The People vs Robodebt on SBS and SBS on Demand S1E3 – Powerful and unflinching, The People vs Robodebt is an emotionally charged political thriller which unravels the devastating human story behind one of Australia’s greatest political scandals.
Episode 3
Robodebt is finally found to be unlawful and a Royal Commission sets out to uncover the terrible truth behind a scheme that left hundreds of thousands of lives in tatters.
After three years defending Robodebt, the federal government is finally forced to concede that the scheme is unlawful. Deanna Amato’s test case is the Golden Ticket that proves it is illegal. A class action lawsuit then claws back money owed to more than 400,000 Australians, but it does not get compensation for the harm Robodebt caused.
So, it’s left to a Royal Commission to uncover the terrible truth behind a scheme that took so much from so many. Nine weeks of the Royal Commission hearings see around a million documents tendered and hundreds of witnesses testify, including the politicians who introduced and defended the scheme for so long. In the end, Commissioner Catherine Holmes hands down a scathing report. She also singles out six people for possible criminal prosecution.
Who is on that list? Why are their names being kept in a special ‘sealed section’ of the report? And will the many victims of Robodebt finally get justice?
The People vs Robodebt on SBS and SBS on Demand – Episode 3 / Wednesday 8 October at 7.30pm (3 Parts)
TV Central SBS content HERE
The People vs Robodebt on SBS and SBS on Demand S1E3
About the Show
The full three-part docu-drama series will be available to stream on SBS on Demand on 24 September and episodes will air weekly on SBS at 7.30pm.
In the long hot summer of 2016, the federal government’s new Online Compliance Intervention scheme roared like a bushfire through Australian society. This automated welfare system soon became known as “Robodebt” and over the next three years, almost half a million Australians were hounded to pay back debts they did not owe.
The system was later found to be inaccurate, unethical and illegal. Some people lost their savings, their homes, their marriages and a few lost their lives. A brave handful of Australians witnessed what was happening and took a stand.
In The People vs Robodebt many of these people tell their full story for the first time.
Using a potent combination of gripping documentary story-telling with high end drama, the series follows the tireless and heroic efforts of these extraordinary people who fought against the system: the Robodebt victims and their angry families, the crusading social media activists, the whistleblowers and investigative journalists, the tenacious lawyers, as well as the forgotten victims of Robodebt: the Centrelink workers who bravely battled the system from within – their complaints falling on deaf ears.
The series has unparallelled access to the heroic people who took a stand against Robodebt. Key contributors include Jenny Miller, mother of Rhys Cauzzo, whose story was the first Robodebt suicide reported in the media; Deanna Amato, whose court case proved Robodebt was illegal; Felicity Button, one of the lead applicants in the class action against Robodebt; Sandra Bevan, who desperately tried to prove her innocence; Colleen Taylor, a veteran public servant who warned her superiors from the start that Robodebt was wrong; Jeannie-Marie Blake, a whistleblowing frontline Centrelink worker; Chris Knaus, the journalist who broke the first media stories about the flaws in the Robodebt scheme; Rachelle Miller, the insider and media adviser who worked to ‘control the narrative’ for the government; Lyndsey Jackson, who, on maternity leave with a newborn baby, started the #NotMyDebt website – fighting against the Robodebt scheme from her kitchen table; Asher Wolf (pseudonym), renowned digital activist and fellow instigator of #NotMyDebt; Dr Darren O’Donovan, one of Australia’s leading legal experts on Robodebt; Miles Browne and Charley Brumby-Rendell, the Victoria Legal Aid lawyers who defeated Robodebt in a legal battle against the government.
