This Month
- Opinion
- Political leadership
With a half-smile, Bill Shorten bows out of politics on his terms
The former federal Labor leader has no regrets about calling it quits to become a university vice chancellor.
- Jennifer Hewett
June
‘Deeply offensive’: ATO boss slams robo-debt comparison
New Tax Commissioner Rob Heferen was forceful in his first appearance before Parliament, rejecting criticism of a Tax Office program to chase small debts.
- Tom McIlroy
Anti-corruption commission robo-debt call to be investigated
Gail Furness, SC, the independent inspector tasked with holding the NACC accountable, on Thursday said the decision came after nearly 900 individual complaints.
- Ronald Mizen
Anti-corruption commission rules out robo-debt inquiry
Former Coalition government ministers and senior public servants have avoided another investigation into the illegal welfare payment recovery scheme.
- Tom McIlroy
- Opinion
- AI
Key workers left as invisible bystanders to the AI revolution
A hype-driven, tech-led approach to AI adoption will harm workers, disappoint investors and damage the economy, we must listen and learn from workers at the coalface.
- Nicholas Davis
November 2023
Tax Office scraps robo-debt style push on repayments
Officials conceded they caused unnecessary distress in pursuing historical debts from tens of thousands of taxpayers.
- Tom McIlroy
New laws to make federal algorithms and AI explainable
New federal transparency laws to review machine decision-making and to explain how these decisions are made, will be introduced.
- Tom Burton
New rules to sack top mandarins
Departmental heads will have their performance tracked and face dismissal if not satisfactory, under a revamp following the robo-debt royal commission.
- Tom Burton
August 2023
- Opinion
- Canberra Observed
Australians are owed a royal commission into the pandemic
A proper commission of inquiry should not be conceived with payback in mind but with a view to how things could be done better the next time.
- Phillip Coorey
Robo-debt crackdown is just the start, public service chief warns
The first response to the toxic and bullying leadership behaviours exposed in the robo-debt scheme will legally require all officials to be ‘stewards’ for good government.
- Tom Burton
July 2023
Robo-debt royal commission was a ‘political lynching’: Morrison
Scott Morrison noted Labor went to two elections counting the savings from robo-debt in its own budget costings.
- Phillip Coorey
Robo-debt ‘bullies, sycophants’ not the public service Shorten knows
A cabal of bullies and sycophants was responsible for suppressing frank and fearless advice about robo-debt, Bill Shorten says.
- Ronald Mizen
Labor to scrap Coalition’s $200m ‘welfare calculator’
Stopping development of the $200 million entitlement engine project comes in the wake of the bruising robo-debt royal commission report.
- Tom McIlroy and Andrew Tillett
Robo-debt’s Kathryn Campbell quits $900k a year job
The former head of the Human Services Department resigned from her job as an adviser on AUKUS last week, the Defence Department has confirmed.
- Andrew Tillett and Tom Burton
- Opinion
- Mental health
Where has our empathy gone?
Researchers agree there’s a problem, but there is also a solution to the diminishing levels of emotional literacy.
- Peter Quarry
Robo-debt minister Michael Keenan kicks off board career
The former human services minister has been appointed to the board of $12 million Singapore-based biotech Osteopore.
- Updated
- Myriam Robin
How Sydney Uni behavioural boffins tried to improve robo-debt letters
Royal Commission exhibits reveal the planning phases of a “collaboration” with the University of Sydney, aimed at boosting compliance.
- Updated
- Myriam Robin
- Opinion
- Voice to parliament
Downward envy and the politics of robo-debt and the Voice
Welfare bashing and scare stories about the Indigenous Voice have their roots in the same populist appeal, and the same basic failures of practical government.
- Laura Tingle
- Opinion
- Opinion
Not all royal commissions are equal
The media are a lot more interested in scandals like robo-debt under a Coalition government than in Lawyer X under a Labor government in Victoria.
- John Roskam
How a spreadsheet error spawned the $4.7b robo-debt monster
An analysis created by junior officials looked at just 418 welfare cases and contained a fundamental error. Their bosses seized on it anyway.
- Tom Burton