Letter

In response to Freedom at last for the Robodebt Six, thanks to the NACC

The March of Folly

Years ago, Barbara Tuchman, an American historian, wrote a book called The March of Folly. In it she detailed a number of examples where governments had under taken a particular scheme knowing that or should have known it was going to fail. Yet they persisted until the program totally and completely failed. Hence a complete folly right from the beginning.

In Australia we do not call such a program Folly, we call it Robodebt.

Or perhaps you may prefer the name, Black Swan. Another book, this time written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb called Black Swan in which he defines a Black Swan event as “it is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was”.

In Australia we call this “Black Swan” event, Robodebt.

I had thought of writing some long essay and unloading every failure of Robodebt from the beginning to the latest report from NACC. But I am just not up to it. The whole thing makes me sick. The final impact, just DON’T Vote. When you “destroy trust” that is the impact of this “Folly”.

— Peter Sheehy from Blackheath NSW