It's a cosmic irony that a book deeply critical of the government should be among the winners of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, author Rick Morton says.
His non-fiction work about the robodebt scandal, Mean Streak, has won its category, making Morton one of six authors to receive the prestigious $80,000 prize.
Currently in Paris writing a novel, Morton has mixed feelings about the win and says he wonders why he has had the opportunity to write books when others never have.
"I have a very complicated relationship with acknowledgement and also with money ... don't get me wrong I'm excited about it but it also just felt so weird," he said.
The robodebt scheme chased more than half a million people on Centrelink payments for monies owing that had been created using an illegal method of "income averaging".
"It wasn't just a bad mistake or bad policy, it was literally a conspiracy ... this thing was illegal and yet they did it anyway, and it ruined people's lives," Morton said.
For this reason, it was a story he felt he needed to tell in as much detail as possible.
"There was a mosaic of failure," Morton told ABC Radio on Tuesday.
"Newspaper and even royal commission reports ... are not things people tend to keep as mementos and they don't act as a kind of record that they used to," he added.
"So there's something about the longevity of a book and the idea that the story gets its real worth."
Morton has already won two Walkley awards for his coverage of the royal commission into the scandal. It was process that took three years and, at times, made him feel as though he was going through a kind of mental illness.
"I was unwell while I was in this kind of rabbit warren," he said.
"It was disorienting."
The winners of Australia's richest literary prize were announced at the National Library of Australia in Canberra Monday night and share in a $600,000 prize pool.
Geraldine Fela won the history category with Critical Care: Nurses on the frontline of Australia's AIDS crisis, while the poetry award went to David Brooks for The Other Side of Daylight: New and Selected Poems.
Michelle de Kretser has added to her Stella Prize win, taking out the fiction category with Theory & Practice.
Leo and Ralph by Peter Carnavas won the children's book award and The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland won for young adult book.
For the first time the awards have been held under the aegis of Writing Australia, established in July as part of government funding body Creative Australia.
"Each of these works brings a unique perspective, whether it is giving voice to critical moments in our history, sparking imagination in young readers or offering new ways to think about the world around us," said Writing Australia director Wenona Byrne.
The awards have at times been controversial since they were launched in 2008, with both Labor and Liberal prime ministers intervening in the judging process.
The 2025 winners were selected by an independent panel of judges with shortlisted entries receiving $5000.
2025 Prime Minister's Literary Awards Winners
* Australian History - Critical Care: Nurses on the frontline of Australia's AIDS crisis by Geraldine Fela
* Children's Literature - Leo and Ralph by Peter Carnavas
* Fiction - Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser
* Non-fiction - Mean Streak by Rick Morton
* Young adult literature - The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland
* Poetry - The Other Side of Daylight: New and Selected Poems by David Brooks
