Robo-torment might be state-sanctioned extortion

“This is bullying plain and simple. Why can’t it be dealt with at a Centrelink office? Why, if I had a debt, has it taken so long to contact me? Why are the robo-debt team so nasty and intimidating?”

Those are the words of a woman battling several health problems including undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. She is being pursued by the government’s harsh and inaccurate robo-debt system, which claims she was overpaid $9000 in sickness allowance four years ago.

The first line of the demand to her on Australian government letterhead says “and you need to pay the money back”. The onus is on her to disprove that claim and battle through her myriad health issues to find paperwork from 2014 that, if she can get it, might lead to the government calling off the dogs. Welcome to the robo-debt nightmare.

Labor supports debt recovery. We even support data matching with proper human oversight. But the robo-debt scheme is malfunctioning. National Disability Insur­ance Scheme and Government Services Minister Stuart Robert admits an error rate of at least one in five. Insiders know it is malfunctioning and are covering it up because the government wants the revenue apparently at any cost. Former debt compliance officers in the “boiler rooms” often run by private contractors tell of raising their concerns and being told to press on. They are told if the victims can prove the debts are wrong they will get their money back. The victims are routinely pressured to pay up or face a worse financial fate.

In the face of official cover-up, it is hard for robo-debt victims to get their voices heard. These include university students for whom a bad debt record can be a career killer, retirees who worked and paid taxes for decades, and single dads struggling to make their way in the gig economy. These are the real quiet Australians, and when it comes to their legitimate complaints about robo-debt, that seems to be the way the Morrison government likes them — quiet.

To give disempowered robo-debt victims a rare opportunity to be heard Labor recently launched a website, Your Robodebt Story. The stories we have been told through that site reveal the cruelty and heartache of the scheme that is hurting people in every state of this great nation.

We may never know just how much it is hurting people, but at least one mother blames robo-debt for her son’s suicide. Many targeted by robo-debt are battling giant obstacles in their lives and are at breaking point. Their welfare trickle drops like the gentle rain from heaven. It can be the difference between a life that is tough but functional and total destitution. These Australians being treated like criminals are not lying on a beach in the Cayman Islands with a pina colada in one hand and a suitcase of ill-gotten cash in the other. Rather, as one woman, who had her entire tax return garnished by a disputed robo-debt, told us: “I personally needed that money to take my cat to the vet and to get my teeth fixed. I can now not afford it.”

We need to have a long think about whether we as a nation are comfortable with a scheme that has the same essential logic and ethics of a mob standover.

But robo-debt is not simply immoral. After speaking to several legal experts in this area I am convinced the robo-debt scheme may well lack any legal foundation.

Our social security legislation holds that something is a debt only if proven. But robo-debt victims are not given the courtesy of the detail. They are given the figure that an automated algorithm arrives at but not shown the “working out”. Many are frightened into paying off debts that may be wrong or non-existent.

There is a practical onus on Centrelink to establish a debt exists. When the government sends a letter declaring a citizen owes a debt, with no basis given, and demands the citizen proves their innocence, this is state-sanctioned extortion. We know a little of the emotional and psychological toll that robo-debt leaves in its wake. But there can also be a hit to a person’s standing in society and to their financial affairs. This is not a speeding fine. There is a stigma to having a debt claimed against you by the state. The gravity of a declaration of debt is its consequence. This creates an obligation for evidence on the part of the government that is higher than a mere assertion.

Australians still believe in the fair go. According to recent research, most want the plug pulled on the malfunctioning robo-debt menace. Robo-debt may be delivering the government rivers of gold. But so much of it is tainted. It is dirty money and it is plunder that comes at too great a human cost. It must be scrapped. And quickly.

Bill Shorten is the opposition spokesman for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and government services.