SYDNEY: The Australian government has agreed to pay a further 475 million Australian dollars ($308.66 million) in compensation to victims of an illegal welfare debt recovery programme.
This settlement would become the largest class action payout in Australian history if approved by the courts.
The programme known as Robodebt pursued hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients for false debts calculated by a faulty automated algorithm between 2016 and 2019.
A government royal commission inquiry found that Robodebt pushed vulnerable people into further debt and caused multiple suicides.
The latest settlement brings total government repayment and compensation costs to 2.4 billion Australian dollars.
This development concludes what is regarded as one of Australia’s worst-ever public administration scandals.
Robodebt victims and law firm Gordon Legal originally brought the class action suit in 2019.
The government settled the case in 2020 by agreeing to pay more than 720 million Australian dollars in unlawfully claimed debts.
It also paid 400 million Australian dollars in unlawful demands and 112 million Australian dollars in compensation to 400,000 people.
Plaintiffs appealed the case after new evidence emerged during the government inquiry.
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland stated that settling this claim represents the just and fair course of action.
Peter Gordon, senior partner and founder of Gordon Legal, welcomed the settlement which could rise to 548 million Australian dollars with legal and administration costs.
He described the day as one of vindication and validation for hundreds of thousands of Australians afflicted by the Robodebt scandal.
Felicity Button, a Robodebt victim and lead applicant, noted the bittersweet nature of the settlement given the irreparable damage caused to many people.
The Robodebt programme was designed to ensure welfare recipients were not underreporting income and over-receiving government payments.
Computer algorithms for the scheme wrongly calculated that hundreds of thousands of Australians owed money.
With minimal human oversight, the programme recovered 1.76 billion Australian dollars from welfare recipients.
The government inquiry found Robodebt represented a failure of public administration and a crude and cruel mechanism that was neither fair nor legal.
It made many people feel like criminals and caused at least three known suicides. – Reuters
