A book about the former Coalition government's "deadly" Robodebt scheme is one of six winners at this year's Prime Minister's Literary Awards (PMLA), with journalist Rick Morton taking out the $80,000 prize for non-fiction for his book Mean Streak.

But the major award came at a cost. Morton admits writing it "sent me mad"; he stopped seeing his friends and felt angry all the time.

"[Covering Robodebt] radicalised me in a weird way that I hadn't expected," he says. "It's like I saw the world the way it was for the first time in my life.

"I had this latent belief that the government wouldn't lie about something like this, and wouldn't hide this evidence, and if it was illegal, then they would have stopped it.

"Then to see all that came out of the royal commission and realise that they

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