Welfare recipients are tweeting criticism of the system under the hashtag #notmydebt.
Labor's spokeswoman on human services Linda Burney has called for the system to be suspended.
"Get it right before threatening people - not that hard," Ms Burney tweeted.
She said no MPs who checked the emails to their electorate office could possibly say the system was working.
It is ‘as reasonable a process as you could possibly derive’, says Christian Porter of controversial automated system
The big data system was brought in last year as a part of the federal government’s campaign to rein in unjustified welfare costs. Unfortunately, the debt claims are incorrectly targeting many legitimate welfare recipients, according to the website NotMyDebt, which arose out of social media concerns from those who have been falsely accused by Centrelink.
Social Services Minister Christian Porter has defended Centrelink’s unpopular debt-recovery system, arguing it was “about as reasonable a process as you could possibly derive”.
Some recipients are required to supply paperwork from up to five years ago, but Mr Porter said that applied to a "very small number" of people.
He added that the system had recovered $300 million since the start of the financial year.
"What this system is doing is raising real debts around real overpayments based on real cross referencing of evidence," he said.
But Shadow Minister for Human Services Linda Burney said it should be suspended, citing "inherent problems right across the system".
[...]Ms Burney today tweeted that the system needed to "get it right before threatening people", referencing the #notmydebt social media campaign launched in response to Centrelink.
Minister for Social Services, Christian Porter, denies there is an issue with Centrelink's automated system.
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Minister for Social Services, Christian Porter, denies there is an issue with Centrelink's automated system.
Watch a video of Michael Griffin's meticulously documented, step-by-step, on how the system wrongly deemed him to have a $3,197 debt.
Imagine you get a letter from Centrelink saying you have an outstanding debt of more than half your yearly salary. Oh, and it's due in just over a fortnight.
Minister for Social Services Christian Porter has kicked off 2017 by defending the new automated debt recovery process implemented by Centrelink, which has seen some letters demanding money repayment sent in error to welfare recipients.
Speaking on ABC RN Breakfast on Tuesday, Porter stated that of the 169,000 letters sent out to welfare recipients in Australia since the start of the financial year, only 276 complaints have been received by Centrelink -- a complaint rate running at 0.16 percent.
RN Breakfast's Heidi Pett spoke to three people—all receiving different payments—who have been caught up in Centrelink's debt recovery dragnet
Low-income Australians receiving housing support and other welfare services have joined summer criticism of Centrelink, as the agency faces sustained questions about its new automated debt recovery processes.
Centrelink recipients in Mackay are venting their frustration over 'debt' letters after a new online compliance system was implemented in July.
We've been hearing from some of the thousands of Australians who have been issued with debt recovery notices by Centrelink in recent weeks.
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Labor MP and Shadow Minister for Human Services, Linda Burney, says the system should be suspended until it's accurate.
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About 20,000 Australians a week have received debt notices from Centrelink this summer.
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Centrelink recipients across the country are being told to pay back false debts sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars because of a faulty computer algorithm.
The issue came to light in national headlines earlier this month and those affected by it are sharing their stories across social media.
An estimated 20,000 welfare recipients are being targeted each week by the algorithm, which uses data supplied by organisations such as the Australian Tax Office to match the information recipients give to Centrelink.
Pension cuts and tougher compliance measures for welfare recipients will hit thousands of Tasmanians from today.
Unions estimate the pension cuts will strip $30 million from the state’s economy each year, with more than 7860 pensioners affected by the stricter assets tests.
Tougher compliance measures come into force for people receiving welfare payments, and the six-year statutory limit on retrieving overpayments will be removed. Automated data matching introduced in July for retrieving welfare debts has come under attack in recent weeks for its alleged unfairness and inaccuracy.
Prohibition orders are introduced to stop some welfare debtors leaving the country.
Member for Bendigo Lisa Chesters believes Centrelink’s new automated debt recovery system could unfairly target people in regional areas due to poorer communication services.
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It has raised $300 million in overpayments for the government following 169,000 reviews.
But Ms Chesters said it was a flawed system that failed to take into account a number of factors for those living in regional areas.
“Over the Christmas period I was contacted by several people who had their payments suspended. For most of them it appeared to be no fault of their own,” she said. “Quite often people do not know they have to attend an appointment because appointment letters have not arrived before the scheduled appointment or a text message telling them to attend an appointment, they attend only to be told no appointment exists. Days later their payments are suspended for a ‘failure to attend’.
It's unfair to suspended a payment if you don't know you have to attend an appointment.”
This week, Guardian Australia has continued to receive complaints about Centrelink’s new method of retrieving welfare debts, which relies on an automated data matching process criticised as crude and unfair.
Now, a handful of the thousands of Australians caught up in the government’s crackdown share their experience of being unfairly targeted.