just like they won't cop people coming

20:32on boats, is they're not going to cop people who are going to rort that system. Scott Morrison

20:36becomes Minister for Social Security just in the run-up to Christmas 2014. What do I want to be

20:45about as Minister is very clearly communicated to public servants. Fraud, investigations and

20:52compliance interventions will increase by 900,000 over the next four years. We're going after the

20:58cheats, Mr Deputy Speaker, and we're going to stop those cheats and we're going to stop those rorters.

21:02RoboDec begins at what was a very ordinary corporate planning day in Adelaide in the middle of 2014.

21:15At that planning day, the Department of Human Services managers are debating their plans for

21:23the year. And the vibe that is in the air is very much around savings. Every year, we look at

21:32the tax returns of everyday Australians. And out of this enormous pile, we take 20,000 cases and we

21:45investigate those very closely and we generate debt. Why don't we take more from the pile?

21:52They speculated what it would be like to process hundreds of thousands of cases a year. And that was

22:02the very early beginnings of what became RoboDec. This system will pay for itself over time. But what

22:11it'll also do is pay for itself by giving those who work in our system to crack down on welfare fraud

22:16and integrity issues, the sort of tools they need to be an effective welfare cop on the

22:21beat. In early 2016, Scott Morrison is effectively promoted. Alan Tudge is appointed Minister for

22:29Human Services. Well, g'day. How's it going? Yeah, it is pretty exciting for me. I mean,

22:34I got sworn in today as the new Human Services Minister. He must roll out the computer system that

22:41was promised the previous year. And time is tight, and the pressure is on.

22:54In August in 2016, I took a role with the Minister for Human Services, Alan Tudge. He was well known to

23:04be seeking to get into Cabinet. He had always been quite ambitious in creating media stories. And I

23:12walked straight into a really, really busy portfolio in Human Services. He was absolutely a media

23:17target. I mean, he really enjoyed the media. As you might know, I'm racing home now because my wife's

23:22going to be giving birth tomorrow morning. So it's a busy time in the touch household, but it is exciting.

23:28I was trying to balance having two children and a husband and a family life. Dog.

23:35Le xin. Le. Dogs are masculine. That's stupid. I'll take it up with the French.

23:46Hang on.

23:47The test is tomorrow.

23:53Yeah, just give me a second.

23:55There was a lot of personal challenges at that time as well as professional challenges.

24:02I can be here next week for the parent-teacher interviews while you're in Sydney.

24:06Great. Can you just... Hang on. I need to hear this.

24:10And I'm away for the next two weeks.

24:15I thought it was only one.

24:16Well, it was. It got changed.

24:17Alan Tudge is the Minister for Human Services.

24:20You could just ignore it.

24:21No, I can't.

24:24Alan is betting his whole career on this thing.

24:26There's just some people who aren't stepping up to the mark.

24:28And he wants a bit more teeth, if you like, to encourage those young people to step up to the

24:33I might need to travel in those two weeks.

24:35Honey, I've already changed things once.

24:37You could stay with Rosie.

24:39No, you can't.

24:44To be honest, one of the reasons why I was interested in working for him, because it was

24:48an opportunity to actually be more proactive as a media advisor, and a good way to do that

24:52is to be seen to be having wins in the media for the government.

24:56Now, whenever they try to throw you, just keep coming back to the central argument.

24:59Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency.

25:02And make sure you mention welfare cheats.

25:04The public hates welfare cheats.

25:06A current affair interview was very much focused on sending a clear warning message out to

25:12people that the Coalition is cracking down on welfare cheats.

25:16Good.

25:18We will find you.

25:19We will track you down.

25:20And you will have to repay those debts.

25:22And you may end up in prison.

25:24Our thinking on it was that we wanted the Australian people to support our welfare safety net, and

25:31that they would do so if they felt that the system had integrity.

25:34Especially as a Coalition government, we want to make sure that the scheme's running properly

25:37and that we are recovering debts, that we weren't just kind of letting them go.

25:41Prior to the RoboDebt scheme, we had a lot of different programs that were all about getting it right,

26:00doing the work correctly, and making sure that the debts were accurate right down to the last cent.

