Australia's great example of government using technology found crude and cruel
theregister.com
theregister.com
How would you even prove a lack of income for a specific period of time (shorter than I assume annual tax reports)?
I had to deal with this for our little league, when the state decided circa 2009 that some sales tax filing was missing from 1977. It was a trivial amount that had ballooned to 5 figures with fees, penalty and interest. Fortunately the league had a long standing banking relationship and we were sort of able to assert that a payment was made.
But in the end, only loud complaints to legislators settled the matter.
There would be hundreds of equivalent use cases…
So of course, as good Christians, they used unfeeling machines to squeeze the poors for every cent.
The lack of apparent remorse — even faked — is a big reason I voted against them this past election.
The UK Liberals faded away after the mid 1920s, like the Australian Liberals (rich conservatives) they were never particularly pro union and were only ever pro worker | pro welfare in a patronizing condescending manner ala "Daddy knows best".
Both the UK and Australian populations had strong political Labor Parties as principal opposition to conservative ideals for the past century, these were the parties that were strongly pro worker and pro union.
These UK and Australian Labor parties have been less so since the 1980s and the Thatcher years as unions have dwindled in power (compared to times past).
There was pre-existing systems, could have just ran it side-by-side to see if it agreed with the old methods.
With how completely avoidable this result was, with people raising flags all the way through, I feel that the only conclusion is harming citizens must have been part of the intention.
You are absolutely correct regarding their malice. The minister responsible for the implementation of the illegal scheme was former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, who went so far as to purposefully mislead his cabinet. The former Prime Minister is despised by the general public at this point, and his will likely be recorded as the most cruel and criminal government in Australia's recent history.
It does of course make it a lot easier when there's a central database with unique identifiers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_number_(Swed...) identifying individuals.
For them, it was an excellent program that burnished their resumes and gave their brands a bit of "tough on the freeloaders" style. It was an excellent decision for them to have made, and if other officials now or in the future are confronted by a similar choice, in terms of their own personal benefit it would be an excellent decision for them to make again.
What's the point of having anti-corruption watchdogs if they have no teeth?
It could have worked if it had human review after the system flagged it. Instead the debt was sent out automatically and it was a guilty until proven innocent thing.
The people setting up the system knew it was wrong and illegal but they didn't care as they liked using the poor as a revenue raiser, and politically the "dole bludgers" are a good target.
Australian Public Service employee, level 4? (googled it but a bit unsure)
And that is a problem because...?
"To understand why, consider someone who spent three months of the year receiving unemployment benefits while they searched for a job, then worked for nine months. The government considered their income for the entire year and averaged it, then assessed their eligibility for payments based on their average fortnightly earnings – not their income when they were out of work and therefore eligible for payments."
This was not a software issue. This was a willful top-down policy choice to use bad math. (At least, so the article says. I don't live in Australia.)
The lack of unique ID has nothing to do with this. This was government blatantly attacking poor people through willful mismanagement of an automated debt inferment system in conflict with the legal process through which that debt should have been calculated.
They 100% knew what they were doing and did it deliberately.
"The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia" (fmr PM)
but looking at the calculation that was done, it was not incredibly immoral or something, "if average income in a year was greater than welfare eligibility for that year, no eligibility" doesn't sound kafkaesque. The cost of unemployment insurance will reflect the average payouts, and people who treat unemployment as an entitlement (you're supposed to look for a job, not squeeze every nickel out of the system) just drive the costs up for everybody else.
People who yearn for socialism, yes, they want every benefit they can get. People who yearn for systemic efficiency, taking a moving average of your income and filling in where it falls short sounds like a good method.
It sounds like the definition of Kafkaesque to me, if the law says eligibility is determined based on your income over two weeks.