The federal government has agreed to pay an additional $475 million to Australians affected by the failed Robodebt scheme, taking the total settlement for victims to $548.5 million — the largest class action payout in Australia’s history.
This new settlement comes after a royal commission found more damaging evidence about the automated debt recovery program, leading to an appeal known as Knox v the Commonwealth.
The whole Robodebt mess started years ago when the government used an automated system to claw back welfare payments, wrongly accusing hundreds of thousands of people of owing massive debts.
The total financial redress now sits at over $2.4 billion, according to Gordon Legal (which launched the first class action in 2019), including debts that have been wiped, cancelled or refunded.
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland called the settlement “the just and fair thing to do”.
“Today’s settlement demonstrates the Albanese Labor government’s ongoing commitment to addressing the harms caused to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Australians by the former Liberal government’s disastrous robodebt scheme,” she said in a statement.
She also said the royal commission described Robodebt as “a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal”, where “people were traumatised on the off chance they might owe money” and it was “a costly failure of public administration, in both human and economic terms”.
The new compensation still awaits federal court approval and is a major step for those impacted.
Lead image: Getty / YouTube
The post Robodebt Victims Secure Record $548.5M Settlement, Taking Total Compensation Over $2.4BN appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
