Thread by @strangerous10

#RoboDebtRC As Jenny Miller is about to give evidence, let’s remember her longstanding fight for justice for her son Rhys, which is well known. Whilst it doesn’t end today, this would be a big one. So much courage, so much love, we stand with Jenny Miller, the greatest mum. ❤️😢

It is our star witness, Jenny Miller. It’s been a long road to get here. Let’s stand with her on this one.
❤️❤️

Jenny confirms its been a long 6 year battle. She starts to tell how police arrived at her home at around 3am to deliver news that her son had passed.

She was living in QLD at the time, her son was originally from Cairns but lived in Melbourne at the time of his death.

Miller confirms debt notices started in 2016, and picked up steam late 2016.

Now speaking about what she did when hearing of her son’s death. She immediately arranged to come down to Melbourne, went to his home, and frantically searched for a note or something.

She collated material she thought may be relevant, and on the fridge she found debt letters from Dunn & Bradstreet.
And a picture of Rhys (drawn) with a gun to his head.
😔

Rhys was living with a friend and his partner (Brit), who had gone out for the day and came back to find Rhys deceased.

Miller speaks of the drawing she found from Rhys.
It had “Debt Life” written on it, and it had dollar notes blowing out of its head (in effect of gun shot)

Jenny says she realised after his death the extent of how much her son was actually harassed.

She did visit him in mid 2016 for some time to assist him with this Debt, says a $17k debt was given made up of 2 different debts.

Says her son was advising her he was feeling suicidal, (2016), so she flew down and helped him seek support for his health, which was deteriorating after receiving large debts.

Rhys did have underlying mental health issues, but was very creative, was in a band…

Rhys came to Melbourne with his band due to the Melbourne being a great place to play music at bars, pubs.

He worked for the museum as a photographer, and went on to work as a florist.

Jenny confirms he had casual work, often multiple jobs at a time.

Says whilst she did help him financially if he really needed it, both her sons (Rhys was the younger) lived in a way not being reliant on mum so much

Says work colleagues highly respected him, found him very reliable, & they set up a beautiful display for Rhys at his funeral

Jenny says she had great difficulty getting a response from Centrelink to report Rhys’ death, and had a very distressing phone call, where they even refused to report the death to Dunn & Bradstreet and demanded she do it.

This is after knowing her son had just died.
Horrible 😢

A lot of Rhys’ depression and issues were derived from struggles obtaining payslips from multiple employers which Centrelink put onus on him to do.

But Jenny says it was after his death that she realised the extent of this struggle.

After finally reporting his death to Centrelink & Dunn & Bradstreet, she wrote letters to Mr Tudge, and other areas of government & also requested an inquest.
She says she went to The Saturday Paper to discuss who agreed to interview her and publish a story.

“I just didn’t want anyone else to suffer”

Jenny Miller claims she wanted to fight for other victims, recipients of debt, people on the brink, which is why she wrote to Tudge (and hasn’t stopped since)

Says she had “no success whatsoever” going through DHS.

Jenny Miller says she also wrote to the Ombudsman, after Tudge & many MPs and to Senate Enquiries.

“Not once did I get a truthful answer”

Not even from the Ombudsman.

Greggery brings up a “Job capacity assessment report” which Jenny Miller says she became aware that Centrelink had a copy of, after his death.

It indicates Rhys’ vulnerabilities.
Ie. Centrelink knew 😢😡

“I believe he did have an indicator on his file” says Miller.

She was also a ‘nominee’ for Rhys due to his condition (on Centrelink records), but this ceased at some point in time.

The report is from 2015, and Jenny Miller says this should have flagged this person does suffer from a mental health condition, and to contact her (nominee) if he there were any issues.

“But that didn’t happen”

Jenny Miller now talks about the letter she received from Mr Tudge.

“There was absolutely no genuine effort of trying to give me any information”
“As far as I’m concerned they were just false words”

Says she did write to him to notify him of the vulnerability factor.

She says she asked how did they calculate debts, was told they calculated it manually
Jenny says, if that’s true, then that’s worse, as they shouldn’t have missed his vulnerability

Tudge response
“If someone is known to be vulnerable…they won’t receive Centrelink debt notices”

Jenny says upon pushing for information on her son’s debt, that they couldn’t provide her with records of how they calculated it and established the actual debt.

Jenny Miller confirms she had a “high degree of frustration” with Mr Tudge.

She was appalled by his response

Jenny starts to tell the story of “harassment” she says he endured from Centrelink, and later Dunn & Bradstreet. Says it was so much he started to avoid answering the phone.

SHe says she found out he did attempt suicide in 2016, he had tried to slice his throat.

Says she went to Centrelink office with him, they only could refer her to a 1800 number on the wall.

She was trying to reassure her son, keep him on track with medical appointments, and told him to text her everyday.
She says this was well managed initially.

She says her other son was also not in a good way at the time (Josh), and that Josh was also speaking with and helping his brother but didn’t realise the extent of the harassment endured.

Greggery now brings up an email exchange between a journalist and DHS at the time.
It shows the department requested the journalist “correct” the story about her son Rhys, and defend themselves and the Robodebt scheme.

Jenny Miller says she obtained help about making FOI requests to Centrelink (given they didn’t give a flying **** even in the face of her son’s death), from #NotMyDebt

Says she didn’t even know about income averaging being used until around 12 months after Rhys’ death from NMD

We’ve heard so many witnesses speak of help from #NotMyDebt
Without them I wonder how many more would have been left in the dark by Tudge and his mob.

Jenny Miller did take part in the class action & engaged with Hank Jongen, and set up a 3pm call appointment one afternoon.
She says he never bothered to call as he had agreed to.

She then had to start writing letters/emails (again).

Taking break people 🕜

I’ve missed the last bit (or rather watched but didn’t tweet), but wow, that was so brave of Jenny.
Miller has concluded her evidence.