Tom Studans

Tom Studans

@maximumwelfare.bsky.social

Welfare advocate. Covered the Robodebt Royal Commission. None for me thanks

2,643 Followers 434 Following 2,313 Posts Joined Aug 2023
17 hours ago

I really doubt it man

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23 hours ago

The level of reading comprehension on this site is genuinely appalling

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23 hours ago

This is shocking

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1 day ago

Wow. Benjamin Netanyahu has died, according to some posts on social media which I personally read earlier today.

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1 day ago

I'm cheering against him sorry

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1 day ago

They've specifically said they oppose that regime and that they support the war on the basis of opposing the regime on the basis of the regime's actions in Australia. They have not opposed changing the regime.

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2 days ago
Screenshot of the article which reads:

There is a certain duality to Kilgour’s failure of imagination; it only fails sometimes. The former deputy secretary of the Department of Social Services Serena Wilson was found, correctly, to have engaged in serious corrupt conduct for her role in misleading the Commonwealth Ombudsman about the legality of the robodebt program in 2017, two years after it began. 

In whacking Wilson, Kilgour appealed to matters of “common sense and ordinary human experience” as well as quite correct observations about the role of senior public servants.

“But it is only to be expected that Ms Wilson, as a deputy secretary, would have had systems, procedures and assistance in place to isolate more important communications from the dross, and thus to devote to the former the time and attention they deserved,” she writes.

Fair. Not so for Campbell, though.

Campbell, Kilgour says, was far too busy to be across the detail even though it was Campbell who first briefed the concepts of robodebt to Scott Morrison — not the more senior DSS secretary — and who directed that the briefs be prepared, and who was so intimately involved in the development of the policy that later became the cabinet submission. 

Kilgour states as fact something that could only have come from Campbell’s testimony about the development in 2015: “Ms Campbell’s focus was elsewhere on the Welfare Payments Infrastructure Transformation program (WPIT)1397 which was a vast program involving the establishment of new arrangements and IT upgrades with multiple other agencies.”

Her focus was elsewhere. Says who? Campbell.

Whole chunks of Campbell's evidence are taken at pure face value. Not even in the 'I've weighed this and considered it' sense but in the 'just state it as fact in passing' sense. www.crikey.com.au/2026/03/13/n...

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2 days ago
Screenshot of part of the article which reads: Morrison was the cabinet minister responsible for both Social Services and Human Services matters, and if he was a "junior" minister in the Coalition government, then he was also seen as its biggest conservative rising star, fresh from having so infamously "stopped the boats" with a stop-at-nothing approach to border security.
He was a man on the make in private and championed as such in most of the mainstream press.
Campbell had a preternatural talent for managing politics. It's what made her so effective at the job and her own survival. In any event, what transpired was that both Morrison's and Campbell's career prospects took off after robodebt. Campbell was promoted to lead the senior policy department in DSS and then, by Scott Morrison himself as prime minister, handpicked to lead the Department of Foreign Affairs in a move seen as cronyism and widely considered to have been a disaster.
One does not need to prove beyond doubt that these could be conceived as rewards for her loyalty and fervour, only to recognise the mind-boggling folly of a deputy commissioner of the NACC writing — in ink! — that the potential rewards for Campbell in her hypothetical reconstruction of motive "could never have been more than an unprovoked hope" that this "junior minister" of another department could "determine, and be able, to secure the public servant's career advancement".
His motives aside, that is in fact exactly what happened.
For Kilgour to argue in this manner casts serious doubt over the rest of her findings.

I mean, come on. www.crikey.com.au/2026/03/13/n...

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1 day ago
Preview
The NACC robodebt report: A heartbreaking work of staggering incompetence Rick Morton wrote the book on robodebt. He delivers a damning verdict on the NACC's long-awaited robodebt report, which exonerated Scott Morrison and Kathryn Campbell.

Opinion | "Morrison was the cabinet minister responsible for both Social Services and DHS matters, and if he was a “junior” minister in the Coalition government, then he was also seen as its biggest conservative rising star," writes @squigglyrick.bsky.social.

www.crikey.com.au/2026/03/13/n...

