You'd think the Liberals couldn't be any scummier but they always find a way.

Edit: Bunch of Americans in here who don't understand that the leaders of the Liberal-National Coalition are the LIBERAL PARTY.

Wow, government acting like loanshark operator in trying to muzzle people from speaking out.

Tell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article.

Not only did I read the article, I can guarantee I know more about the situation than you given I've got a front row seat to the whole fucking mess since it started.

But tell me again that don't know shit about Australian politics without telling me you don't know shit about Australian politics.

THE COALITION IS THE LIBERAL-NATIONAL COALITION, THE MAJORITY OF WHICH ARE MEMBERS OF THE LIBERAL PARTY. THE WORD DOES NOT MEAN THE SAME THING IN AUSTRALIA.

Tell me you're not Australian without telling me you're not Australian.

Liberal and Conservative mean the opposite thing in Australia mate.

The irony is, your comment tells us just that.

The alnp is the conservative bunch, the labor party is more progressive.

No they don't what the fuck. Our Liberal Party are the Conservatives, though they're more comparable to the UK Conservatives than they are anything in the US.

At least for now, we're trending towards American insanity unfortunately.

That’s what I said.

You did word it in a confusing way. Liberal means the opposite in Australia but conservative still means conservative. The Liberal party is conservative in Australia would have been wording that worked better I think

Its like reddit thinks nothing outside of America exists and American politics is the only thing that exists so its the same thing everywhere.

Telling an American their political opinion would be seen as conservative or far right in another country will make them short circuit too.

It would be fun to do if it wasn't every thread.

To clarify further for idiot Americans (like me 😁)

Wikipedia: "The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party."

Well everything is upside down over there anyway

(warning suicide)

To me, Rachelle Millers statements here paint an informative picture of the Liberal government's approach at the time, and how quickly Australia is following the American partisan media route.

>"Ms Miller said there was a "proliferation" of negative media coverage in late 2016 that was "growing and growing and growing" but it was "predominantly in the left-wing media"."

The incredibly politician-esque description of 'negative media coverage' actually means articles in respected news outlets raising concerns from

• the calculations are wrong - all the way to
• nobody reviews these demands for thousands of dollars from welfare recipients before they are sent, and people in vulnerable groups suddenly receiving a letter from the govt saying they owe more money than they have ever had in their account is literally making people kill themselves. -

But she then states:

>"We weren't too concerned because it wasn't unusual that the left-wing media were attacking us regarding social policy," she said.

... Well as long as this shithead isn't concerned I guess it's fine.

>Ms Miller told the commission in response to growing criticism, the government adopted a counter-narrative strategy in the "more friendly media" such as the tabloids."... "That involved … placing stories with the more friendly media, the right-wing media, about how the Coalition was actually catching people who were cheating the welfare system."

Critically, the government had received advice that the program was likely illegal from their own legal advisors. Despite this, they both continued sending robodebt notices, and took the matter to the Federal court (unsurprisingly they lost). Imo, the actual legality of the matter is irrelevant if for 4 fucking years you keep effectively murdering people before you are told to stop by a court.

Now, returning to the abhorrent actions of Miller, she doesn't seem to discuss whether the strategy she was implementing had any basis in fact whatsoever (i.e. could the government show that their dog whistle argument 'we're catching the dole bludgers' was working through statistics, or forensic research). It seems she took the instruction completely for granted, and abused the bias in various media outlets to create dissent that discredits actual journalism. Similar to tactics that Murdoch media outlets utilise every day to foment conflict among groups with the explicit intent to distract everyone from focussing on the actual issues in society.

To finish, it seems appropriate to reflect on the topic of this particular article; despite knowing that there were credible reports stating that issuing these bullshit notices to vulnerable people was harming them, not to mention illegal, she herself formulated the media crisis strategy, which involved publishing broadly the names and details of people who disputed the notices in the media to deter anyone else from coming forward.

