🗳️ Election special 🗳️ Caretaker conventions, IGBs and some 🥳 vox pops 🥳 Artwork

The Westminster Tradition

Unpacking lessons for the public service, starting with the Robodebt Royal Commission.
In 2019, after three years, Robodebt was found to be unlawful. The Royal Commission process found it was also immoral and wildly inaccurate.

Ultimately the Australian Government was forced to pay $1.8bn back to more than 470,000 Australians.

In this podcast we dive deep into public policy failures like Robodebt and the British Post Office scandal - how they start, why they're hard to stop, and the public service lessons we shouldn't forget.

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The Westminster Tradition

🗳️ Election special 🗳️ Caretaker conventions, IGBs and some 🥳 vox pops 🥳

April 01, 2025 • Season 3 • Episode 6

The starter's gun has gone on Australia's national elections for 2025 and Parliament has been prorogued.

In this episode, former head of Cabinet Office and keeper of the Caretaker Conventions, Alison answers Caroline and Danielle's increasingly pointed questions, and we end with arguing about the importance of formatting.

Stay tuned to the end for some fabulous insider advice for managing caretaker period and elections as a public servant.

This episode is dedicated to the significant birthday of Sandy Pitcher, a public service legend (read more about her here).

Intro grab courtesy of the Hon Nat Cook MP, Minister for Human Services (SA).

Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....

While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.

If you want rigorous reporting on Robodebt, we recommend the work of Rick Morton at the Saturday Paper, Chris Knaus and Luke Henriques-Gomes at the Guardian, Ben Eltham at Crikey, Julian Bajkowski at The Mandarin, and of course, the Robodebt Royal Commission itself.

Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at thewestminstertraditionpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music.

'Til next time!