Mean Streak: A moral vacuum, a dodgy debt generator and a multi-billion government fraud - the powerful story of

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From award-winning journalist and writer Rick Morton comes Mean Streak, a gripping and horrifying account of how, over the course of four and a half years, Australia's government turned on its most vulnerable citizens.

Robodebt was a new debt-creation system that was used to illegally pursue close to half a million Australian welfare recipients for fake debts generated by the thousands. It was described by the Royal Commission's report as a 'massive failure of public administration' caused by 'venality, incompetence and cowardice'. Essentially, Australians were gaslit by their own government, which doggedly and knowingly concocted a program that was both mathematically wrong and illegal, just to shake down innocent people for money, then lied about it for four and a half years. Robodebt is a historic and appalling political tragedy, a scheme created deliberately and sustained by institutional cowardice, clearly displaying the systematic contempt that a government had for its own citizens.

Powerfully moving, deeply compelling and utterly enraging, Mean Streak reveals disturbing truths about the country we have become and the government that was. In the mode of a corporate thriller, this is a scouring cautionary tale of morality in public life gone badly awry - a story that is bigger than robodebt, and far from over.

Praise for Rick Morton:

'A crack storyteller ... his words and stories are infused with genuine compassion' Christos Tsiolkas

'Morton is an intelligent, funny, endearing writer' Australian Book Review

'Morton is fresh ... He's brilliant' The Monthly

'Wonderfully readable ... Morton is a national treasure' Books+Publishing

Book details and technical specifications

Format: Paperback / softback
ISBN13: 9781460765807
Published: October 2024

Number of pages: 512
Width: 155 mm
Height: 235 mm
Depth: 34 mm

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd