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SBS commissions Robodebt docudrama

A second screen project is in the pipeline based on Australia's notorious Robodebt scheme.

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SBS has commissioned a docudrama based on the notorious Robodebt scheme.

CJZ (Go Back to Where You Came From, Gruen, My Life is Murder) will produce Robodebt (working title) an immersive series that combines factual storytelling and high-end drama, after securing SBS’s new major development fund. announced at the Australian International Documentary Conference.

SBS Director of Television Kathryn Fink said: “Through this initiative, SBS wanted to unearth a series unlike anything seen on Australian screens before. Robodebt will reveal the fight for justice by some of the most vulnerable people in our society. We’re excited to be working with CJZ on this series, which will shine a much-needed spotlight on this unprecedented chapter in recent Australian history.”

CJZ Creative Director Michael Cordell (pictured) said: “Robodebt inflicted a tsunami of pain on hundreds of thousands of ordinary Australians accused of having fictitious debts. We’re excited to be telling this story with an innovative combination of hard-nosed factual and high-end drama to push the limits of contemporary storytelling.”

This marks the second project around Robodebt with a drama project also in development with Lingo Pictures for ABC.

The Robodebt scandal ranks as one of the darkest chapters in Australian history. In a highly politicised campaign to claw back money from social welfare recipients allegedly ‘rorting’ the system, $1.8 billion was extracted from over half-a-million people between 2015 and 2019. The scandal resulted in Australia’s largest class action, with a Royal Commission finding that the scheme was “crude and cruel” and “neither fair nor legal”.

Attached to the SBS project is series director is documentary and drama director Ben Lawrence (Ithaka, Hearts and Bones) and screenwriter Jane Allen (Janet King, Cleverman, Last King of the Cross, Troppo, The Secret Life of Us) will serve as writer and script producer.

5 Responses

  1. Personally, I think it was one of the most scandalous thing done by a Government.

    But that aside and having watched most of the Royal Commission, I am not sure how you can produce good “drama” out of this story, given most of the fault, IMHO, lies with public servants making decisions that could be contestable given no one has been charged or convicted at this stage. I just can’t see where the drama comes from, unless they concentrate on the victims and that may be unfair to the victims given what they went through.

    As an ex-public servant and bush lawyer, I could see the horrors of what transpired, but I am not sure that the bulk of the Australian public would see the injustice and failure of governance that is at the heart of the real tragedy / crime here.

    The involvement of CJZ gives me some hope for a good story.

  2. I wonder how both productions will deal with the issue of real people being depicted- public servants, government ministers- given most of those people do not come off well at the end.

    1. I seem to recall the people in ‘Struggle Street’ didn’t support the production returning to their street and it was proving a bit difficult to get another location. Pity.

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