In a country that prides itself on fairness, the foundations of our welfare system are anything but.

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The recent revelations in The Saturday Paper expose what many of us have long suspected: the legal basis for Australia's social security compliance regime is not just flawed - it may be fundamentally illegitimate.

Despite warnings dating back to 2018, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations chose to maintain a system that routinely harms vulnerable Australians, all while cloaked in the language of "mutual obligation" and "responsible economic management".

This is not just a bureaucratic oversight. It's a systemic failure that has allowed administrative harm to flourish under the guise of policy.

The Targeted Compliance Framework (TCF), which automates payment suspensions for job seekers, has been revealed to operate without sufficient legal documentation or oversight.

According to Deloitte's technical review and the Commonwealth Ombudsman's inquiry, the system lacks traceability, justification, and legislative alignment.

In short, it cannot be audited against the law it purports to enforce.

As I have repeatedly argued in this column, and explored in depth in my legal research thesis, the government's denial of a duty-of-care to social security recipients is not just morally bankrupt - it's legally suspect.

The robodebt scandal was the tip of the iceberg. What lies beneath is a vast architecture of compliance mechanisms that outsource harm to private providers, shield the government from........

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