The People vs Robodebt (Documentary, English)
Genres: Drama
Status: Ended
Premiered: 2025-09-24
Ended: 2025-09-24
Network: SBS On Demand
Country: AU
Airs on: Wednesday
The People vs Robodebtis an emotionally charged political thriller which unravels the devastating human story behind one of Australia's greatest political scandals. In the long hot summer of 2016, the federal government's new Online Compliance Intervention scheme roared like a bushfire through Australian society. This automated welfare system soon became known as "Robodebt" and over the next three years, almost half a million Australians were hounded to pay back debts they did not owe. The system was later found to be inaccurate, unethical and illegal. Some people lost their savings, their homes, their marriages and a few lost their lives.  How did such a "crude and cruel"[2] error-riddled scheme ever get off the ground, let alone run for years? A brave handful of Australians witnessed what was happening and took a stand. In The People vs Robodebt many of these people tell their full story for the first time.Using a potent combination of gripping documentary story-telling with high end drama, the series follows the tireless and heroic efforts of these extraordinary people who fought against the system: the Robodebt victims and their angry families, the crusading social media activists, the whistleblowers and investigative journalists, the tenacious lawyers, as well as the forgotten victims of Robodebt: the Centrelink workers who bravely battled the system from within – their complaints falling on deaf ears.