Rick Morton
@SquigglyRick
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Senior Reporter: The Saturday Paper. Author: One Hundred Years of Dirt & On Money (Hachette) out now. Country kid from QLD. [email protected]
Sydney, New South Wales
Joined April 2010
This all-consuming book has been out for a month & is off to be reprinted. Have been too scared to ask for numbers, but I know people are buying and reading it. Thank you. The best feedback is a review like this one because it was my exact hope for this thing. Don't stop now!
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Seven year anniversary of the best photo I’ve ever taken. On my phone! I could live for 100 years and never do any better.
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all I'm gonna say about it is this: complaining 'the royal commission was mean and unfair to me and they don't understand what I was going through' is, from the man who introduced Robodebt, a seam of irony so rich in fuel it could power interstellar travel for millennia.
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@DineshDSouza @Polymathically Hi Dinesh, Australian here, it's really not you fucken nugget.
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There is nothing - nothing - that could ever make this OK. No amount of buts or ifs or what abouts. Nothing. Anyone who tries has forfeited their soul.
39 babies on incubators in Al Shifa. This is the last room with electricity. Two have already died. 37 babies.
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I was in the middle of writing 4000 words to meet a deadline tomorrow but then I found this bubba blue-faced honeyeater who had fallen out of his nest on a 39C day and now I’m behind schedule
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What a gracious statement from Witness J, the man whose testimony was so powerful the Pell case made it all the way to the High Court.
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The newspaper for which I work has published a comment piece by Chris Wallace defending her friend of 40 years, former DHS Secretary Renee Leon. I consider the piece to be garbage revisionism, unethical and a betrayal of actual reporting and told the editors as much.
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omg have a fucken sook.
One of Sydney's oldest boys' schools is going co-ed, leaving some parents furious about what they call the "woke agenda" behind the move. #9News. READ:
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Scott Morrison choosing to speak in parliament just three times in the last year: on the Queen, his own censure motion and rejecting a First Nations Voice. There contains the man. Small and mean.
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Scott Morrison doing four different jobs during the pandemic.
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This panel is talking about how to make policy for First Nations people do you notice anything
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I filed this piece on the plane back from Canberra and when I landed I pressed send, then boss phoned as I was driving back to Boonah and suggested a summary "paragraph." I pulled over at a Maccas off the Centenary Highway and wrote this. Glad I did.
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if andrews manages to end the commonwealth games it may be his greatest legacy.
Canada’s Alberta cancels bid for 2030 Commonwealth Games over costs, weeks after Australia’s Victoria pulled out of hosting 2026 Games
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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.
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Final word on Robodebt, for now. Ministers demanded fealty and got it. They argued that poor people never did anything for the country and then sought to burnish their already fraudulent money management credentials off the misery of those same poor people
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Seems gauche to do one of these but I’m so thankful for lovely messages. It’s nice to win awards, won’t pretend otherwise, but I’m relieved it’s for Robodebt. That story is far, far from over. I hope we don’t forget it. This one is for Jenny and Kath and Colleen. Strong women.
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Look at the twists and turns the PM had to make just to cover for his refusal to come to the aid of Victoria during its outbreak now that NSW needs support. From the ~national~ leader. Honestly outrageous. It was as true that Vic needed help then as NSW, as any state.
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When I was a kid I always told Mum I would build a granny flat for her to live, out the back of my house, when she got older. This week, we went one better. A whole house. For her, and with her, and only because of all her hard work. We are in a housing crisis. I’m lucky.
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the English would never steal something that looked momentarily unattended.
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made it to 8 weeks smoke-free today, or two short months, and honestly I’m as surprised as you are.
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Off the smokes for a week today. Celebrated with my mate Josh here.
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Andrew Bolt fleeing from Melbourne on account of persecution. Why doesn’t he stay behind and make it better instead of bringing his troubles to a new place that is expected to give him shelter and comfort?.
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Tudge sought legal advice from DHS chief counsel Annette Musolino. to use a loophole and release Cauzzo’s personal Centrelink record. The full machinery of government was then set towards smearing the reputation of the 28yo florist and musician.
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this is a bus.