26:10And then after RoboDebt took off, that was raising debts that we knew were incorrect.

26:19In the initial meeting, there was so much to all.

26:25You can't raise a debt if you know it's inaccurate.

26:29I can remember walking out of that meeting and ringing my union person straight away,

26:35going, you just won't, like, this is just crazy.

26:38You know, this isn't going to really work.

26:40Each one of us were taken by our team leader into a one-to-one meeting.

26:50She made it very clear that there was a direction that was being handed down from higher management.

27:01And she said, basically, you've got three choices to do the job, transfer or quit.

27:12And I was pretty upset about it.

27:17But I was going through a family breakdown whilst I was raising three children.

27:22I didn't have the option or the opportunity to say, well, I'm going to quit because I needed the security.

27:28I needed to be close to home because my children were still in primary school.

27:33So I stayed and I did the job.

27:45One day I was just at home and received a Santa Lake letter in the mailbox.

27:49You owe us money.

27:50I couldn't fathom it.

27:51I was really surprised that I had a debt and a bit alarmed.

27:55Worst, most absolutely soul-crushing you used to get.

28:03September 2016, we were seconded to go and check that the fully automated debts were actually calculating it correctly.

28:23And they wanted a group of experienced debt calculators.

28:27And we were to do a manual calculation to see what we arrived at

28:31and compare that with what the system arrived at fully automated.

28:35And what was obvious straight away was this was being duplicated.

28:41The first three we looked at, duplication.

28:44Both Woolworths and Big W.

28:46One was the trading name and one was the group entity name.

28:49One was, there was an apostrophe missing, and a PTY LTD.

28:54A human being looking at it, quite clearly it's the same employer.

28:58So we worked out what the debt would be if we didn't double up the same employer, you know.

29:04And the difference was probably about two and a half thousand.

29:08And so we went to the supervisor and said, well, these debts are wrong, you know.

29:14And I'll never forget the supervisor there, and I'll never forgive her for this.

29:18And she said, well, if you don't like it, you can leave.

29:20It seemed to be you're either for us or against us.

29:23And if you're against us, well, watch out, you know.

29:32So I went back upstairs, and I said, you cannot do this to people.

29:37And I said, people will commit suicide.

29:40The other team leader, she said to me, you're right, Colin, but it's just gone too far.

29:51It was this steamroller that was full steam ahead, and who's going to stop it now?

30:00We were the Department of Human Services.

30:03Where was the humanity?

30:04On the 5th of September, Ciara had really bad asthma, and she'd developed a chest infection on top of it, so I had to take her to the doctors.

30:28We finished our appointment, and I went to go pay.

30:30And my card declined.

30:40And I was in shock.

30:41I couldn't even tell you how many times I apologised to the receptionist at the doctor's clinic.

30:46And I opened up my banking app, and I saw that my account was overdrawn by $11,500.

30:52So I got in the car, and I called the debt collection agency.

31:02He started his phone call so cold with me, he basically treated me like I was a pariah.

31:07He said, well, you've got a debt, and now you've paid it.

31:10And we were going over the bridge on the freeway, and I said to him, well, why don't I just drive off the road?

31:19I can't afford my rent, I couldn't afford my bills, I'm a terrible mum, I'm a terrible partner, because I can't contribute to anything, I'm a terrible community member, because I'm leeching off the system.

31:33I felt hopeless and helpless and stupid.

31:39He said, we don't want you to do anything silly, you know, don't worry, it's clearly a mistake, we'll put the money back in your account tomorrow.

31:46But the damage had been done, because they were able to withdraw half a year's worth of wages from my account in an instant, and I had no say in it.

32:00That day, I didn't want to be alive.

32:04I didn't want to be Ciara's mum.

32:09I just wanted to tend.

32:16Rhys did suffer anxiety, he would have panic attacks.

32:40I obviously was extremely concerned about his welfare.

32:46You ever heard of Dun & Bradstreet?

33:01Is that a band?

33:05They're the ones that are hassling me about the money.

33:10What are you talking about?

33:16They're debt collectors.

33:30They're trying to garnish my wages.

33:34They're going to take my car, not that it's worth anything.

33:39They're going to take my bike too, and then I can't even get to work to make the money to pay them off.

