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Lilly @lillyull.bsky.social · 4h

public-api.wordpress.com/bar/?stat=gr...

Robodebt and Accountability: The NACC’s Test of Integrity

The SBS series The People vs Robodebt has reignited debate around accountability, reminding Australians how policy failures can harm citizens.

public-api.wordpress.com

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The Conversation AUNZ @aunz.theconversation.com · 4h

Suspending or expelling a student should be a last resort. But our study shows it is more common than it should be in NSW public schools.

We tracked 72,000 NSW public school students over a decade and found 19% had been suspended or expelled

theconversation.com

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Asher Wolf @asherwolf.bsky.social · 4h

Frankly I want them to be as odd as possible. Make your change agents extra weird

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Asher Wolf @asherwolf.bsky.social · 4h

First casting convo with the company doing the ABC series about Robodebt. It’s weird to chat about how a casting call for someone to play yourself will be shaped

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Tom Studans @maximumwelfare.bsky.social · 4h

You will be able to see @chrisrudge.bsky.social & others interviewed about this on ABC 730 in a few minutes.

Hopefully we can finally have some mainstream discussion of the subject of the report, being the unlawful cancellations of the Centrelink payments of hundreds of thousands of recipients.

Tom Studans @maximumwelfare.bsky.social · 4d

#BREAKING 🚨 Deloitte to refund government, admits using AI in $440k report into mutual obligations issues.

Fake quotes from Federal Court case that ended Robodebt deleted from new report in Friday DEWR dump.

📰 AFR

✍️ @paulkarp.bsky.social

✍️ @edmundtadros.bsky.social

🗣️ @chrisrudge.bsky.social

HEADLINE: Deloitte to refund government, admits AI errors in $440k report

Deloitte Australia will issue a partial refund to the federal government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a $440,000 report littered with errors including three nonexistent academic references and a made-up quote from a Federal Court judgement.

A new version of the report for the Department of Workplace Relations (DEWR) was quietly uploaded to the department’s website on Friday, ahead of a long weekend across much of Australia. It features more than a dozen deletions of nonexistent references and footnotes, a rewritten reference list, and corrections to multiple typographic errors.

(photo of Deloitte Australia HQ) Deloitte Australia has made almost $25 million worth of deals with the Department of Workplace Relations since 2021. Photographer Dion Georgopoulos

The first version of the report, about the IT system used to automate penalties in the welfare system such as pauses on the dole, was published in July. Less than a month later, Deloitte was forced to investigate the report after University of Sydney academic Dr Christopher Rudge highlighted multiple errors in the document.

At the time, Rudge speculated that the errors may have been caused by what is known as “hallucinations” by generative AI. This is where the technology responds to user queries by inventing references and quotes. Deloitte declined to comment.

The incident is embarrassing for Deloitte as it earns a growing part of its $US70.5 billion ($107 billion) in annual global revenue by providing advice and training clients and executives about AI. The firm also boasts about its widespread use of the technology within its global operations, while emphasising the need to always have humans review any output of AI.

SUBHEADING: Deleted references, footnotes

The revised report has deleted a dozen references to two nonexistent reports by Professor Lisa Burton Crawford, a law professor at the University of Sydney, that were included in the first version. Two references to a nonexistent report by Professor Björn Regnell, of Lund University in Sweden, were also deleted in the new report.

Also deleted was a made up reference to a court decision in a leading robo-debt case, Deanna Amato v Commonwealth.

The new report has also deleted a reference to “Justice Davis” (a misspelling of Justice Jennifer Davies) and the made-up quote from the nonexistent paragraphs 25 and 26 in the judgement: “The burden rests on the decision-maker to be satisfied on the evidence that the debt is owed. A person’s statutory entitlements cannot lawfully be reduced based on an assumption unsupported by evidence.”

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JB_AU @jbau.bsky.social · 7h

$10m of fraud recovered from the Australian “job provider” system in the last 3 years and not one provider removed from the system.

So welfare recipients lose their ability to pay for shelter or food due to other people’s errors, but job providers face no consequences for fraud.

Antipoverty Centre @antipovertycentre.org · 8h

Lmao the employment department has recovered 10.6 MILLION from providers due to fraud tip-offs over 3 years, and not shut down a single provider.

Reminder: They spend 4 BILLION A YEAR on this system, which is about 25% of how much they spend on JobSeeker payments each year.

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Nobody Deserves Poverty @nobodyinpoverty.bsky.social · 6h

Thank you for that thread!

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Bin Chicken @binchicken9000.bsky.social · 1d

I just resent feeling like a chess piece being moved around in a decision that's supposed to be (at least to some extent) about me.
And I'm wondering how many ppl who are less online, or who have less English fluency, or who have an Intellectual Disability (or all 3) are navigating this.

8/8

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Bin Chicken @binchicken9000.bsky.social · 1d

So if you haven't been keeping up with this online (like I have), you would now have about a week to look through the list & make a decision.
I mean, you could also choose differently later (not that they mention that in the letter), but you would've signed a bit of paperwork by that point.

7/8

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Bin Chicken @binchicken9000.bsky.social · 1d

This is where you actually get to look at a list of the providers you can choose from if you didn't want the ones decided for you.
NOT that the letter actually pointed out that you can choose a provider other than the ones they selected/ suggested for you.

6/8

www.dss.gov.au/inclusive-em...

www.dss.gov.au

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Bin Chicken @binchicken9000.bsky.social · 1d

.. that's a link to another website.

www.dss.gov.au/inclusive-em...