Edit: Icing - when a fellow govt staffer came to her saying they had received a notice, and was only able to dispute it with incredibly detailed records from when they were a student, she raised it with the minister who stated >'That's exactly how the system is supposed to be working'

I see this constantly being referred to as a 'failure' of public policy; this was not a failure, it was success on the part of bad faith actors. Do not give these people the benefit of the doubt, they are well educated, and certainly capable of understanding the consequences of their actions.

Please, if you find yourself in a position like Miller was in, it is not worth sacrificing your integrity and humanity to stay in that path. There will always be another option that doesn't involve unethical behaviour to do your job. You can do better. We can do better.

Which one is the kangaroo

Liberalism is an economic philosophy that generally supports free trade and all that bullshit. These days the term is rare outside of politics and academia but it's still used in the US.

I believe that one's Qantas

I'm an American living in Germany, and I can make other Americans' heads explode when I try to tell them that Obama and Biden (who the right-wing nutjobs always scream about being "socialists" and "communists") would fit pretty well in the center-right over here (aligning pretty much with Merkel).

You ever see the another American see the difference in how other countries treat identity and cause a culture shock that can seen on a richter scale?

I can imagine an American showing his "23 and me" results saying he is proud to be 90% German and Germans looking in horror thinking he is some kind of race purist because other cultures care about cultural knowledge and language skills to call yourself something instead of genetics.

You see this talked about a lot on indigenous and Mexico subs with American expats, but I wonder if European countries have the same problem.

Centre-right?

Fuck me I wish they were centre right. Fuckers have got antivaxxer and climate denier members in parliament. There’s nothing centre about the liberals or nationals.

Liberalism is right-wing ideology. It is so in the US too. The US doesn't have a real left.

I’m looking forward to counsel assisting excoriating tudge tomorrow.

That was great. Here in America our motto is “Shoot, shoot, ready. Aim.”

Liberalism is neither left or right (left / right being oversimplified description of complicated ideas)

You can be liberal wanting small government and free market but conservative with your views on gender and sexuality.

We live in hope

> only able to dispute it with incredibly detailed records from when they were a student

I'll go you one better. I worked short contracts for a state government during part of the period they looked at. I wasn't working consistently, and only claimed what I was entitled to when not working, but of course the averaging process triggered for me because my annual income was over the threshold. But it had been so long between then and when I got my robodebt notice that the government's pay system had changed, and they literally would not accept the only records the state government was able to provide from their old system.

I ended up in a standoff with them and their debt collectors for years, with them knowing perfectly well I hadn't claimed anything I wasn't entitled to, but the system not accepting the evidence. They'd put it on hold, and then it would come off hold after a couple of months and trigger another wave of debt collectors and I'd have to start arguing it all over again. I spent hundreds of hours defending myself, and it only went away after the court cases.

Just take universal healthcare for example. In the US it's a contentious issue that's only really being pushed by the "fringe" democrats, and ignored by the rest of the party as well as the Republicans. Meanwhile in places like Australia and most of Europe it's so mainstream that as much as the right doesn't like it, they don't dare to overtly touch it because it would be political suicide.

Such absolute horseshit. The human impact is incalculable, but it's almost certain that will play no role in the outcome here. How many royal commissions have we seen with zero consequences for the participants? I'm sorry you had to waste so much of your life dealing with people worth less than the value of the minerals in their body

Thanks. It still just blows my mind that even governmental records weren't considered good enough in terms of proof. I realise it was a federal policy and I worked for the state government, but if even governmental records weren't considered good enough what chance did most people have of being able to gather sufficient proof. I realise it's just more bad faith on top of bad faith, but it was absolutely set up so that people had no chance.

If they already doxxed me what else would I have to lose at this point other than going nuclear?

Now there is no reason to keep quiet about it...

It's telling that we are concerned about how someone else might or might not be able to handle the process. Randoms on the internet show more compassion and empathy than well remunerated **public servants **

That's not exactly true - liberalism is basically focused around promoting individual liberties (as the name indicates). In and of itself, it's not really "left-wing" or "right-wing" (in the same way that authoritarianism is usually not considered "naturally" left-wing or right-wing, although there is admittedly debate on that, since some would argue infringing upon the rights of people to determine their own governance is inherently anti-leftist) - but depending on what aspect of society it is actually defending, liberalism can be left-wing or right-wing.

