I have been diagnosed with an ultra-low heart rate and so there is some suggestion that I may need an artificial cardiac pacemaker or artificial pacemaker, and sometimes just “pacemaker’’.
Whatever, while early suggestions are that I will need a pacemaker, I’ve stumbled upon an absolutely no-invasive alternative — I watch proceedings from the present Robodebt inquiry and my heart rate jumps.
Politicians who, until recently led our country and were in charge of the whole Robodebt fiasco appear at the commission and without any shame, massage the truth about the whole affair to shift the blame elsewhere.
My heart rate rises as I listen and watch as these people protect their backs and, in the final analysis, avoid acknowledgement that they were in charge of a scheme that sent more than 2000 people to their graves.
Writing in The New Daily, the Australian Council of Social Security chief executive Cassandra Goldie said: “At the RoboDebt royal commission this week, this cruel and nasty political strategy was laid out in all its ugly truth — a media strategy employed by a Federal Government which would distract from the aggressive abuse of government power that they were committing against hundreds of thousands of people.”
Many appearing before the commission still wander the halls of Parliament House and stunned by what I’m hearing, thoughts rush through my mind, suggesting that if I had been in charge of any project resulting in people dying, I’d either be in jail or court faced with answering many unanswerable questions.
This, I guess, is the much heralded democracy we enjoy, which I endorse, but within it are some complex, almost perverse, machinations that seem to protect those responsible for processes that impact negatively on the lives of others.
“Intrigued” probably best describes how I feel when I hear that governments, of any stripe, won’t discuss individual cases claiming privacy concerns, but when it suits them, as it did at the height of the Robodebt crisis, they happily disclosed the names of many recipients with the intent of shaming and discrediting them.
Their goal was to protect the integrity of a process riddled with faults and collapsing into disarray, even though their actions were without credibility, questioning the core of the then Coalition Government.
Writing a letter to the Melbourne Age, Professor Phillip Mendes from the Department of Social Work at Monash University said, among other things, “Yes the royal commission has exposed a deliberate agenda of harassment, intimidation and bullying aimed at this population”.
So, does the Robodebt farce equate with high ideals of democracy?
No, decency, fairness, honesty, transparency and compassion, which are all essential ingredients of a healthy, well-meaning democracy, were sacrificed to political opportunism.
However, the Robodebt buffoonery had just one saving grace, it lifted my rather slow heart rate, but it had none of the aforementioned honourable ideals.
Robert McLean is a former editor of The News
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