Robodebt, Kafka and institutional absurdism in Australia

Abstract

The report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme was published in July 2023. It found that the scheme was a ‘costly failure of public administration, in both human and economic terms’. The Trial by Franz Kafka is a seminal literary metaphor for how bureaucracy can give way to corruption and dystopia. In a brief parallel reading, I show how the findings made by Commissioner Holmes conform with Kafka's blueprint of an absurd bureaucratic machine. I also explore some broader implications of this argument.