I received my first robodebt in 2016. I was working at a community radio station, living in a share house and earning a few hundred dollars a week. The thousands of dollars Centrelink said I owed was an incomprehensible amount of money.
They claimed I’d misreported my earnings years previous but I felt sure that I hadn’t. I had to provide all of my weekly payslips but during the period in question there’d been several jobs; a video store, a comedy club, a pie factory and a supermarket from memory. I’d often work two casual jobs while I was studying and my hours varied week to week and month to month.
I couldn’t get most of the payslips (except a few months from the supermarket) and my bank account history only listed the pre-tax gross amounts, which wasn’t good enough, apparently. I contested the debt and tried to get on with my life.
Around a year later, I received my second robodebt notice. It was for an even higher amount than the first. I was out of work, struggling to pay rent and in crisis. It was the worst period of my life for my mental health. I was suicidal and reckless. At times, I couldn’t manage my emotions and I drove people close to me away. It’s hard to look back on that time now.
I tried to work out how I could afford to pay the debts as well as my rent, bills, food and medication. I couldn’t afford to see a psychologist. I felt defeated. At 27, I reluctantly moved back to the small town where I grew up to live with my parents and save money.
I got a job at a boat hire company and another at the local pub. All the while, I was hounded by debt collectors. They called my mobile while I was working and my parents’ landline when they couldn’t reach me. Centrelink took my tax returns in their entirety as “debt recovery”.
I moved back to the city in late 2019. Half a year later, the second Senate committee inquiry took place and I watched as some of the people responsible defended decisions that upended mine and 433,000 other people’s lives.
I felt overwhelmed. Watching the proceedings became an obsession and I found myself intensely angry listening to someone like Kathryn Campbell, the then secretary of the Department of Human Services, who apologised for the “hurt and harm” of the scheme but didn’t accept there were any people who took their own lives as a result of it.
I engaged with therapy again and talked at length with a specialist about robodebt and how to cope as the proceedings went ahead. It was incredibly helpful and I’m very grateful that my GP worked with me to get that help.
Apart from the thousands paid toward the debts, which was reimbursed by the class action settlement, I received $266 in interest. Most people received less. It hardly felt like closure or compensation.
I’m glad to see the royal commission is under way and I follow as much as I feel able. Every revelation so far has shown there were clear warning signs before the robodebt scheme was implemented. Unsurprisingly, it also seems that those involved, including Scott Morrison in his role as social services minister in 2015, dismissed the legal and ethical issues around the system. It only makes it more obvious that the intention of robodebt was to punish those on income support.
I’d like to see accountability from people such as Morrison, Campbell, Alan Tudge, and many others. I want them to apologise and to understand why what they did was wrong. I want them to listen to those affected and the loved ones of victims of suicide who aren’t around any more due in large part to the scheme they put in place. I want both major parties to commit to moving from a punitive to a supportive system.
Many of us in long-term poverty were able to better our circumstances during the period the Covid supplement was introduced. I was able to re-train in my current field, move into a solo unit and re-engage with counselling. Others had major dental work done, invested in cars, paid off credit, bought new clothes, and were generally better able to improve their living situations.
The return to below-poverty-line levels of welfare, further cemented by the current budget, and the continued use of “mutual” obligations are harming the same people who lived through robodebt, as well as new generations.
Rather than recreating the circumstances that lead to robodebt, we should be having a discussion about how we can improve the lives of people who rely on income support.
• Nathan Kearney is a horticulturalist and independent musician who wants to see welfare reform in Australia
• In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978.
