While I had expected #ScottyFromMarketing to be exonorated in line with keeping the wealthy and ex-PMs imune from the full force of the law, I didn’t expect #Campbell to be as well. To say that I am dissapointed is the least of it. #RickMorton in his analysis of the final report is more scathing (he has a right to given his extensive reporting on #Robodebt) in his Crickey pice of 13Mar26:

“In her 445-page report dismissing corruption allegations against four of the six referred robodebt individuals, including the two most senior, former minister Scott Morrison and Department of Human Services secretary Kathryn Campbell, Kilgour flatly rejects the considered reasons of former Queensland Supreme Court chief justice Catherine Holmes, the royal commissioner who referred the names for further investigation.

Other institutions are, of course, entitled to disagree with the findings made by other inquiries, but the reasons given by Kilgour in many of these scenarios are risible and, to borrow one of her phrases, tax credulity. “

Read more:
https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/03/13/nacc-robodebt-report-scott-morrison-kathryn-campbell-rick-morton/

Michelle de Kretser, Rick Morton, among 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Award winners

https://disassociated.com/michelle-de-kretser-rick-morton-2025-prime-ministers-literary-award/

“an industry built on smoke and mirrors doesn't mind committing more than one category error in its marketing confusopoly.”

#RickMorton on AI, copyright, productivity summit and rent-seeking.

https://rick-morton.ghost.io/crumbs-at-the-slophouse/

Mean streak : a moral vacuum & a multi-billion government shake down

Should be compulsory reading for public servants and critical reading for engaged citizens.
#goodGovernance #Canberra #publicService #RickMorton #robodebt

Rick Morton in his own words:
https://www.rickmorton.com.au

Review of ‘Mean Streak’, #RickMorton’s unmissable book on the bureaucratic incompetence, willfull cruelty & self serving politics that was #RoboDebt

Debts were raised using different criteria from those used to calculate benefits. Benefits are calculated with relation to income per fortnight, to recognise the hardships arising from irregular hours & from intermittent employment. Debts were calculated by averaging income across a full year.

It was obvious to anyone with experience in public administration that this was indefensible. In the explicitly politicised culture of the APS, those to whom this fundamental error was obvious were not permitted to say so. (This is the criterion that distinguishes those who are on a career path from those who are not - those vilified as ‘dead wood’. Being on a career path requires a person to pretend that the lies & the bs being spoken make sense.)

Without the investigative skills & persistence of advocate #AsherWolf & the journalists who took up her story, these abuses would not have been exposed. A shameful episode. #AusPol

https://insidestory.org.au/somethings-really-really-up/

“If you actually want to stop another Robodebt from happening or, heavens, dismantle a cold and callous state apparatus that sees people it is meant to serve only as expendable units in a power-struggle involving career advancement and political favour then this is the most important inquiry of our generation.”

Rick Morton’s substack on Robodebt Royal Commission’s 2023 hearings: ‘Nobody Expects The Vanished Inquisition’
https://rickmorton.substack.com/p/nobody-expects-the-vanished-inquisition

#RickMorton #RobodebtRC #Robodebt #AusPol