Sydney's transport system could be about to make a new leap - here's the first look at the trackless trams that are set to take to Western Sydney streets, connecting up to the new airport at Badgery's Creek. @Natalia_Cooper9 #9News
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Happy Father’s Day to my Mum who once waged a holy war at my primary school because they wouldn’t let her come to the Father’s Day night 🥰.
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I had my last cigarette more than 27 hours ago. Been here before, of course, but this time feels different. Every time I've felt mildly like I could fold, I take myself off for a little walk like a sick freak.
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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.
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I renovated my mum’s bathroom (most expensive room in the house!) last year and it cost less than one-tenth of the $150,000 minimum for the government’s renovation cash splash. So my question is: what the fuck kind of renovations are you people doing.
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Mum called, mentioned how much she loved Dune. And I was like holy shit, how good is it! And then she said “that’ll be me one day you know.” And I was like, marooned on a desert planet colonised by a galactic military? And she said “no, with dementia.” She watched the film June.
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Bettina Arndt, acting as go-between for Mark Latham, tried to get me to go after Rosie Batty. ML had apparently been investigating for “18 months” but couldn’t provide a shred of evidence. So I wrote that. She accused me of betraying Mark. I told her to never speak to me again.
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Anyway, my work here is done. I’m going incommunicado for a week or so. Might climb a mountain and stay there. Let’s be real I’ll probably come back here but I really don’t want to! Be kind.
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"They will not be named, however, because the system they were protecting is now protecting them. The poor were never so lucky. They never are. That is the point of this whole dispiriting affair." Editorial on the NACC decision.
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I received the message on the left from a person I did not know back in September and we had a brief chat, it was so lovely. And now he’s come back with the follow-up that made me cry. What a beautiful gift, honestly ❤️
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Hi, I’m Michael McCormack and I’m about to buy my first house in Sydney. It’s worth $700,000 but with development going the way it is, in a few decades time it’ll cost $2 million so obviously I’ll be paying $2 million. And that, losers, is how we deal.
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you have precisely zero shame.
SchMo referred the Robodebt Royal Commission as a lynching. I call it a missed opportunity to address the serious holes which now exist in welfare compliance. See my column in @SpectatorOz .
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dared not hope for more but this is still so unbelievable
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You might know a bit about the Centrelink Robodebt worker Colleen Taylor who emailed Kathryn Campbell to sound the alarm. But I urge you to listen to her here, in her own home, as she tells us the whole story. What a woman. Restores faith in humanity.
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👀👀👀 NACC to reexamine robodebt referrals after Inspector comes knocking. The whole place is a farce.
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Jacqui Lambie on RN right now re: universities. "They have got to stop being a business model and go back to being a teaching institution." She has basically called them cowards, says they need to go and figure out what they need to do their jobs and demand it.
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In the end you write the book you can't stop thinking about. Mean Streak: A moral vacuum, a dodgy debt generator and a multi-billion dollar government fraud. Out next year. In the meantime: rickjamesmorton@protonmail.com
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You know, to me, it is very telling that the PM needed his wife invoking their daughters to remind him that women are people and didn't glean this moral knowledge from the supposed source* of all* morality, Christianity. On both counts this is a failure.
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NEW: Former departmental secretaries Kathryn Campbell and Renee Leon found to have breached Australian Public Service code of conduct for robodebt. 12 current former public servants, 97 breaches all together.
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Arrived early for my annual meltdown about needing to get the fuck out of the journalism industry. Truly demoralising.
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Scott Morrison has already called a royal commission into aged care. It delivered an interim report in Oct/Nov and almost ~nothing~ from those recommendations have been listened to or acted upon. They are privatising more! Why would we trust govt with a bushfire RC?.
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Wow, Commission found Kathryn Campbell deliberately instructed her own legal team to discontinue a request for legal advice on Robodebt from the Aus Govt Solicitor because she was worried about being found out.
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If there was any doubt Scott Morrison will do anything to avoid justified scrutiny of enormous problems within his government, his office, his party, then today should eliminate it. Giving up a woman's sexual harassment that has nothing to do with you to deflect is wicked stuff.
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It should not be the case but this takes an impressive amount of backbone. Federal Minister Ed Husic: "I feel very strongly that Palestinians are being collectively punished here for Hamas' barbarism."
