Raising Hell: Issue 59: Reap The Whirlwind

The day Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a Robodebt Royal Commission, it wasn’t the announcement of a long-awaited inquiry that caught my attention. Having just spent some time laying out the facts and letting Amanda Risworth and Bill Shorten bask in the spotlight, the presser moved to questions and the first fired off from the press pack was as frustrating as it was predictable:

Journalist: Prime Minister, there's been some criticism that this is an expensive review, a Royal Commission, into something that has already been through the Federal Court. What do you say to that? This has already been through the justice system, so what are you hoping to learn? And is this just another expensive way to trash the former government?

There was plenty to criticise about the proposed Royal Commission. As the Antipoverty Centre said in their media release, Labor had recently upped the rate at which it was collecting debts from those on social security and the terms of the inquiry would limited its scope to the period where the Coalition was in power. There is also a valid role for journalists to ask questions of public figures that may seem basic or contrarian in order to allow a politician to respond to a critique in their own words. This was not one of those times.

Contained in this triple-barrel question was a lot of assumptions, and a lot of information, about how those closest to the centre of power understood what had happened and where their priorities lay.

It is worth clearing one thing up at this point: Robodebt was theft. It was designed with the stated intention to balance the federal budget on the backs of those who could least afford it. It was not just about software replacing humans, it was the product of careerist bureaucrats and an ideological commitment to austerity by the government of the day which robbed the poorest Australians. If there was any program that needed the forensic examination of a Royal Commission, it was this one. And no, a federal court case was not enough, both for those who received a pittance and for those who are still seeking answers.

Back in October 2019, I applied under Freedom of Information for the state ministerial minute that Justin Warren is now independently suing the federal government to obtain. It has been three years since I applied and nothing. This information is relevant because it will tell us, effectively, what former Prime Minister Scott Morrison knew when he signed off on the expanded program as Social Services Minister, who authored the scheme and where the idea came from.

And yes, public accountability requires those who made the decisions in this period to be identified and, if appropriate, written into the permanent records as the perpetrators of a scam. Those worst affected were people who had already been beaten down by the privatised social security system that treats poor people as an asset class, but also a generation of young Australians who had the misfortunate of being born poor, or at the very least not-rich. They were single mothers with kids, people working two jobs in an impossible rental market, people living in sharehouses, university students — all people who suddenly found their lives derailed because a letter came in the post saying, falsely, they owed anyone somewhere between $100 to $50k.

Now it’s their turn to collect.

And yes, in my view, any Royal Commission into Robodebt should examine the entirety of the social security system’s debt collection processes. Robodebt did not come out of nowhere. It was built over two decades by successive decisions taken by successive governments, both Labor and Liberal. We should unpack its inner workings, lay everything out and examine the pieces in order to stop it happening again.

But then it’s impossible to even have that conversation when the question being asked right now is: why bother with holding the powerful to account at all?

We’re going to Narrabri! Thanks to the generous subscribers at Raising Hell, I’ll be on the road in the Pilliga following a story about Santos going to court to set aside a vote by Gomeroi Traditional Owners that would stop an 850 gas well project from going ahead. This means Issue 60 may come in late, but I’ll try and spin off some exclusive material for Raising Hell readers to make up for it.

For the Fortnight: August 17 to August 30

Reporting In

Where I recap what I’ve been doing this last fortnight so you know I’m not just using your money to stimulate the local economy …

• ***LIVE SHOW!*** I’ll be speaking to the effervescent Gemma Beale on 22 September about the biggest story going: climate change. We’ll be talking about my time on the ground at the country’s largest oil and gas industry conference, my up-coming story for Rolling Stone Australia about that experience, and round two in the climate wars.
  

  It’s cheaper than a movie and a whole lot more rowdy. Details below:

  

• “Tangled politics: why shark nets are still being used on NSW beaches” (Guardian Australia, 20 August 2022).

• “Mayor calls for end of shark nets at Sydney’s Bondi beach” (Guardian Australia, 18 August 2022).

• “Lack of accurate car emissions data is hindering uptake of EVs in Australia, experts warn” (Guardian Australia, 18 August 2022).

• “Plans for discovery centre on WA island dropped to protect little penguins” (Guardian Australia, 26 August 2022).

• “World EV road trip reveals an Australian market in the slow lane” (Guardian Australia, 28 August 2022).

Projects

• Cracking COVIDSafe - An examination of the machine that made the COVIDSafe app, a piece of software made by people who wanted to hack the pandemic (complete).

You Hate To See It

A dyspeptic, snark-ridden and highly ironic round-up of the news from our shared hellscape…

• They Said It Couldn’t Be Done

  Debt forgiveness is the season! US President Joe Biden may have historically worked against efforts to provide relief to the millions of students struggling with billions of debt, but now he has changed his tune. US students — who aren’t allowed to declare bankruptcy on their loans — can apply to have $10k wiped from the record. Of course this is the Democrats we are talking about so the plan is overly technical and leaves many out, but its real value is in demonstrating how those who participated in mass politics can actually achieve change. Ten years ago the idea of debt forgiveness was laughed at when first suggested by the activists of the Occupy movement, but something long thought impossible has edged its way into the mainstream — much to the chagrin of political centrists whose whole deal seems to be: what’s the point of doing anything?

