Mother of son who died by suicide after robodebt shares tragic detail on find in his home
A mother who lost her son after he was hounded by Centrelink to repay an unlawful debt has shared tragic details of the drawing he left behind.
Warning: distressing content
A mother of a young man who took his own life after being hounded by debt collectors has shared the devastating item she found stuck to his fridge after his death.
Jennifer Miller told the robodebt royal commission in Brisbane on Monday her son Rhys Cauzzo took his own life as a result of the unlawful scheme, and that she had spent years trying to get the “truth” from the government departments involved.
Between May and October 2016, Rhys had received 12 letters and had between five or six phone calls from Centrelink.
The debt was then referred to collector Dun & Bradstreet. The inquiry heard Rhys then received a further six letters, two text messages and 13 phone calls between November 2016 and January 2017.
Rhys took his own life on Australia Day 2017. He was 27 years old. It was not his first attempt.
After his death, Ms Miller told the inquiry she travelled from Queensland to her son’s home in Melbourne to make arrangements and to piece together why he had taken his own life.
She said she found five of the debt letters from Dun & Bradstreet on her son’s fridge. Next to them was a drawing of Rhys’ face with a gun, dollar signs around it, and a caption reading “debt life”.
Ms Miller said she had been helping him at the time but she was not aware of the robodebt. The first letter was for $10,300. The second alleged a debt of $17,000, which was a combination of debts.
The inquiry heard the debts against Rhys had since been refunded and “zeroed” meaning it was calculated using the unlawful income averaging method.
After six years, this was the first time it had been confirmed for Ms Miller, who has spent the time since her son’s death searching for information on Rhys’s alleged debt.
“Not once did I get a truthful answer,” she said.
Ms Miller also learned that despite Rhys’ pre-existing mental health condition, he had no “vulnerability indicator” on his Centrelink file. Such a marker could have allowed him to avoid being referred to debt collectors.
Ms Miller said she had only learned via internal DHS emails exposed in the commission Rhys’s vulnerability indicator was not maintained as the markers expired automatically after 54 weeks without a review.
Ms Miller had previously sought access to such documents through a freedom of information request but had been blocked.
Relevant documents, a DHS email shown to the commission revealed, were also blocked from the Victorian coroner – which ultimately knocked back request to investigate Rhys’ death.
Ms Miller said that she felt heartbroken and vindicated by the commission’s findings.
“I've finally been able to obtain the truth,” she told the inquiry.
“It broke my heart seeing all the information, I felt like I‘d let him down somehow by not knowing.
“He was let down by the system. I find it extraordinary the lengths they went to stop me being persistent. I hope this sets a precedent, that you're in public office to work for the people. Do your job, and do it properly.
“Everyone was lying and covering each other's backs. It’s heartbreaking, but also vindicating. We’ve been able to get the truth, for Rhys.”
The royal commission is investigating how Australians’ annual tax information was used to determine average fortnightly earnings and automatically establish welfare debts.
The practice was ruled unlawful by the Federal Court in 2019. It is believed to have wrongfully recovered more than $750 million from 381,000 people.
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