Not my debt: The institutional origins of Robodebt

Abstract

Robodebt was an administratively harmful policy created by bureaucrats incrementally extending existing welfare compliance policies in Australia. This article analyses the long history that created the malign institutional state in which Robodebt was able to occur. It argues the fertile ground for this policy was laid through the historical interplay of three institutional processes: the rules of Commonwealth budget making, the fractured relationship between policy and service delivery in Australian social security, and the structure of the fraud and compliance framework of the Department of Human Services. This created a pattern of institutional change in which compliance policies were added in incremental layers over decades before Robodebt as part of an ongoing drive for savings and operational efficiency. The article concludes by arguing the recommendations of the Royal Commission, which focus on improved legal processes and oversight, are insufficient to resolve the institutional problems at the root of Robodebt. Robodebt occurred as a result of bureaucrats incrementally extending existing welfare compliance policies, which was a standard annual practice that had been occurring for about the preceding 30 years. The expansion of compliance programs was one of the only ways for the Department of Human Services, as the service delivery arm of social security, to meet annual demands from central agencies and politicians to cut expenditure and provide offsets for new spending. For long‐term change, the government and the Australian Public Service will need to go further than the recommendations of the Robodebt Royal Commission by addressing the offsetting mechanisms of Commonwealth Budget processes and the structure of the social services portfolio that separates policy and service delivery.