Services Australia’s Single Touch Payroll program: the enduring legacy of Robodebt, or a fundamentally different system?

The Robodebt debacle has been universally decried as a major failing in
Australian government administration. It involved an online compliance
system that resulted in more than 470,000 incorrect welfare debt calculations.
The Robodebt decisions made on the sole basis of income averaging were ruled to be irrational by the courts, resulting in the government agreeing to implement a new system. This article critically examines the various iterations of the Robodebt scheme within the context of social welfare policy in
Australia, and compares it to the successor to Robodebt, the Single Touch Payroll (STP) program. It argues that while the STP program appears to be an improvement from the Robodebt system in some ways, issues pertaining to transparency and accountability continue to persist under the STP program. The authors suggest that further reform is required to ensure compliance with the administrative law requirements of rationality, lawfulness, transparency and accountability