And so this horrible and grizzly affair continues to be exposed. The behaviour of politicians and public servants appearing before the commission has been to deny and claim no knowledge of events, meetings, people, decisions etc. Galling, but expected given the enormity of the legal implications. Not bad for a degree and upwards to $325,000.00 AUS per annum
“The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists.” Isaac Asimov
Note: this poem is a result of my blood boiling over from years of federal govt inaction (Until the recent change of govt and the implementation of the Royal commission) over unjust and unfair treatment of welfare recipients. Robo debt is an online process of debt recovery by a govt dept from welfare recipients deemed to be overpaid or who are not entitled to payments. The process used an averaging system. It might seem to be a storm in a tea cup until you realise that this process was prosecuted fully against the most vulnerable people in Australia and that the averaging was a false process, it took one off payments or fluctuations in income as regular and averaged that as annual income and calculated a debt on that basis. So that a welfare recipient who might have claimed unemployment or part time employment under the threshold and welfare to top up, who declared a cash job of $80.00 was deemed as earning $2, 000.00 and should repay that amount against their welfare received. This meant that the Dept. viewed this as either infringing reporting, falsely declaring, or at the very least owing the govt. The debt didn’t exist but no one in the previous government was bothered. The Commission is in full flow and a picture is emerging of error and misdirection, which has deeply affected people’s lives. The findings will evolve to recommendations for govt to take action, and the way will become clear for those affected to take legal action. Little joy for those whose family members took their lives in response to overwhelming pressure and loss of hope, and those whose mental health was wrecked.
Govt and debt is a slippery slope – the full federal court ruled in 1984 that the dept – Centrelink, bore the onus to prove debt and not the recipient.
“The reason that robo-debt is an issue for law and lawyers is a simple one. It is because the debts do not exist in law.” Professor of Law Terry Carney AO in the Legal Studies Journal 1.8.19
Photo: Maruf_Rahman at pixabay.com Flood in Bangladesh
“With considerable justice, Bangladesh’s leading climate scientist says that ‘These migrants should have the right to move to the countries from which all these greenhouses are coming.'” Noam Chomsky
WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange leaves Westminster Magistrates Court in London, Britain January 13, 2020. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” Harry S. Truman
“A very faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behaviour as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.” E.O. Wilson
parallax 