{"id":754827,"date":"2026-06-23T10:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T10:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/754827\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T10:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T10:20:11","slug":"robodebt-australias-biggest-class-action-settlement-approved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/754827\/","title":{"rendered":"Robodebt: Australia\u2019s biggest class action settlement approved"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 450,000 people who were affected by the federal government<\/a>\u2019s unlawful debt collection method will receive $475 million in compensation between them.<\/p>\n

The Robodebt system was designed to fix overpayment of social security benefits, but it resulted in hundreds of thousands of people being wrongly accused of owing the government money<\/a> between 2015 and 2019.<\/p>\n

\"Kath<\/p>\n

Kath Madgwick, pictured with her son Jarrad, who took his own life after learning he had a Centrelink debt.\u00a0Supplied<\/p>\n

Some of Australia<\/a>\u2019s most vulnerable people entered into extreme debt, went without food or even died by suicide as a result.<\/p>\n

The bungled program has cost the government more than $2.4 billion following multiple class actions.<\/p>\n

Federal Court Justice Jonathan Beach ruled that an additional settlement of $548.5 million, including the approved compensation figure, was fair and reasonable.<\/p>\n

It also includes up to $13.5 million in legal costs, to be paid by the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

Class action representatives will be paid between $20,000 and $25,000 each for \u201cinconvenience occurred over a number of years\u201d.<\/p>\n

The settlement comes on top of an earlier $112 million agreement that lawyers successfully appealed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jarrad Madgwick.\u00a0Supplied<\/p>\n

Justice Beach thanked victims who had been part of various class actions since 2019, particularly Jenny Miller and Kath Madgwick.<\/p>\n

They lost their sons, Rhys Cauzzo and Jarrad Madgwick, to suicide<\/a> after they were issued with robodebt notices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did appreciate hearing their perspectives and the fortitude that has been shown particularly from the two mothers whose sons were lost,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

He added the \u201cfiasco\u201d was an opportunity to learn lessons, chastising government officials who were \u2019insulated and detached\u201d from the consequences of their actions.<\/p>\n

A settlement was first reached in 2021, but it did not consider information later uncovered in the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.<\/p>\n

That included the revelation that government officials tried to mislead investigations into the scandal.<\/p>\n

Further compensation was then requested in the successful appeal by law firm Gordon Legal, which led the class action.<\/p>\n

The class action was launched by Sydney<\/a> woman Katherine Prygodicz, who had twice been chased for a debt of more than $14,000.<\/p>\n

– AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 450,000 people who were affected by the federal government\u2019s unlawful debt collection method will receive $475…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-754827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}