The main US liberal complaint about Trump has always been the aesthetics.

Another iteration of the story of the tragic hero Renee Leon stopping Robodebt only to be sacked. As revealed in the Robodebt RC, it was a decision of ERC to stop it. Leon's contribution was pushing the stop button slightly before she was formally instructed to.

It's quite remarkable just how terribly the obsession with means testing and offsetting saves has ruined the ability of the social security system to make payment in accordance with the law.

Another week, another report into how Services Australia mismanages the social security system - this time to the tune of a billion dollars a year for the age pension

you mean it's been reported through the public documentation included in every budget and MYEFO update since forever?

Services Australia should have been abolished after the Robodebt RC

Incredibly ableist of everyone to make fun of Pete's slur-friendly nameplate.

sad to report that I am responsible for the thing I was responsible for

exciting future news for APS FoI enjoyers: AI handling of FOI requests

Who knew there were so many consultants at CSIRO?

Why didn't the head of the NACC correct the record, instead of waiting for someone else to do it?

One of the amazing things about Robodebt is that the ALP was handed the perfect opportunity to completely remake the APS however it liked - both on a personnel and structural basis - and then decided to keep everything exactly as it was.

oh now I see where the brilliant idea to do another APS agency podcast in 2025 came from

Also, why do this in two parts once in late May the other in late June. What could have possibly happened in a month post-election that caused a decision to nuke the Social Services portfolio twice.

A fantastic, shocking article that demonstrates once again the forces, conditions and people that did Robodebt are still working as if nothing changed. SES scrambling to punish a recipient who turns up in a media cycle to please a Minister who is being tough on rorts? ALP or LNP, same behaviour

Look at my assistant treasurer, dawg

Have to love the NACC making a big fuss about a garden variety nepotism case, refusing to name the people but providing so much info that it is beyond trivial to find their names with 5 seconds on thr wayback machine

A Government so out of ideas it is rebooting B plots from the Abbott years www.theage.com.au/politics/fed...

I was deported by the U.S. for reporting on the Columbia University student protests. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Hi everyone I was denied entry, detained, and deported from the USA over the last 48 hours because of my reporting on the Columbia student protests I arrived back in Melbourne hours ago and had my phone handed back to me upon landing

the reason why the media doesn't talk about this is because it's not a narrative that suits anyone that is, Robodebt was in no way an aberration but rather was a fairly typical example of how the Australian Government operates vis a vis welfare recipients

Rick writes for the general public so it's understandable he didn't include this, but trust me you have to work VERY hard to get the ANAO to find you were outright "ineffective" as opposed to "partially effective".

US Liberals love to simultaneously argue that Trump is a unique menace that must be stopped at all costs, but also that the Democrats shouldn't be criticised for choosing to run very weak candidates against Trump. If he's that bad, why are you sending a senile octogenarian to fight him?

glad to see we'll finally have some representation for narcissists in parliament

ah don't worry guys Glyn totally intended to leave after three years, which is why he repeatedly foreshadowed it from the beginning and gave some great closing addresses

if your university course is cheatable by ChatGPT, then it wasn't teaching anything useful in the first place but instead its value lay in the social connections it offered

My take on the 2025 election: what if we did the 2022 election, again. None of the major parties involved learned anything from 2022, so no reason to expect them to learn anything from 2025.

Hearing a lot of talk about election costing, but strangely Finance+Tsy are showing they've only been asking to do two costings this election and the PBO hasn't been asked to do any

Given the LNP have copied almost every other ALP policy this election, why wouldn't they also announce a new efficiency dividend on the APS like the ALP just did?

you can tell the ANU leadership is new to this because 1. they are very bad at lying to the senate and 2. they think they need to bother to lie to the senate

That the Liberal party lacks the ability to even make Reynolds wait until the election campaign is over is yet more proof it's a complete husk of a party. No policies, no processes, just naked self-destructive self-interest.

Given The Pez was found to have "used his duty, power, status or authority to seek to gain a benefit or advantage for himself" and having "failed to act apolitically in his employment", the Government should have had someone other than The Pez investigate the 2022 election day boat scare.

Everyone is so obtuse on this point. Consultants are not a significant part of the APS workforce. Never have been, never will be. The "$20b on consultants" line is a misreading of what employment audit found, as per the charts below.

Imagine all the progressive policies an ALP majority government could do! (for the purpose of this exercise, please ignore the last three years)

If Australia didn't have compulsory voting, I believe this election is sufficiently dull that it would be able to achieve a sub 50% turnout

All the hyperventilating about an Australian DOGE, yet little mention of the time we actually did DOGE with Abbott's Commission of Audit. An exercise that was so embarrassing everyone has scrubbed it from memory, instead pointing to the 2014-15 Budget as the Bad Thing e.g. Dutton and MBS cuts.

I can't stop being fascinated how an illegal strike happening in the public hospital system of the biggest state, under a program that the federal government provides ~40% of the funding worth billions a year, is simply not in the same universe as the election.

stepping aside from the election campaign for a moment to talk about actual politics...

the insistence on every article about MBS bulk billing rates repeating the lie that bulk billing rates started decreasing with the rebate freeze in 2013 is baffling. latest culprit - the Saturday times. meanwhile, as per the AIHW data, the rate had been slowly increasing since 2003 until COVID

poor jervis bay territory, didn't even make the list

i mean why would we expect a public hospital system that is going off the rails and that the Commonwealth funds 40% of to be an issue in the election. why bother even asking the candidates about it

You can always trust the ABC to uncritically report incorrect claims from sources with an obvious bias. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04...

This law is so symbolic it doesn't even address the actual hospital PPP that is its reason for existing.

glad to confirm what I suspected would be the case all along - May 2025 election

No social security measures in the 2025-26 Budget. Some $ for pandas 🐼 Means no announcement re: 2022 Labor commitment to abolish compulsory income management (consultations continue)

At a total decision cost of $35 billion over the FEs, this is actually the largest Budget this government has done by a significant margin

So the ALP is going to help frontline services by making arbitrary reductions to agencies' budgets?

strange, I was assured by the APSC and by the Government that all the problems identified by the Robodebt Royal Commission had been addressed through a rigorous and comprehensive suite of reforms to the public service.

wow we’ve finally hit the australian welfare state singularity: a PPP to provide means tested concessional loans ministers.dss.gov.au/media-releas...

five minutes after taking a look at fifth edition VtM