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The truth about Scott Morrison and the truth. I’ve watched his political career up close since he first became immigration minister. He dislikes being questioned. My column today:
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The sole reason Robodebt Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes asked for a one week extension was so her inquiry could make referrals to the new national corruption body which begins operating on July 1. Inquiry was due on June 30, now July 7.
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we should stop calling them anti-vaxxers and just call them pro-disease.
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The Chancellor of University of Canberra is Lisa Paul, who Bill Shorten hired to co-author the NDIS review. Now he’s about to be Vice-Chancellor, hired by panel led by the Chancellor Lisa Paul.
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So get this, the fed govt is paying bonuses to private job agencies for 'placing' and keeping people in a job that ends up being paid for by JobKeeper. It's a taxpayer cash merry-go-round as doubt clouds future for those on income support. My piece:
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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!.
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Chris Wallace, now actively undermining the royal commission’s work - which helps all against whom findings were made - has sadly unfollowed me after I pointed out her unethical hackery in service of her friend. What a disgrace.
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Again, for those at the back, the Robodebt Royal Commission afforded more procedural fairness and due process to those from whom it heard than was ever - ever - given to people the illegal scheme targeted.
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Privatised employment service providers using the farce of mutual obligations to funnel (a lot) more than $40 million every year into companies they also own, control or have an interest in. Jobseekers / underemployed have no choice but to make them rich.
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A government so bereft of nation-building leadership or even ideas will spend some of its final sitting days ahead of an election attempting to target trans kids / people in lieu of literally any agenda. Is it malice, incompetence or both? Meanwhile aged care is a clusterfuck.
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Giving a speech at a conference in about 55 minutes and I haven’t written a word (as per!) but reckon I might just make the whole thing about robodebt. The theme is Be Your Best Self and I reckon that applies to our institutions and what we demand of our representatives.
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swear to god writing a book on robodebt has rapidly depleted my tolerance levels for bullshit.
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Mum texted me and said I was “cranky.”.
Former PM Scott Morrison and Former Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews are in hot water this morning, accused of leaking the arrival of an asylum seeker boat on the day of the federal election. DETAILS: #9Today
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Today is 4 months of being a non-smoker and I’ve never been more depressed. Walking pretty fast tho!.
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The Indigenous girl saying “umm, England” has perfect comic timing.
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I also cannot afford to pay my restaurant workers, which might account for why I have chosen not to open a restaurant.
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I just realised today is the six-month anniversary of me becoming a non-smoker. Boy howdy!.
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Dutton being pressed by Sarah Abo on Today Show: “But you must concede this was a bad policy, people lost their lives.” He tries to say the Robodebt RoCo is a political hit job. She doesn’t let it slide. He then concedes, grudgingly, it was “flawed.” Honestly.
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remember the nude sunbathers startled by a deer who then became lost? that was 10 years ago.
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BRERETON ENGAGED IN MISCONDUCT. NACC Inspector finds, relying on expert investigation.
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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.
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I’m so sorry to everyone who hoped for something out of this. Jenny, Kath, the countless others. Cowardice abounds.
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As I understand it, cruise ships are very big and easy to spot. Not sure if this information is helpful.
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The centrepiece of the government's Living With Covid program is a call centre run by former Robodebt debt collectors, staffed by casual workers with no medical qualifications. Many of them were pulled from the punitive employment services system.
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Morrison's strategy w/ pathetic Jobseeker increase is clear. $50 a f/night extra is nowhere near enough to escape poverty, look for work. But he will say "you asked me to raise the rate and I did." He will say it over and over again. With tightened requirements, this will harm.
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I have what I would describe as a totally irrational fear of needles. Just, out of this world disgust. But I was so excited for my vaccine today and while I was driving to the stadium I found myself saying out loud several times “I’m a big, brave boy!” So yeah, if that helps?.
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Speaking to barista at my local cafe and the shiftworker paid $140 for an Uber to get to work this morning from Homebush because the government cancelled every train service. I think they said the owner was reimbursing, but either way massive cost, personal and business.