33:44They can't write this sort of thing to people.

33:50And they're texting me too.

33:52They're being raped.

34:07Is this so not okay?

34:09I don't know what's going to happen if I can't pay them.

34:11Megan, I'll send you to prison.

34:20I hate these people.

34:21Good afternoon, Services Australia, Ravi speaking.

34:43G'day, I'm on a disability support pension.

34:47I was given two robo-defts.

34:49One was $5,352.

34:53The other one was $6,011, so two totaling about $11,000.

35:00I'm on the poverty line.

35:01I don't know whether I can afford anything more than $10 a fortnight.

35:09We weren't really trained to deal with the level of trauma that the customers were coming through with.

35:15Either they were very distraught, very upset, very emotional, and then the next call that you take, within that 30 seconds later, someone's swearing at you, telling you that they're going to find where you live and threaten yourself and your family.

35:36When you've got someone that confesses that they're feeling suicidal or have talked about self-harm, it was quite stressful.

35:48And I knew that the debts for the majority were incorrect.

35:53And I'm like, how would I feel if that was me?

35:57I'd feel terrible.

35:58And that really played on me mentally.

36:01I started going to the pub and my lunch breaks.

36:07It would make the afternoon calls a little less traumatic.

36:11I started drinking in my lunch breaks, buying a bottle and taking it home.

36:19In the end, I end up with an alcohol addiction that I'm still battling with today.

36:27My children watched me just become less available, depressed that I couldn't change it.

36:34I felt guilty and shame that there wasn't anything that could really be done to make people understand that it needed to stop.

36:53Thousands of welfare recipients have been overpaid to the tune of more than $700 million.

36:59But the government says it must be repaid.

37:02While most people do the right thing, the unfortunate reality is that some people deliberately defraud the system.

37:11Thrive's in a limelight.

37:13That's because you've briefed him properly.

37:17Doing my job.

37:20The view was that, hey, there's millions of dollars in human services that is just going to people who aren't entitled to it.

37:27At the end of the day, if somebody does owe money to the government, they have to pay it back.

37:32One in every $3 of the federal budget is spent on welfare, and by 2020, the system's forecast to...

37:39They're well briefed, apparently.

37:41Seriously.

37:43...to the welfare recipient.

37:44We want to be reasonable.

37:45All the things I should have mentioned.

37:46...to the taxpayer.

37:48And while the government's investigating...

37:50As a media advisor, your phone doesn't stop.

37:53It can be made worse if you're working for a minister like I was, who is constantly looking for those opportunities in the media and constantly following and reading the media and following Twitter.

38:05Because then, as soon as something's breaking, he was calling me straight away and going, hey, have you seen this?

38:10Hey, have you got a response to that?

38:12Hey, can you get me on that opportunity in that TV program?

38:1680% of people's welfare payments are now placed onto an account which is only accessible via that card.

38:23I can remember one instance when I was at home and I went into the bathroom.

38:31My phone just rung and rung.

38:39It was the minister saying, well, where were you?

38:41Why weren't you picking up your phone?

38:42And I said, look, I was actually going to the toilet.

38:48And he was like, no, I need you to take the phone in the bathroom with you.

38:55I got to the point where I'd just take the phone with me everywhere.

39:04I remember seeing a press release from Alan Tudge's office.

39:07There was going to start debt recovery processes at a rate of $20,000 per week, when previously you'd been running at about $20,000 per year.

39:19I thought, how on earth are they going to achieve this?

39:23And it just didn't match with the reality of what I knew and understood about the way that welfare recipients were claiming money.

39:31And the kind of, you know, the kind of numbers that were involved in deliberately taking money from the system or trying to rort the system.

39:38It just needed to be covered.

39:46As a journalist, I had the power to have a really significant impact.

39:51Giving a voice to voiceless people and disempowered people and seeking to understand what's happening to them

39:56and how they're being impacted by policy and government decisions is a really critical part of journalism.

40:03I think I got to kind of reconnect with that purpose.

40:15First story that we published is the first story in the media about RoboDebt.

40:19And what happens from there is we get a trickle of welfare recipients getting in touch with us

40:31and that soon becomes a flood.

