Why robodebt's use of 'income averaging' lacked basic common sense

By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

The practice of “income averaging” to calculate debts in the robodebt scheme was completely flawed. This is what I confirmed in my new report conducted for the robodebt royal commission published last Friday, the final day of the commission’s public hearings.

This process effectively assumed many people receiving social security benefits had stable earnings throughout a whole year.

But this is unlikely to be accurate for the many people who don’t work…

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