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nuclear subs are cool and all but the ultimate in stealthcraft is cloaking them in a special blind trust so that the enemy never even sees them coming.
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It’s only just gone 8.30am and I’ve had a coffee, done a live cross to ABC News Breakfast, another live interview with ABC NewsRadio and a 3km walk-run in the most appalling humidity. Still an hour and 20 before the hearing starts.
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Cannot overestimate amount of work that went into this. Rebranding failure at the Bureau of Meteorology is symptom of a much bigger disease: a truly horrific workplace culture that has seen employees hospitalised, meteorologists gagged, Min’ office misled.
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Pez Dispensed.
Breaking: Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo has been removed from his role over covert dealings with lobbyists and secret efforts to gain and exert political influence during the terms of the Turnbull and Morrison governments.
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And there you have it. Covid-19 in a disability group home. Three residents infected.
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Never seen a bigger effort to kill one of my reports. NDIS agency refused comment for 8 days, demanded details of individuals I'd spoken to, provided one answer on 'background only' which I've quoted. Scheme eligibility reassessments wrongly cut support.
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“hello yes I would like to buy one ticket on the very concept of air travel thank you”.
Qantas has filed its defence in the ACCC case alleging the airline sold seats on flights already cancelled. It includes an insane idea: Qantas doesnt sell you a ticket on a "particular flight", rather, you're buying a "bundle of rights".
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SOME good news at least. Justin Warren the robodebt Freedom of Information advocate has had a comprehensive and somewhat surprising win in the full Federal Court of Australia regarding the controversial slapdash use of "cabinet documents" to deny FoI requests. Huge.
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One hesitates to get hopes up, but the bid to reopen the Robodebt class action by pushing the button on misfeasance in public office against those who knew is an extraordinary bid that now has extraordinary evidence. if the court will hear it.
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Greg Hunt gave an interview yesterday saying there were only 6 aged care facilities nationally that had yet to receive a Covid-19 vaccine dose. But evidence in estimates today says that figure is actually 21. @MurrayWatt asking where Hunt got figure 6 from. Dept: don't know.
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Just remembered the time in primary school when they had a father’s night for the kids but I didn’t really have one and mum went full DEB mode, yelling at the principal to let her into father’s night. “I’m his father!” Ever since we’ve always wished her a happy Father’s Day.
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Dutton saying the Robodebt RoCo report is political because it comes out a week before the Fadden by-election. Bud, take it up with Stuart Robert who, um, is responsible for the Fadden by-election.
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Mr Morton! A deserved call out to those bringing this to everyone’s attention, especially the ones who have been doing so for YEARS. I’m a Johnny come lately.
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would have been like suing the tuckshop if you didn't put your brown paper bag lunch order in by 9am.
NSW Liberals decide against suing electoral commission over election bungle
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Scott Morrison is up at a press conference talking about aged care failures. He is referring to the massive operation underway now. Which, again, is not the issue ventilated over the last week. There. Was. No. Plan. None of the issues were unforeseeable.
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Gonna be that guy for two seconds. Just finished the edits on this weekend’s @SatPaper piece and I’m not sure I’ve written anything that has alarmed me quite so much, or that has more revelations in 2200 words. If you’re able, might be a good time to consider a subscription.
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I guess after today's news it's as good a time as any to say the Robodebt book, Mean Streak, has a cover and you can pre-order it now. These matter a great deal. Check for your local indie bookstore: Or the majors / Kindle here:
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Undisclosed former Robodebt department heads argued the public service commissioner couldn't investigate them because they're no longer employed. Govt seeks to close loophole with retrospective power. Good, the very least they can do.
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This is an incredible episode. "The most dangerous form of Government power I've ever encountered." There was a behavioural insights document that predicted if people could be made to feel shame, they would pay up. This was designed.
How could #robodebt, an unlawful idea, ever make it into policy?. @DarrenODonovan joins @squigglyrick to dissect how things went so wrong within the bureaucracy. #RobodebtRC .
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I’ve been having this conversation with the PM for almost two years now. I don’t know what that says about either of us, tbh.
Morrison hates taking responsibility for the cuts he made as Treasurer to aged care. It’s not just in Question Time, it’s every time he’s asked to take responsibility. #qt #auspol
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