Mean Streak

Publisher’s description:
From award-winning journalist and writer Rick Morton comes Mean Streak, a gripping and horrifying account of how, over the course of four and a half years, Australia's government turned on its most vulnerable citizens.

Robodebt was a new debt-creation system that was used to illegally pursue close to half a million Australian welfare recipients for fake debts generated by the thousands. It was described by the Royal Commission's report as a 'massive failure of public administration' caused by 'venality, incompetence and cowardice'. Essentially, Australians were gaslit by their own government, which doggedly and knowingly concocted a program that was both mathematically wrong and illegal, just to shake down innocent people for money, then lied about it for four and a half years. Robodebt is a historic and appalling political tragedy, a scheme created deliberately and sustained by institutional cowardice, clearly displaying the systematic contempt that a government had for its own citizens.

Shortlist ABIA Social Impact Book of the Year 2025

Author: Rick Morton

Publisher: 4th Estate AU

Format: Paperback

Pages: 512

Published: 16 October 2024

ISBN: 9781460765807