Researching the Robodebt controversy couldn’t have been easy – journalist Rick Morton faced the challenge and wrote a book about it.

Morton will discuss his new book Mean Streak in a special conversation with author Melissa Lucashenko in Kyogle on November 9.

For more than four years, the government used an automated debt recovery system in which close to half a million Australian welfare recipients were illegally pursued over false debts.

Robodebt was described by a Royal Commission report as a “massive failure of public administration” caused by “venality, incompetence and cowardice’”.

Mean Streak follows in the tradition of journalists and writers tackling difficult issues such as The Tall Man by Chloe Hooper and This House of Grief and Joe Cinque’s Consolation by Helen Garner.

Morton tells a powerful and emotionally compelling story of one of the large scale failures of the Australian Government.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this story,” Morton said.

“It does not end with an inquiry, or even with referrals for other investigations. The very real story of Robodebt is one that still applies across governments and corporations everywhere: when people are reduced to accounting tricks, we strip them of humanity.”

Morton has been a journalist and writer for more than fifteen years.

He has written other books – One Hundred Years of Dirt and My Year of Living Vulnerably.  

Join the conversation at the KMI Hall in Kyogle at 3pm on November 9.

Tickets are $10 and are available online here and at the door if not sold out.

This article appeared on indyNR.com on 21 October 2024.