40:34We're absolutely inundated with people coming forward.

40:36How am I going to pay this if I have to pay it?

40:49Where am I going to find this money?

40:51It didn't make sense to me that I could get a $14,000 to $16,000 bill.

40:55Spend a lot of time on the phone with SenseLink trying to figure out how they figured it out.

41:00You're ashamed.

41:01I hid it.

41:02I didn't tell anybody.

41:03It makes you start questioning everything because you think you're always in the wrong.

41:08It caused me to sort of like have a bit of a breakdown in a way.

41:15When you're experiencing such a tremendous debt,

41:19you can't help but reflect on yourself and your actions and go,

41:23where did I go wrong?

41:23What did I do?

41:24How did I get myself into this?

41:26I feel so lucky that I have a support network around me

41:30and get support and emotional support from my husband.

41:34But I always think, what about those people that can't,

41:37that has social anxiety or has phone anxiety

41:39and can't pick up the phone and call the decklifters?

41:42Do they just let them take the money out of their account and go,

41:44oh, well, I guess I'll sleep on the street?

41:46You know, what about the person that's escaping a domestic violence situation?

41:50What about the person that's living with a disability

41:52who can't access a phone or can't access Centrelink independently?

41:57And what about a student who's new to the world,

42:01you know, a naive teenager that thinks it'll all blow over?

42:04Did anyone at all consider them in their architecture of this program?

42:11This is the system working as it was intended.

42:16We are doing this in an organised, fair and procedural way.

42:21All through this period,

42:23the government is basically rubbishing our reporting,

42:26saying it's wrong, they don't understand what they're reporting,

42:29they don't understand how the system works,

42:31we haven't changed anything,

42:33we've always raised debts in this manner.

42:35To me, that was kind of like a red rag to a bull,

42:39like, cos I could see exactly how it had changed.

42:42I knew that things were different.

42:48And in those first few weeks, there's us reporting it,

42:52some stories in the ABC, Crikey,

42:55and a couple of other smaller outlets.

43:01But there is this section of the media that completely ignores it.

43:05And that is mainly the News Corp tabloids

43:08and the broadsheet, The Australian.

43:11It's not unexpected that that would happen,

43:13but it was frustrating, in a sense,

43:16as the truth was right there in front of everyone,

43:19in front of every reporter in the country.

43:25It was definitely my job

43:27to try and minimise the amount of negative stories

43:31that were appearing in the media.

43:35Alan, good morning.

43:47Does it still qualify as warning?

43:52Yeah.

43:53I'm aware there's been some pushback,

43:54but it's only from a couple of left-wing journalists.

43:56That was all he talked about to me,

43:59was, you know, there's another story today,

44:01why haven't you spoken to that journalist?

44:04Have you got our side of the story in there?

44:07You know, I worked really hard to make sure that at least

44:10if there was going to be a negative story,

44:11that it was least balanced.

44:13We can certainly feed a couple of stories to the tabloids.

44:19We're the good guys.

44:23Oh, I've been pursuing the use-saker.

44:24So, social media users, yeah.

44:28Yeah.

44:29Okay.

44:32Yeah, I can be in the office in 15 minutes.

44:40Minister, thanks for joining us on HACC.

44:42Pleasure.

44:43On a scale of 1 to 10,

44:44how flawed is your new system?

44:47I don't think it's flawed at all.

44:49What we're trying to do is just to ensure

44:51that people get the right payment

44:53that they're entitled to,

44:55no more and no less.

44:57We sort of saw an opportunity

44:58where we've got a bunch of kind of intellectual left-wingers

45:02who are really outraged about this program,

45:04but we're able to sell a different story

45:07to the mainstream media

45:09about we were recovering debts

45:12because we were trying to protect

45:14the integrity of the welfare system.

45:15Our information that came back to us

45:19was that the system was working

45:20as it should have been.

45:22We're hearing stories from young people

45:24who are now being chased by debt collectors.

45:26How early do you call the debt collectors in?

45:30So, the debt collectors come in as a last resort

45:33when a person with the debt

45:34is no longer receiving a Centrelink payment,

45:37where we've been unable to contact the person

45:40and they've failed to make or maintain

45:42a recovery arrangement.