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2 days ago
Preview
The NACC robodebt report: A heartbreaking work of staggering incompetence Rick Morton wrote the book on robodebt. He delivers a damning verdict on the NACC's long-awaited robodebt report, which exonerated Scott Morrison and Kathryn Campbell.

The NACC report is astonishing for just how many non-sequiturs, excuses and naive assumptions can be packed into 455 pages. The deputy commissioner who authored it is not a judge, unlike Catherine Holmes. And it shows. www.crikey.com.au/2026/03/13/n...

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2 days ago
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Screenshot attached so @drvicfielding.bsky.social can't block me or retract the quote.

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2 days ago

Wow, turns out reducing all opposition to the war to jealous 'Labor-bashing' is not an oversimplification and is actually hard-nosed realistic geopolitical analysis

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2 days ago

This isn't a clear difference at all sorry, neither legally or politically. You should argue for your position instead of from an authority you can't prove.

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2 days ago

It is in fact quite possible for reasonable minds to differ on this point, isn't it?

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2 days ago

What evidence is there that they're unhappy with it? It's 100% on you to demonstrate this.

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2 days ago

“Kilgour displays a naive understanding of the real-life behaviour of senior public servants, wondering aloud in her official report how or why such officials could ever do the wrong thing while at times finding they did just that.” @squigglyrick.bsky.social slams NACC’s “baffling” robodebt report

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2 days ago
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Just realised they could have gone with 'Old Man's Old Man Also Old Man'

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2 days ago
Preview
The NACC robodebt report: A heartbreaking work of staggering incompetence Rick Morton wrote the book on robodebt. He delivers a damning verdict on the NACC's long-awaited robodebt report, which exonerated Scott Morrison and Kathryn Campbell.

Writing exclusively for Crikey today, Rick Morton tears into the NACC's long-awaited robodebt report that exonerated Scott Morrison and Kathryn Campbell.

www.crikey.com.au/2026/03/13/n...

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2 days ago

I feel like we were told repeatedly that this doesn't matter at all as long as we're having a crack

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2 days ago
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Scoop: Three months into Australia's ban, new data given to Crikey suggests that most teens who were on social media pre-ban are still on those platforms.

While it's just one data point, it adds to early evidence suggesting that there's widespread flouting of the ban.

www.crikey.com.au/20...

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2 days ago

Pro-Violence Jesus Christ appeared to me in a dream last night and told me that due to logistical concerns his glorious return is now contigent on occupying the Iranian coast in order to reopen the Strait of Hormuz

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2 days ago

👆 Penny Wong with The Truth

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3 days ago
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Terrible name. I will be calling this 'Operation Labubu Shield'

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3 days ago
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If Hitler lived to see this he probably would have been like 'Noooooooo! My bunker!'

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3 days ago

Nothing this government does occurs with any scope for wiggle room or unexpected outcomes. I watched them control the Robodebt Royal Commission by giving them a series of short deadlines and extensions at their leisure. I can tell you everyone there wanted another three months and lost the argument.

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3 days ago

Can I just say in relation to this: there's a fucking war on, and we are litigating our support for that war by way of unproven allegations by ASIO. To be more invested in delivering recommendations next Hanukkah than at the next available opportunity is beyond asinine it is seriously dangerous.

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3 days ago
Preview
Clash over security report led to sudden resignation from royal commission Former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson said his resignation was “an embarrassment all around” but denied any suggestion the move hurt the credibility of the inquiry.

www.theage.com.au/politics/fed...

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3 days ago

As I have said—a Royal Commission should take as long as it takes, as the truth does not care about politically-suspect deadlines, or the pride any Commissioner may take in meeting them.

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3 days ago

Do you recall them directly threatening the ABC for reporting on their incompetence as recently as last month? My goodness 😅

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3 days ago

You don't think the agency that tries to manipulate autistic teenagers into doing terrorist attacks is maliciously incompetent?

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