And then you scroll down to the 'Features of the program' section, and there's a link to, yes, another website, 'Inclusive Employment Australia providers' (see next post).

5/8

www.dss.gov.au

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Bin Chicken @binchicken9000.bsky.social · 1d

There's a QR code on the letter for more info that takes you to this website.

www.dss.gov.au/disability-e...

In amongst all the other information (some info is for employers, etc), is the 'Information for DES participants' section...

4/8

www.dss.gov.au

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Bin Chicken @binchicken9000.bsky.social · 1d

It says they've chosen my provider based on location & circumstances. And this will change on 1 Nov.
They list 6 other providers (also very local, not actually my preference) if I want to choose a different one. To choose "one of these providers", I'm to call the DES Transition Line by 16 Oct.

3/8

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Bin Chicken @binchicken9000.bsky.social · 1d

My 1st letter from the govt about the change to Inclusive Employment Australia was dated 22 Aug. It basically said 'change is coming, don't worry, you may or may not have to change providers, we'll write to you again in Oct'.
Just now (8 Oct), I've received the next letter, dated 30 Sept.

2/8

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Bin Chicken @binchicken9000.bsky.social · 1d

When Labor first got in govt in 2022, a bunch of Disability Employment Services providers lost their contract.
They gave us at least a month to select a new provider.
This time, it's more like a week to call the DES Transition Line, thanks in part to them sending this info by letter.

1/8

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Bin Chicken @binchicken9000.bsky.social · 6h

I've received a couple of letters now about the switch to Inclusive Employment Australia. Neither have mentioned Mutual Obligations. (And no mention from my caseworker.) The communication really could be better.

bsky.app/profile/binc...

Bin Chicken @binchicken9000.bsky.social · 1d

When Labor first got in govt in 2022, a bunch of Disability Employment Services providers lost their contract.
They gave us at least a month to select a new provider.
This time, it's more like a week to call the DES Transition Line, thanks in part to them sending this info by letter.

1/8

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Rick Morton @squigglyrick.bsky.social · 3d

De Brouwer made the exact same argument two years ago after the Robodebt Royal Commission report was delivered. This is how I treated it in Mean Streak: "Grow up."

Screenshot of the book Mean Streak by Rick Morton. The text reads:

for the past decade and half, when conclusive certificates were
discontinued, is counterproductive to the Parliament’s intent.
‘When it comes to deliberative material, FoI does not ensure
transparency (because advice is not being written) and it
undermines integrity (because advice is not being written).’
So officials don’t put things in writing because they might get
released under Freedom of Information laws, therefore the FoI
laws aren’t working?
Grow up.
De Brouwer is not alone in his views. Former secretaries have
been doing the rounds making exactly these kinds of noises, as if
the outcome of poor professional behaviour is the result of some
law and not … poor professional behaviour.

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Rick Morton @squigglyrick.bsky.social · 1d

to be fair to him, he was far from alone in this

Mike Sampson @mfsampson.sda.io · 1d

“Unfortunately, it occurs to me that Alan Tudge was not even close to being a genius.” Mean Streak - @squigglyrick.bsky.social

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Antipoverty Centre @antipovertycentre.org · 7h

Ok that's all for now.

Thanks for following along folks, and thanks to the Senators who attempted to bring some form of accountability to the bureaucrats who are wreaking havoc in 1000s of poor people's lives on a daily basis without a care in the world.

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Tom Studans @maximumwelfare.bsky.social · 7h

There is no accountability in this system. There is none. We have thousands of pages of evidence to demonstrate the Obligations were never Mutual, and you cannot make them so.

bsky.app/profile/anti...

Antipoverty Centre @antipovertycentre.org · 7h

30 significant breach notices issued to providers since 2022.

For some reason, only 2 of those were in the past 2 years.

Somehow zero providers have been removed from the system.

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Tom Studans @maximumwelfare.bsky.social · 7h

Is anyone ever going to propose any kind of computerised or—God forbid—automated system to monitor, detect or predict fraud by employment services providers? Fraud which would dwarf the scale of the ludicrous amounts of money spent pursuing fraud by welfare recipients? I'll wait.

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weatherboard.bsky.social @weatherboard.bsky.social · 7h

Labor channeling Scott Morrison rhetoric: “The best form of welfare is a job”.

Mission creep. Or do Labor even consider protections and support for the unemployed part of its mission? Because they don’t act that way.

Antipoverty Centre @antipovertycentre.org · 7h

Payman: Why are you maintaining a system that "The Labor *party* platform notes can be punitive, cause stress and anxiety, and can be a barrier to employment?"

Senator Jess Walsh responds by explaining that the Labor *government* believes the best form of welfare is a job 👍

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Nobody Deserves Poverty @nobodyinpoverty.bsky.social · 16h

New from @artistaffame.bsky.social
"Robodebt and now the targeted compliance framework didn't happen in a vacuum it was allowed to happen because so many people have been taught to hate the unemployed or those on welfare."

ko-fi.com/post/Punch-u...

Punch up

Artistaffame published a post on Ko-fi

ko-fi.com

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Jeremy Poxon @jeremypoxon.bsky.social · 7h

In estimates, Senator Allman-Payne quotes the Department director (below), & says:

"You can't be confident that the foundation on which [the TCF] is built complies with the legislation & yet we're all comfortable w/ continuing to allow ppl to have payments suspended"

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Tom Studans @maximumwelfare.bsky.social · 7h

www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02...

The Jobs Game

Four Corners is the home of Australian investigative journalism.

www.abc.net.au

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