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...?
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)
"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."