Centrelink worker recounts ‘callous indifference’ from superiors after raising alarm about robodebt

On the stand, Colleen Taylor seemed to remember a lot more about robodebt than some of her superiors.

Her appearance at the royal commission on Tuesday introduced Australians to a frontline Centrelink worker who had the moral compass to tell her superiors something they either did not or pretended not to know: that the robodebt program was wrong.

Taylor also had the first-hand knowledge to explain why it was not just unethical, but obviously flawed in policy terms.

Robodebt’s problems appeared etched in her memory. Taylor reeled off not only the issues officers saw on the frontline, but some specific cases: people on sickness benefits who got debts that were simply illogical, others whose income from specific labour hire firms (she recalled the names) were double counted, again leading to a false debt.

Taylor spoke of her anguish about how staff were literally told “not to interrogate” a customer’s record for better evidence and that they knew the “income averaging” method central to the robodebt scheme was “wrong”.

Taylor’s memories were generally not obstructed by the passage of time: the injustices seemed to happen yesterday.

In a February 2017 email, Taylor warned the secretary of the Department of Human Services, Kathryn Campbell, that she was “being misled about robodebt”. “As a compliance unit, we should not be the ones stealing from our customers,” Taylor, one of 30,000 DHS staff members, told the person leading the organisation.

She said on Tuesday: “If we know there’s no debt, and yet we’re sending a debt notice out to someone, isn’t that stealing?”

Guardian Australia tracked Taylor down earlier this month after her email was published by the royal commission among dozens of other documents. Traumatic memories came flooding back, but she insisted she was not a victim. (Taylor was contacted by the commission after the Guardian’s story was published.)

The media room at the first hearing block of the royal commission into the robodebt scheme in Brisbane on Tuesday. Photograph: Jono Searle/AAP

Taylor’s story resonated with many readers who were impressed and moved by her courage. There were about 17,000 staff at her level in the public service: APS4.

Her evidence on Tuesday is a damning indictment on the bureaucrats running the robodebt scheme on behalf of cynical politicians.

She was not alone. Taylor spoke on Tuesday about a “small group” of colleagues also dismayed by the robodebt program. The concerns she raised – including the email to Campbell – had been cleared with her team leader.

The royal commission has heard there were others who tried to stop robodebt before it started. Andrew Whitecross, a Department of Social Services official (far more senior than Taylor) told of warning the DHS that the robodebt proposal was flawed. He claimed his warnings were “toned down” by a superior. Working under Whitecross, another DSS official named Cameron Brown believed the plan was “unethical”, and sought advice that tore it to shreds. In early 2015, DSS’s in-house lawyers apparently worked into the night to develop legal arguments against the plan.

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Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Colleen Taylor addresses the royal commission into robodebt on Tuesday: ‘If we know there’s no debt, and yet we’re sending a debt notice out to someone, isn’t that stealing?’

Taylor left her job in July 2017 after her warnings were dismissed. She recalled how a top DHS official, Karen Harfield, summarised her many concerns back to her at the end of a meeting: “So what you’re saying is the old system used to be very time-consuming and lengthy and this is going to be much quicker?”

Taylor told the royal commission her “jaw just dropped”. “I went out to see my team leader and said, ‘I don’t think she listened to a thing I said’ … I was really down about it.”

Taylor did not know, but documents suggest that senior DHS staff had portrayed her as overly sympathetic to welfare recipients in a briefing to Campbell.

It is telling that, in an agency tasked with providing social security to Australians, this might be not only a problem but an effective way to dismiss a staff member raising concerns.

The government services minister, Bill Shorten, said Taylor had displayed decency, ethics and compassion. “Her pleas were ignored. Colleen, you can hold your head high. Frank [and] fearless.”

By the time Taylor retired in the middle of 2017, she said the “dreadful consequences” of the program were starting to come out in the media. “You were just so sorry for what was being done to our customers,” she told the royal commission.

Asked why she retired, Taylor said: “I just was spent. I think it was just the callous indifference. You just thought, this is what people do to each other?’ It was just so sad. You just thought, ‘Nothing’s going to change.”

But her courage was not in vain: her evidence at a royal commission has made sure of that.