A debt collecting robot may have killed 2000 vulnerable Australians
This report is tough to write, because it could have been me.
There are plenty of problems we can control. We can learn to speak up, with time we can find confidence and comfort in the people around us. We can even make just about any issue easier for ourselves.
But some of these things are institutional. The nation, the community, something bigger than us clamps down and all we can do is tolerate it. That’s the real trick with an invisible condition — there’s extra weight to carry that doesn’t show. Some of us trained ourselves not to show it for survival’s sake, others just for convenience.
So you learn to do what everyone else does while lifting heavier, working harder, pushing through a deeper set of harsh and exciting problems.
But some people don’t gain the strength to live. They become isolated from all the beauty in the world, and feel a need to focus on the mistreatment. And sometimes it kills them.
There’s horrific news about the disabled in my country this week. It reminds me that for all our strength, any one of us could’ve been the ones that didn’t make it.
Three years ago, the Australian government created a computer program to chase up debts that people on welfare might owe them. The incomplete bot immediately sent out tens of thousands of ‘robodebt’ notices to unsuspecting people. Some had gotten off welfare and been employed for years, some were still vulnerable and mentally ill. Sites like notmydebt.com popped up, directing people to pro bono legal services. It soon turned out that a huge amount of robodebts were errors, either because of the bot or the deliberately convoluted and badly made Centrelink system. The news reported constantly on the financial and mental damage this was causing people.
This week we learned that 2,030 people have died after receiving robodebts. And there’s no way the numbers add up to natural causes.
About a quarter of the dead were on a disability pension. A fifth were under 35. Two thirds were men. These are not normal death statistics, but if they seem familiar, it’s because they’re similar to the suicide rate.
Since the debts began, stories about young people dying over them have been everywhere. Many like 28-year-old Rhys Cazzuo came to suicide after they received abusive phone calls from Dun and Bradstreet, a debt collection agency the government hired. The agency has an average score of 1 out of 5 across social media, with many people complaining about swearing and hostility in the first phone call.
But people have questioned the findings. 2,000 Australians are dead, but what if this is just the normal death rate? How can we know this is anything unusual?
It’s all in the demographics. Most people who die are elderly, even among the vulnerable and suicidal. A tenth of the robodebt deaths were elderly.
Which brings up twist: Although the biggest killer among the young is suicide, the elderly also have a high suicide rate, making these numbers more unnatural.
This kind of stress piles hopelessness on top of people’s existing problems. Of all the dead, 44 had enough money to pay their debts. It’s impossible that this had zero effect on them, which is what the doubters are saying.
One of those doubters is the Australian government. Human Services minister Michael Keenan has denied that the deaths were related to the debts, saying it would be “foolhardy” to link them without further evidence.
The Greens politician who first revealed the deaths to the public, Rachel Siewert, says that while correlation doesn’t prove causation this is a terrifying trend.
The government demands to see fire, but there’s a lot of smoke in their faces.
Corrupt institutions have always used the vulnerable to bury their agendas and the dirtiest parts of their dealings. The problem is that in these situations, the poor and vulnerable learn where the proverbial bodies are buried. And now they’re forced to talk.
A landmark lawsuit is coming for the government, led by lawyers of robodebt victims. Many are working for free. The suit asserts that the way the government has collected its debts is unlawful, along with the way that the robodebt has counted what people owe.
Remember, this is not normal.
Society is a lot more than its politicians and the other careers that overrepresent psychopaths. It’s friendly store owners, neighbourhoods who look out for each other, people who would notice you missing. The society that created robodebt also feeds you, waters you and needs you. There are people like you and me who like you, even if you haven’t found out yet. We’re all whole human beings who need respect and a way to be useful.
Stick up for yourself. Spend time with the people who help you survive. If you have to reach out, remember that with a little Googling and asking around, you will always find more help.