Specifically, economic liberalism is generally right-wing, since it implies deregulation and less government intervention (and thus, weaker public services and disadvantages for the disenfranchised). However, cultural liberalism (and in the US, this would be called "social" liberalism, which confusingly enough tends to be a different thing in the rest of the world) is more associated with left-wing ideas, as it usually opposes conservative social structures.

The US' Democratic Party is (not entirely, but mostly) liberal from both a social, as well as an economic, point of view. In practice, this means that they're generally more to the left compared to the ultra-conservative social positions of the GOP, but they remain right-wing in terms of how they want to organize society, especially economically speaking.

It's not complicated, just easily misapplied. In the rest of the world, left/right is about economic policy. Notice how "The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party" doesn't actually explain why they'd be the scum party. That's just more US bias.

[removed]

They started center right, hit solidly right in the mid-2000's and then followed the GOP into far right crazy territory after 2016.

[removed]

Miller's lawyer has also been allowed a crack at him, which could be interesting. Miller is the witness who revealed many of the shocking details today, and was also the woman at the centre of the affair with Tudge and subsequent claims of bullying and physical abuse. I hope she nails the prick to the wall.

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Original comment

All involved are evil.

As an American I ask Australia for a right wing nutter exchange program, because yours will always vote Liberal and ours will never vote liberal.

This is news to you?

> American partisan media route.

The Australians invented partisan media hackery of this sort, and then spread it to the united states.

and I'm not about to let them forget it, or Mr. Murdoch

This is a blatant violation of privacy rights and the government should be held accountable for their actions.

Never were truer words spoken.

The woman who had an affair with Alan Tudge then sued the government over it might be a bad person with questionable morals? Say it ain’t so

Liberals are plainly evil. Wonder why people keep voting for them.

They were, they’re no longer in government. Now the individuals involved are being held accountable. This inquiry is going to torpedo some careers, apparently deservedly.

"You would think that working in human services, social services, that the first person you think about is the recipient but that was not the case throughout the Coalition government."

And there we have it, the corrosion of the public service diverting them away from helping the public to being agents of a nasty political party.

"...Concerns over the scheme's central method, income averaging, were first raised in the media in late 2016.

The Coalition government repeatedly defended the program, which continued to operate until 2019, falsely accusing hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients of owing money to Centrelink.

Ms Miller said there was a "proliferation" of negative media coverage in late 2016 that was "growing and growing and growing" but it was "predominantly in the left-wing media".

"We weren't too concerned because it wasn't unusual that the left-wing media were attacking us regarding social policy," she said.

(...)

"The prime minister [Malcom Turnbull] was unhappy with the escalating media issue around this [Robodebt] … we were trying to contain it," she said.

"I developed a crisis media strategy at the request of the minister – he was very firm with me that I needed to shut this story down.

"That involved … placing stories with the more friendly media, the right-wing media, about how the Coalition was actually catching people who were cheating the welfare system."

"But we had a continued crisis in the left-wing media that wasn't seeming to die down," she said.

Ms Miller said the government released personal information of Robodebt "case studies" to the media to deter more people from speaking out.

"The minister requested the file of every single person who appeared in the media … you could see the exact transactions that they'd had with Centrelink.

"This would send a clear message … that maybe consider it [going to the media] twice.

"There were less people speaking out in the media which was our intention."

'It's a disgrace' Former acting national manager of Department of Human Services Bevan Hannan at Robodebt royal commission. He said he became "quite upset" watching earlier public hearings because "it became apparent that people [at the department] knew that aspects of the Robodebt scheme were unlawful".

"There was an opportunity in January 2017 to put a stop to it," Mr Hannan said. "

--

The media is never on the leftist side.

Exactly what you would expect from the most corrupt government we’ve ever had