Behavioural ‘experts’ quietly shaped robodebt's most devilish details – and their work in government continues
One of the things still worrying me about robodebt was the attention to detail. By that, I am not referring to the crude system by which hundreds of thousands of Australians on benefits received letters between 2016 and 2019, wrongly demanding they repay Centrelink money they did not owe. I am referring to the care with which the robodebt letters were designed – and the so-called science behind those devastating design decisions. ‘Nudging’ people to pay at all costsThe robodebt royal commission heard that details as specific as the colours of the letters were decided on after receiving advice from “experts in behavioural science”.
One of the things still worrying me about robodebt was the attention to detail. By that, I am not referring to the crude system by which hundreds of thousands of Australians on benefits received letters between 2016 and 2019, wrongly demanding they repay Centrelink money they did not owe. I am referring to the care with which the robodebt letters were designed – and the so-called science behind those devastating design decisions.
‘Nudging’ people to pay at all costs
- The robodebt royal commission heard that details as specific as the colours of the letters were decided on after receiving advice from “experts in behavioural science”.
- So it made what Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes found was a “conscious decision” not to include a phone number recipients could use to find out more.
- That’s right, the letter didn’t include a phone number – a decision Holmes found was made “with the intention of forcing recipients to respond online”.
The human toll of powerlessness
- People left with nowhere to turn and without ready access to, or familiarity with, using the internet felt powerless.
- Witnesses told Holmes they wanted to end their lives.
‘Choice architects’ shaping policy
- A year before robodebt began, the then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull set up what he called a Behavioural Economics Team Australia (BETA) unit in his department.
- It was modelled on the so-called “nudge units” set up by former US president Barack Obama and former UK prime minister David Cameron.
- Cass Sunstein helped invent both those terms, coauthored the book Nudge, and headed Obama’s Nudge Unit.
Hollow science
- A real science examines not only cause and effect, but also develops a theory of the mechanism by which that effect takes place.
- That’s another way of saying a real science examines more than correlations.
- Psychology is one such real science; economics is (usually) another.
Blind to empathy
- And now, under the Albanese government, there’s another unit.
- But if it only does that, without examining how it works, it risks being as blind to the potential costs on real people as the “behavioural insights” that shaped the robodebt letters.