#8 Robodebt, regulatory capture and an impoverished public sector - with Emeritus Professor Terry Carney

<p>Today I am speaking with Emeritus Professor of Law from the University of Sydney Law School, Terry Carney. If you think you have an original opinion, Terry probably already wrote it, like 20 years ago. Terry has written on and worked in, mental health law, child welfare, adult guardianship and administration law, and for the narrow purposes of this episode, social security law. In addition to overseeing the writing of the Social Security Act in 1991, Terry served 40 years as a member of the Social Security Appeals Tribunal, and its successor, the Social Services and Child Support Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.</p> <p>Today we spoke about the Online Compliance Intervention policy, or as you would know it, robodebt. I asked Terry how the policy came about, what kinds of logical and legal errors it committed, and what those errors reveal about our public sector, public policy making and regulatory oversight systems. It&rsquo;s not clear that we are in a better place a year or two away from Robo-debts collapse, so listen to what Terry says we need to do to reform the system.</p> <p><strong>Time-stamps</strong></p> <ul> <li>Why regulation matters to Terry (2:00)</li> <li>What was&nbsp;<em>Robo-debt?&nbsp;</em>(6:00)</li> <li>How much money did Robo-debt actually recoup? (18:00)</li> <li>How did this policy get through the checks and balances....? (22:00)</li> <li>How regulatory capture can explain the non-response from the Commonwealth Ombudsman (28:00)</li> <li>Have we learnt the public policy and regulatory lessons from&nbsp;<em>Robo-debt?</em> (37:00)</li> <li>Have the regulators learnt from their mistakes? (46:00)</li> <li>What can the listeners go do after hearing Terry? (53:00)</li> </ul> <p><strong>Show notes</strong></p> <p>Calls for a Royal Commission from expert Dr Darren O'Donovan:&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-problem-is-not-fixed-why-we-need-a-royal-commission-into-robodebt-141273">https://theconversation.com/the-problem-is-not-fixed-why-we-need-a-royal-c