Ombudsman releases report into inaccurate "income apportionment" debts dating back to 2003. Key takeaway: "Services Australia and DSS did not act promptly to address this issue – in the 3 years the agencies have known... we expected more action to have been taken to address it." Although identifying and analysing the impact of unlawful income apportionment in every case will be administratively burdensome and may not be possible to quantify in many cases... this alone cannot justify the limited scoping, sampling and remediation planning."

In the hall for Robodebt Royal Commission senior counsel assisting Justin Greggery KC who is about to give a lecture on the inquiry and how it was handled. @jcu Wearing a lovely tie.

Is Twitter still doing the rate limit thing? I’ll use this tweet as the start of the Robodebt thread for today, until I’m unable to continue updating for technical reasons. So if you want to follow along I’ll do my best to update as I go. What we know so far:

📝 the Robodebt Royal Commission report will be about 900 pages (about 50 Olympic swimming pools)

📝 it will have a sealed section dealing with referrals to law enforcement agencies and the National Anti-Corruption Commission

📝 Adverse findings public

Look, I’m awake and it’s going to be 37C today so I will tune in to the last day of this Robodebt hearing block 3.

Will start my thread here, but it’s going to be a LOW ENERGY day. This is my mantra, despite the potential for at least two of these witnesses to get jammed. Here is old mate Shane West, partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Robodebt Hearing Block 3, Day 8

Christian Porter, former social services minister is now being sworn in. Porter has noted NSW silk Arthur Moses, formerly representing Gladys Berejiklian (are they still together), representing him.

Robodebt RoCo Hearing Block 3, Day 7

We are kicking off with former Human Services Minister Alan Edward Tudge Tudge has requested a change to his statement beginning "I can't recall the other cases..."

Gone.

This line was subject to leave to cross-examine by Rachelle Miller's counsel and has now been changed. Intriguing. Imagine we'll get to that.

New thread for Hearing Block 3, Day 6 witnesses after Musolino.

This is former Alan Tudge senior media adviser Rachelle Miller up now. Miller says she had no access to her emails or departmental documents when she prepared her statement. It is based on her recollection,

But since then, she has seen some documents from dept.

Robodebt Royal Commission Hearing Block 3, Day 5. Whole day is set aside for former DHS chief counsel and later COO Annette Musolino just playing document ID gymnastics but back to proceedings proper now

Alright, Robodebt Hearing Block 3, Day 4.

I've been off attending to Matters of Friendship but have returned for the rest of today's session. I trust the live feed and others @DarrenODonovan, @maximumwelfare et al have kept you company. Kristin Lumley, former Assistant Director, Payment Integrity, Department of Social Services is on the stand now. She was implicated in drafting misleading statements to the Ombudsman on Wednesday.

Hearing Block 3, Day 3

I'll do a new thread for each day per feedback yesterday about the super threads being very long and confusing which I should have known given the shenanigans I get up to on deadline day trying to sort through it.

Original here:

https://twitter.com/SquigglyRick/status/1617286115161165824

I've snuck back into the hearing room itself, hopefully not in camera view like yesterday. Today is going to be long: six witnesses are ~scheduled~ to appear beginning with Elizabeth Bundy who had a shocking run of things yesterday before audio issues rescued her.

For my sins, I am interrupting my extended sabbatical (work and Twitter) to cover Robodebt Royal Commission for @SatPaper. Will tweet thread Hearing Block 3 from here when it starts at 11am AEDT / 10am AEST. Can't promise the sort of volume I was managing end of last year! @SatPaper @DarrenODonovan surprise bish, I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me

The Robodebt Royal Commission is back today for Hearing Block 2, continuing on with the evidence of Kathryn Campbell who was tied in knots by the end of the last hearing. I will do my best to thread live tweets from here but this week may make my efforts patchy. Fair warning, I already have the start of a headache, Wednesday is looking shot for other reasons and I am flying to Melbourne Friday morning at sparrow's fart and then coming home to move house lol. But we will PERSEVERE.

So, get this. After ~repeatedly~ telling senate estimates (and me) in official statements that the Bureau of Meteorology did not rebrand but "refresh" it turns out they are having drinks on Thursday to celebrate the "rebrand." This from GM Comms Emma Liepa. Apols for quality! "So many people from across the program have contributed to what is some pretty spectacular work," she writes. "It's not every day we have the opportunity to rebrand a national and much-adored organisation." Meanwhile, this stuff is happening: thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/…

"Of all the checks and balances already existing within the executive arm of the Commonwealth Government, they were apparently ineffective to cause even a suspension of the [Robodebt] scheme in the face of its dogged pursuit by Services Australia and the then government." Covering the Robodebt Royal Commission this week. Won't be able to live tweet the entire thing, but will do my best to keep on top of everything. Full report this weekend.

Bureau of Meteorology no longer meets its international obligations on upper atmosphere monitoring as it cuts weather balloon launches and wants to cut even more in capital cities. These also feed into the models, esp. re: thunderstorms. BoM confirmed. thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/… And, this is really important: BoM leadership repeatedly claims APS Census results show they couldn't be a toxic workplace by citing just two stats. I have breakdowns. In Media & Comms, for example, almost ONE QUARTER of staff said they had been bullied. thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/…

In the Barilaro inquiry, the recruiter from NGS Global Dr Marianne Broadbent has just said she was "shocked and surprised" by public servant Amy Brown's evidence that a panel report in which Barilaro was NOT the preferred candidate was sent to her in error. It wasn't until months later, and only after the other candidate had met with Stuart Ayres and been knocked out, that Dr Broadbent met with Amy Brown and was told Barilaro had been appointed and could she (Broadbent) change the panel report. "I've checked my records."

Lt-Gen John Frewen tells Covid-19 select committee that 99 per cent of residential aged care facilities have "received a booster vaccination clinic." Of course, science has still not allowed us to vaccinate buildings. Minister Colbeck asked if still thinks it was appropriate to attend the cricket after so many aged care facilities had outbreaks. He says he spent "the predominant" part of that day working on the aged care outbreaks. He even had some meetings that day and that week!

Rate of hospitalisations from the Delta outbreak in NSW is 3x what has been reported. Hospital system is pushed to the brink. 80 per cent of staffed ICU beds occupied in NSW. In Victoria, it is 91 per cent. Ambulance service cannot keep up with demand. thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/… This is the stuff I found most terrifying. We are now at the point where we have thousands of people with Covid-19 being given hospital care in their own homes, but this has completely throttled the ambulance service. The system is set up like dominoes. thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/…

Hearing very good things for NDIS participants out of the disability meeting this evening. Feds have lost on every point by the sounds. No detail yet. Here we go:

https://twitter.com/lukehgomes/status/1413409155633664002