How welfare bashing exposed government at its worst

“Anti-welfare rhetoric is easy populism, useful for campaign purposes. It is not recent, nor is it confined to one side of politics, as some of the quoted material in this report demonstrates.

“It may be that the evidence in this royal commission has gone some way to changing public perceptions. But largely, those attitudes are set by politicians, who need to abandon for good (in every sense) the narrative of taxpayer versus welfare recipient.”

Holmes’ comments go the heart of what has really been exposed by robo-debt: there are the horrendous stories of its impact on thousands of Australians’ lives. But her report is also casting a light on how eroded, mean and corrupting a bit of embedded political populism is on our policy culture.

A bit like the way we seemed to collectively turn a blind eye to what was done in our name to asylum seekers, welfare bashing has sidled its way into justifying breaches of law, bad policy, deliberate, sustained and systemic misleading by public servants, and failures of ministerial responsibility.

Welfare bashing as a long-standing political sport only became more central to the way government approached its task with the rise of the Coalition’s “debt and deficit” mantra.

“An enthusiasm for [budget]savings,” Holmes observes, “would seem an anathema to the underlying policy and rationale for social security spending, of supporting those in need; however, it appears that the social security portfolio was generally perceived as a reliable source for such savings.”

“There are different mindsets one can adopt in relation to social welfare policy,” she says.

“One is to recognise that many citizens will at different times in their lives need income support – on a temporary basis for some as they study or look for work; longer-term for others, for reasons of age, disadvantage or disability - and to provide that support willingly, adequately and with respect.

Yet it turns out that departments aren’t actually required to state that a policy proposal is actually legal.

“An alternative approach is to regard those in receipt of social security benefits as a drag on the national economy, an entry on the debit side of the Budget to be reduced by any means available: by casting recipients as a burden on the taxpayer, by making onerous requirements of those who are claiming or have claimed benefit, by minimising the availability of assistance from departmental staff, by clawing back benefits whether justly or not, and by generally making the condition of the social security recipient unpleasant and undesirable. The robo-debt scheme exemplifies the latter.”

You don’t have to read the sealed section of the report to know that a lot of people are going to face some dire consequences as a result of their actions.

Holmes has recommended “the referral of individuals for civil action or criminal prosecution”, and she notes she is referring the sealed section of the report to “the Australian Public Service Commissioner, the National Anti-Corruption Commissioner, the President of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory and the Australian Federal Police”.

It is remarkable, she says, “how little interest there seems to have been in ensuring the scheme’s legality, how rushed its implementation was, how little thought was given to how it would affect welfare recipients and the lengths to which public servants were prepared to go to oblige ministers on a quest for savings”.

The Royal Commission’s forensic detail of how robo-debt unfolded within two particular departments – the Department of Human Services and the Department of Social Services - is not just shocking but the ultimate case study in bad public policy.

But Holmes paints a much broader picture not only of public service dysfunction but specifically the utter failure of systems and institutions which are supposed to provide “checks and balances” for bad policy.

This includes the “ineffectiveness” of “the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office, the Office of Legal Services Co-ordination, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal” in stopping the scheme.

There are also gobsmacking failures in the budget process – a forum which you would be forgiven for thinking must represent the most rigorous and repeated examination of government spending conducted by the cabinet of the day each year.

Yet it turns out that, under current rules, departments aren’t actually required to state that a policy proposal is actually legal, or contain the legal advice that underlines that argument.

Nor does data used by departments in supporting a budget recommendation actually have to be properly sourced.

Maybe such niceties are a hangover from the days when you not only expected ministers to meet certain standards of conduct, but that they would be advised by honest and diligent public servants

Instead, the commission reported repeated cases of public servants “engaged in deliberate conduct designed to mislead Cabinet”, and of a department head, Kathryn Campbell, who “the weight of the evidence .. leads to the conclusion that Ms Campbell knew of the misleading effect of the NPP[new policy proposal] but chose to stay silent, knowing that Mr Morrison wanted to pursue the proposal and that the government could not achieve the savings which the NPP promised”.

In Scott Morrison’s case, the commission rejected “as untrue”, some of his evidence”, and that he “allowed Cabinet to be misled” about a proposal he took to it “without necessary information as to what it actually entailed and without the caveat that it required legislative and policy change”.

There are many recommendations, beyond taking action against many people who have failed in their duty to protect the public interest, and the public.

But beyond all these are myriad proposals designed to change the culture of the public service that has been eroded by the meanness – and political expediency – of recent times.

They are summed up best in a recommendation so simple it is profoundly sad: that the department responsible for delivering government services, Services Australia, should “design policies and processes with emphasis on the people they are meant to serve”.