Robodebt | Stats + Stories Episode 338

In 2016, the Australian government launched a program it said would make tracking welfare benefits easier. Instead, it falsely told hundreds of thousands of Australians they owed the government money, with some of those individuals taking their own lives as a result. Australia's robodebt tragedy is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guests Noel Cressie and Dennis Trewin. Noel Cressie is Distinguished Professor at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and Director of its Centre for Environmental Informatics, which is a vibrant interdisciplinary group doing research in spatio-temporal statistics, satellite remote sensing, and broader fields of environmental science; he is also Adjunct Professor at the University of Missouri and Affiliate at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the USA. Noel grew up in Western Australia, received a PhD from Princeton University, and shared a career between the US and Australia. He is author and co-author of four books, three of them on spatial and spatio-temporal statistics, and of more than 300 peer-reviewed publications. His recent research involves hunting for atmospheric-carbon-dioxide sources around the world and focusing on Antarctica’s environmental future. He has won a number of awards, including the Fisher Award and Lectureship from the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS), the Pitman Medal from the Statistical Society of Australia, the Barnett Award from the Royal Statistical Society, and the Matheron Award and Lecture from the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences. Noel is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, of the Royal Society of New South Wales, and of a number of other learned societies. Dennis Trewin is a pioneer of social statistics that are leading to meaningful measurement of social capital in Australia. He was the head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics between 2000 and 2007, and held other senior appointments in Australia such as Electoral Commissioner and an Adjunct Professor at Swinburne University. Dennis is also a member of the Committee charged with responsibility for producing an independent report on the State of the Environment.