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A United Nations human rights expert has slammed Australia and Prime Minister Scott Morrison for the failed, and possibly illegal, emergence of the “digital welfare state”.
The Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) has joined special rapporteur Philip Alston in calling for Australia to address its robodebt, payment cards and communications with welfare recipients to ensure it is no longer harmful and there is a proper legal basis.
“The Morrison government is designing a social security system that is focused on a punishment and automation, rather than dignity and humanity. Advances in technology have the power to do enormous good, but for that to happen, ending inequality must be central to their design. People’s rights and wellbeing cannot be the price we pay,” she said.
Mr Alston’s report noted the digitalisation of welfare systems has been used as a way to promote deep reductions in the overall welfare budget, elimination of some services, introduction of intrusive forms of confidentiality and imposition of stronger regimes.
“As humankind moves, perhaps inexorably, towards the digital welfare future it needs to alter course significantly and rapidly to avoid stumbling zombie-like into the digital welfare dystopia,” Mr Alston said in a report to be presented to the general assembly.
He held Australia as an example for system errors or failures that generated problems for large numbers of beneficiaries, citing robodebt as a “fiasco”. He said digital welfare states risk becoming “Trojan Horses” for neoliberal hostility towards regulation.
Australia’s Target Compliance Framework took one of the biggest hits, with Mr Alston calling it a failure for a lack of internet access and digital literacy, “to the rigidity of the automated system which fails to take real-life situations into account”.
The government’s online compliance intervention system, which uses automated data matching as the basis to send out large numbers of debt notices with “very high error rates”, shows a lack of attention to the importance of ensuring legality.
“Robodebt has seen the Morrison government bully people into paying debts they do not owe, in an attempt to prioritise efficiency over human rights,” Ms Hurley said.
The Cashless Debit Card, which the Morrison government is trying to roll out further, was also slammed, with Mr Alston labelling it as an “important human rights concern”. His other concern was in how welfare recipients are made to feel embarrassment and shame for using the cards, which are clearly recognisable as welfare-related.
“The Cashless Debit Card is the government micro-managing people’s lives – denying people the freedom to make decisions about where to buy everyday essentials, such as food and clothes,” Ms Hurley said. “The Morrison government’s attempt to force this new form of income control in the Northern Territory should be opposed.”
Mr Alston warned the increased and unchecked use of technology by the government in the social security system risks exacerbating the biases of existing data policies. Its algorithms are noted as forms of discrimination and undermines right to social security.
He added there is a consistent reluctance for governments to regulate the activities of technology companies and a strong resistance to take into account systematic account of human rights considerations. He said it is further exacerbated by the extent to which the private sector is taking a leading role in operating the digital welfare state.
“While the lack of a legal basis is deeply problematic per se, this gap also means that opportunities for legislative debate and for public inputs into shaping relevant systems [are] also lacking. This has major potentially negative implications for transparency and design, legitimacy and the likelihood of acceptance,” Mr Alston said.
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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