Walkley Book Award 2025
The Walkley Book Award judges have named Rick Morton’s Mean Streak (Fourth Estate), an account of the robodebt scandal, as this year’s winner.
Discussing Mean Streak, Morton said that robodebt was “not an aberration” but rather “the logical endpoint of big data surveillance and an ideological war on the poor”. For Morton, “The very real story of robodebt is one that still applies across governments and corporations everywhere: when people are reduced to accounting tricks, we strip them of humanity.”
Supported by Sydney bookshop Bookoccino, the Walkley Book Award “celebrates Australian writers who take enduring subjects from news, eyewitness accounts, investigations and history”, said the organisers. “Their books bring readers immersive detail, clear analysis and new revelations.”
This book has been reviewed by QRC. Click here to read our review.