• Like And Subscribe

  Pity White Ribbon. Fresh out of its 2019 liquidation and allegations of assault charges against one of its founding members, the company has again run into trouble. This time around the trouble was an social media appeal asking for donors to “sponsor an abuser”. When people pointed out how this may be a problem, the organisation removed the posts with White Ribbon’s national director Allan Ball saying the public had “misunderstood” the message.

  

• It’s Wellness. But for cows?

  In Germany the Danube is so low it has exposed the rusting hulks of rusting Nazi warships. Over in China, the Jialing river running dry has been described as one of the worst environmental catastrophes in the country, ever. Meanwhile in India, cows are so distressed by the heat, they’re not producing as much milk — a situation that has contributed to steep price rises. If you thought the world was responding by setting a deadline for an end to fossil fuel production, you’d be mistaken! Instead researchers are playing flute music to calm India’s cows and the fossil fuel analysts at WoodMackenzie says BioGas might be the "Key to Unlocking the Energy Transition” — like we haven’t heard that before.

  europe water levels are so low that sunk nazi warships are popping up in the danube

  — ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) 6:40 PM ∙ Aug 21, 2022

• A Third Way To Hell
  But hey, at least Australia’s doing something about climate change, right? Forget the nearly 44,758km2 area that’s been opened up to oil and as exploration in the last fortnight focus instead on the new biodiversity credits market. A neoliberal spinoff on the idea of carbon markets, the basic idea is to turn protected forest areas and endangered species into tradable assets that investors can buy into or sell out of for a profit. Of course nothing bad could possibly happen from this abrogation of responsibility from government. A person could not, for example, decide to short the market on endangered marsupials and then go release a herd of cats as one Twitter user joked. Or, as they also pointed out, perhaps the real potential of the market could be unlocked if these endangered species and protected forest were put on the blockchain so you could buy an NFT of the animal just prior to an extinction level event.

• Let It Be So

  Jesus may have spent three days hanging out in a cave during the resurrection but for Jordan B Peterson it’s been about two years since he checked into hospital in Serbia for a drug addiction, suffered an autoimmune reaction (potentially from his all-meat diet) and endured Covid-19. Now he’s back and the man with the Kermit voice is taking aim at climate change activists (ostensibly in defence of the working classes) in the most delightfully incoherent manner possible. In his latest video, titled “Article: Back Off, Oh Masters of the Universe” he makes a spirited defence of fossil fuels, warning: “Leave us alone. Or reap the whirlwind”.

Failing Upward

Where we recognise and celebrate the true stupidity of the rich, powerful and influential…

• Our real subject today is Scott Morrison who, fresh out of a Prime Ministership and a Constitutional crisis, is getting on the international Pentecostal speaking circuit. But then we here at Raising Hell just couldn’t walk past the spectre of Karen Andrews running interference on plans to investigate what went down with the Morrison Affair. Speaking to Sky News Andrews insisted that all this fuss about an inquiry into whom knew what and why was a bit of a waste of time which could, conceivably, be better spent slagging off the Albanese government. Of course, if people who decide things face consequences for their actions, well that may just set a bad precedent, right Karen?

  "I'm absolutely in favour of transparency .. I just think we need to move on now .. what's the point in going further and trying find out who knew what"
  
  Karen Andrews says Labor risks losing the Australian people.
  
  All that's lost is her memory of calling for Morrison to resign.

  — Squizz (@SquizzSTK) 5:24 AM ∙ Aug 25, 2022

Good Reads, Good Times

To share the love, here are some of the best or more interesting reads from the last fortnight…

• Investigative reporter Catherine Rentz explains how she uncovered decades of untested rape kits and was about to knit-together the criminal CV of multiple serial rapists is a good insight into the process for amateur sleuths (and a good story).

• How would you spend $243bn? The Guardian have this great interactive that allows you to find out what else the Stage 3 Tax Cuts could buy.

• Again, not words but pictures which raise a question: why?

  Of the countless images I have captured in my life, none is more iconic than this one. I can't believe it has been 30 years since Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida. I'll never forget capturing this image of the zoos flamingos huddled in the ladies restroom for protection.

  — Ron Magill (@RonMagill) 9:24 AM ∙ Aug 24, 2022

Before You Go (Go)…

• Are you a public sector bureaucrat whose tyrannical boss is behaving badly? Have you recently come into possession of documents showing some rich guy is trying to move their ill-gotten-gains to Curacao? Did you take a low-paying job with an evil corporation registered in Delaware that is burying toxic waste under playgrounds? If your conscience is keeping you up at night, or you’d just plain like to see some wrong-doers cast into the sea, we here at Raising Hell can suggest a course of action: leak! You can securely make contact through Signal or through encrypted message Wickr Me on my account: rorok1990. Alternatively you can send us your hard copies to: PO Box 134, Welland SA 5007
• And if you’ve come this far, consider supporting me further by picking up one of my books, leaving a review or by just telling a friend about Raising Hell!