Pressure is growing on the Turnbull government over the Centrelink debt-recovery controversy, after the Commonwealth Ombudsman launched a wide-ranging investigation amid calls for the system to be shut down.
The Commonwealth Ombudsman is set to investigate Centrelink's debt recovery system.
The Commonwealth Ombudsman Colin Neave has opened an investigation into the Centrelink automated debt recovery system that has come under fire for sending some letters demanding money repayment in error to welfare recipients.
A spokesperson for Neave told ZDNet the Ombudsman is aware of the concerns raised about the automated data matching system used by Centrelink, and has commenced an own-motion investigation into the matter.
The Commonwealth Ombudsman is set to investigate Centrelink's debt recovery system.
“People with a severe mental illness won’t reach out to services. They’ll stay in their box, harm themselves, withdraw. The government is targeting vulnerable people who don’t have the capacity to deal with it.”
Centrelink's automated system, which has ramped up since October, is now sending 20,000 review letters about supposed discrepancies each week, with scores of Australians - including people with cancer - telling news.com.au of the anxiety, stress and even suicidal thoughts prompted by the debt letters that dropped through their mailboxes just before the festive period.
The ombudsman has launched a broad, self-initiated investigation into the Centrelink automated debt recovery scandal, as the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, demanded the automated system be suspended.
In an attempt to meet corporate demands to slash social spending, the Liberal-National government of Malcolm Turnbull is escalating a welfare offensive initiated by the previous Labor government. Using an automated data-matching system introduced by Labor in 2011, it is dispatching thousands of “debt notices” every week, demanding that current and former welfare recipients repay hundreds, and sometimes thousands of dollars.
In looking to reclaim $4.6 billion of welfare debt over four years, the Government has pushed ahead with a system that many welfare recipients are claiming is fundamentally flawed.
The high error rate of Centrelink’s automated debt recovery operation is “catastrophic”, “shocking”, “appalling” and “extremely preventable,” according to the Turnbull Government’s former digital transformation tsar Paul Shetler.
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If the government was hoping Mr Shetler would go quietly into the night after resigning as its chief digital officer in late November, it must be very, very disappointed right now.
Could there be a more stark sign that the government is out of touch than that Centrelink is sending debt collectors after the most vulnerable while the Health Minister bought an investment property on a whim while on a taxpayer-funded trip?
PAYWALL
This is how the Turnbull Government says “Merry Christmas” to some vulnerable Australians.
The computer errors may be the result of bungling but the vilification and denigration of poorer Australians is a deliberate political tactic.
Centrelink recipients across the region are being told to pay back false debts sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars because of a faulty computer algorithm.
The Federal Government and Centrelink have come under heavy criticism from all quarters over the automated system that has been used to match welfare recipients' reported income.
Amid all the anger the government agency began using Twitter to refer welfare recipients to crisis support hotline Lifeline as the hashtag #notmydebt began trending on the social media platform.
Centrelink’s software problems, like those of Queensland Health, the Census and Victoria Police before them, arise from pathologies created by the powerful labour hire and outsourcing industries.
Centrelink’s software invents second employers and additional income. Queensland Health bungled the pay of nurses and doctors and also sent them nasty legal letters. Queensland lost a staggering $1bn through that disaster. The census website system fell over.
These would be extraordinary mistakes even for a small business, and yet they’re being made by government departments with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend. How does this happen?
If the government was a private company it would go out of business or be shut down by regulators for fraud over the Centrelink debacle, says former Digital Transformation Office head Paul Shetler.
The Commonwealth Ombudsman has launched an investigation into the Centrelink debt recovery debacle – which both major parties played a hand in creating.
Centrelink would be shut down for fraud for its conduct in the recent botched "debt" recovery efforts if it were a private company, according to the Commonwealth's former digital government chief.
Former Digital Transformation Office chief Paul Shetler also says the Turnbull government lacked the political will to push through its ambitious "digital transformation agenda".
As Centrelink workers deal with the fallout of the controversial debt clawback letters, it’s been revealed staff in the Orange office often fear for their safety.
The former head of the government's Digital Transformation Agency has said the error-rate within Centrelink's automated debt recovery system is so high it would send a commercial operation out of business.
AUDIO
It beggars belief that this is a systems error. If this is the case, those responsible for the design and implementation of the system are unbelievably, inconceivably incompetent. Centrelink’s Hank Jongen claims the methodology hasn’t changed, but no one has explained why, if nothing has changed, the system has begun averaging annual earnings over every reporting fortnight and raising debts as a result.