There's no justice in the wake of Robodebt

Another day without any justice to be seen for the victims for robodebt, the illegal scheme constructed by the Morrison Coalition government over the foundation set by the Labor government back in 2011 that sought to wring money out of those with the least – welfare recipients.

Waking up to find two of six people referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission were found to have behaved corruptly was a slap in the face. It has felt like decades since the referral, the delays as Mr Brereton inappropriately involved himself despite conflicts of interest. Biggest insult of all, the minister responsible for the portfolio, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, was not held to that standard, his responsibility apparently diminished because he didn’t seek to have any insight into what he did to us.

Aside from trying to sell a troubling view of politicians, that they can just ignore us, which believe me, I feel. My Labor MP for Fremantle, Josh Wilson MP has never been receptive to issues since he took over from Melissa Parke, less so since he joined cabinet, including my frantic calls for help with my robodebt, but also tangential issues with the welfare system at large, namely that we are held to a standard that apparently no politicians has to be.

No politician has to report every fortnight that they’re worth $0, couched in threats that if we don’t report that $0 properly, we’ll be in big trouble. A humiliation ritual if there ever was one.

No politician has to report to some predatory, privatised job service provider on their whim, damned any commitments that existed before – education, doctors appointments, care responsibilities. When they tell us to jump, we can be punished for asking “how high?”

No politician has to submit to pointless, arbitrary numbers of job applications, nor await their inevitable rejection – an assault on self-worth over and above the mandatory income reporting requirements.

And yet, we have to submit to the above humiliations and more, just for living in a system where you need money to pay bills, rent, mortgages. Needless to say, if we fell asleep in parliament, if we were drunk dialing from the ground outside a Canberra pub, or we sat on government reports for months or years on end, we’d be rightly out on our arses.

Those of us unable to afford stable housing, something I’ll thank my late disability pensioner father’s foresight in securing long before welfare became a dirty word, we already have to put ourselves into tinier boxes to justify paying less rent, to submit ourself to cleaning up after our better compensated housemates, as I had to do before I moved back home, wearing every criticism of a missed spot – as if I had a choice between that and homelessness.

This system hasn’t meaningfully changed since the Albanese took over in 2022.

Any relief that came with the end of Scott Morrison’s reign, which only momentarily recognised our inherent dignity as human beings in the midst of the mass job losses associated with the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, paying us a reasonable amount, giving us access to our superannuation and a moment to breathe before being yanked away, was brief.

The only thing that really changed was who’s maintaining these manifestly classist policies.

Mutual obligations remain, and even with the pause of parts of the Targeted Compliance Framework, we still have to worry about suspensions and mistreatment in the privatised job network systems, systems which are less concerned with getting us employment than with keeping us compliant and their cheques rolling in. Many of us multiply-marginalised people accept that we’re expected to be permanent clients for these parasites until our best days are behind us.

The injustices we’ve faced, multiple stages of a class action that excludes people who gave in to Services Australia’s abuse, a Royal Commission that can detail our abuses but can’t give us relief, a Federal Labor government that wants to continue a tough on dole bludger narrative and pretend that 57^th Royal Commission recommendation on Freedom of Information simply doesn’t exist, and now, today, a NACC finding that relevant ministers do not have a responsibility to us, let alone a duty of care that Services Australia isn’t even bound to.

Justice? What’s that?