45:45By the stage in December,

46:05Rhys felt like he was being victimised.

46:08He felt like,

46:08am I a criminal here?

46:10Or he would have been like a deer

46:11in a set of headlights

46:13and not knowing where to go.

46:17And that's what happened.

46:21We couldn't make head more tale

46:23of where this was coming from.

46:25That was the start of everything.

46:27Warm start to summer today.

46:39However, temperatures in our west

46:40will be getting close to 40 tomorrow.

46:43Merry Christmas!

46:44There'll be plenty more beach weather to come

46:47as we approach Christmas.

46:48It was a day to start and finish your Christmas shopping.

46:52Today was it.

46:54Trees, tinsel and tans.

46:56At this particular point just before Christmas,

46:59we're talking about people who in many cases

47:01are disadvantaged or vulnerable.

47:04Maybe five to six grand doesn't sound like a lot of money

47:06but actually for many people

47:09that's kind of the difference

47:10between having money in your bank account or not

47:12or being able to buy presents for your kids at Christmas

47:16or, you know, being able to buy uniforms for next year

47:20or in some cases being able to pay rent,

47:23put food on the table.

47:23So it was devastating.

47:26It was devastating to people.

47:39Over the Christmas period,

47:41Rhys didn't say a great deal to me

47:43about the harassment that he was receiving.

47:45It was actually Britt that advised me

47:50that, you know, he was getting harassed.

47:52He was just threatened with losing absolutely everything.

48:13He felt like he just had a burden on his shoulders continuously

48:19and that he just wasn't going to get anywhere

48:21and he didn't know which way to turn.

48:24Canberra being the bubble it is,

48:32the culture around welfare recipients

48:35was probably one of a lack of empathy.

48:40We just didn't have any insights into what it felt like

48:47to be receiving a government benefit.

48:50I first started to hear or feel that something wasn't going right

48:59when we had phone calls from people with debts

49:03coming into the minister's office.

49:05But I also ran into a younger woman in the ladies' bathrooms.

49:13I need your help.

49:16I got this debt notice from way back when I was a student.

49:22It doesn't make sense.

49:23I've checked.

49:24OK.

49:25I've got all my pay slips from my casual jobs at uni,

49:27every one of them.

49:29There shouldn't be any debt,

49:30but they're saying I owe thousands.

49:34I mean, I always told them what money I'd earn.

49:35I provided pay slips.

49:37I did all the things you're supposed to do.

49:39Well, someone like you shouldn't have one of those debts.

49:42You're not exactly rorting the system, right?

49:44Yeah.

49:46I can't tell my family or anyone.

49:50This is so...

49:52It's embarrassing.

49:56Could have been a mistake.

49:58Has to have been.

50:00I'll look into it.

50:03Could you?

50:04Yeah.

50:05That'd be amazing.

50:14Definitely that conversation with that young woman in the bathroom

50:17was the first time that I had serious doubts.

50:21Because this is a person who is extremely well-educated.

50:25She had kept all of her pay slips and all of her documentation.

50:28Because she had all of those records,

50:31it was sorted out really quickly.

50:33And she didn't have a debt.

50:35I was worried because I was like,

50:37well, she has all of that information and that's lucky,

50:41but what about the people who don't?

50:43And when I started to try and look into it even further,

50:50I was told very firmly that we're looking after this.

50:55This is the policy side of it.

50:58You're the media advisor.

51:00You just stick to what you're hearing from the media team in the department.

51:03I couldn't see how that was right.

51:10There was something about it that was just, that felt wrong.

51:14It felt strange when the first time somebody said you're a whistleblower,

51:31I was like, what do you mean?

51:32You feel that you have to put yourself at risk so that the truth comes out.

51:38Empathy, I just didn't have any left.

51:41You just do what your minister wants you to do.

51:44They did not acknowledge that people were vulnerable.

51:46They did not acknowledge that people were suffering.

51:51I was not going to pay them anything

51:53and I was not going to let them push me into killing myself.

51:59They did not goodbye.

52:22Transcription by CastingWords

52:52Call Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36 or visit beyondblue.org.au or talk to your local GP or health professional.

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