The royal commission examined the unlawful debt assessment and recovery scheme, including what key Coalition ministers knew and when.
The royal commission examined the unlawful debt assessment and recovery scheme, including what key Coalition ministers knew and when.
It will be interesting if the NCAC will be able to investigate this: there is no evidence that they knew it was illegal when they implemented it, only that they found out and failed to take action.
Possibly gross negligence? Definition a violation of the spirit of office, but that’s not a criminal offence.
The worst part is that there’s a significant portion of the country that will vote right MORE due to this coming to light. Ive heard so many people in this country say that the poor, disabled and homeless should just be left to die rather than give them handouts. Often from people of privelidge and power.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. I don’t know who individually ends up with responsibility for what happened, but it was some variation of theft, fraud and/or obtaining financial advantage by deception. They made up debts that did not exist, then made people pay them (or in some cases I believe took the money directly from their accounts). If some loan shark rocked up at your door falsely claiming you owed them thousands of dollars and threatening to kneecap you if you didn’t pay up I don’t think anyone would have trouble seeing it as a criminal act, and what the government did was pretty much the same thing.