IT and data expert Justin Warren […] said Centrelink’s system appeared to rest on the “idiotic” assumption that “big data was magic”.
“It’s not. It’s a messy, complex, statistical system that is wrong a lot,” Warren said. “All models are wrong, but some are useful. It’s the choice of how you deal with when the system is wrong that reveals how you view the world.”
Labor’s acting social services spokesman Doug Cameron has called for the automated system to be turned off.
“It seems to us this is a very crude and inaccurate way of dealing with potential violations of people seeking payments from the welfare system,” Senator Cameron said.
He said Labor has no time for rorters and cross-checking should be done, provided it is accurate. Senator Cameron said a Centrelink staffer has blown the whistle on the automated system, saying it was “flawed”, “overly harsh” and “error prone”.
The system has been described as a “drag net”, which sends out about 20,000 notices a week that effectively reverse the onus of proof onto welfare recipients.
Many individuals do not receive the initial letter from Centrelink, due to either a change of address or the lack of a MyGov account. If no dispute is made, the government takes it to mean that the debt is accurate.
The government is charging 10% debt recovery fees, and [human services minister, Alan Tudge] has threatened those who do not pay with jail. Many problems appear to stem from the comparison of annual pay information reported to the tax office with the income reported to Centrelink fortnightly.
Labor, [Independent MP Andrew Wilkie], and the Australian Council for Social Service (Acoss) have all called for the system to be temporarily suspended pending an investigation into the complaints.
The government is under fire over its new automated Centrelink system which is hitting thousands of welfare recipients with massive bills.
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The federal opposition has called on the government to pause any enforcement action triggered by its new automated welfare fraud detection technology after a spate of allegedly false cases.
Launched in July, the system was intended to streamline the detection of overpayments made to welfare recipients and automatically issue notices of any discrepancies.
The media and Reddit threads have since been inundated with complaints from people who say they are being accused of being "welfare cheats" without cause, thanks to faulty data.
The trouble lies with the algorithm's apparent difficulty accurately matching tax office data with Centrelink records, according to the Guardian, although department spokesperson Hank Jongen told Mashable it remains "confident" in the system.
[Labor's acting human services spokesman Doug Cameron] slammed the government for using a "dragnet approach" to welfare recovery for thousands of Australians.
"This is a crude and inaccurate approach with data matching, it's very crude and very inaccurate and we think it should stop," he said on ABC radio. [...] Senator Cameron said Centrelink should urgently review the process to avoid further mistakes.
"We think it should be scrapped or certainly it should be suspended because we've already got a Centrelink whistleblower who manages this program saying it is grossly unfair, flawed and overly harsh, error prone and compliance staff have no discretion to deal with the issues."
[...]
"We'll find you, we'll track you down and you will have to repay those debts and you may end up in prison," [Human Services Minister Alan Tudge] told Channel Nine.
RMIT University academic Dr Kay Cook said the automated system placed an unfair onus on welfare recipients, of which many were already vulnerable.
“It’s setting up a David versus Goliath situation where people need to take on the federal government to remedy the situation,” Dr Cook told The New Daily.
“For people in the benefits system, who are the most vulnerable, the balance of power in that and the responsibility for correct payments is completely wrong."
There are growing calls for Centrelink to halt its new automated compliance system, after a number of citizens reported being issued incorrect debt notices.
On Tuesday Labor’s human services spokeswoman, Linda Burney, wrote to the government asking for a suspension of Centrelink’s new automated compliance system, saying it must stop accusing people of serious wrongdoing and charging recovery fees until it could be certain the system was targeting the right people.
A Centrelink compliance officer has broken ranks to describe the government’s crackdown on welfare debts as grossly unfair, saying its new automated compliance system is flawed and overly harsh on those on sickness benefits.
[...]
The Centrelink compliance officer, who asked for anonymity, told Guardian Australia the system was error-prone but that most customers were paying debts without checking them first. The source said of the hundreds of cases they had reviewed, only about 20 (at a “generous estimate”) turned out to be genuine debts.
The federal government has been urged to stop unfairly stinging welfare recipients with a 10% “debt recovery fee”, a practice the human services minister, Alan Tudge, said was news to him when asked about it.
Some doing it tough have been incorrectly referred to debt collectors due to a suspected glitch in Centrelink’s computer system, which has sparked a string of complaints from people being accused of owing Centrelink up to $10,000.
The computer system was put in place six months ago, and it went from sending 20,000 letters a year asking for people to pay back money, to 20,000 letters a week.
Independent Andrew Wilkie first raised concerns about the system two weeks ago, saying it was wrongly slugging welfare recipients with debt notices of thousands of dollars.
Wilkie said his office had since been inundated with complaints from vulnerable families.
He has now written to the commonwealth ombudsman requesting an investigation, and to the human services minister, Alan Tudge, urging him to intervene.
Does Centrelink think you owe money that you don't think you owe? Here is what to do next.
Improving welfare compliance is a policy we can all support — in principle. The integrity of the system depends on payments going to the deserving, not anyone else.
But how big is the problem? For all that is written about welfare crackdowns in the popular press, they are little discussed in expert circles.
The Independent Member for Denison, Andrew Wilkie, called on the Federal Government to urgently fix Centrelink’s automated debt collection system before Christmas.
“It’s been over two weeks since I raised the fact that Centrelink’s new IT system was spitting out numerous incorrect debt notices,” Mr Wilkie said. “The Federal Government and the Minister personally should have swiftly intervened to suspend the system until the problems are sorted out, but so far they’ve done nothing.”
The man in charge of Centrelink’s new system, which is sending thousands of automated letters to welfare recipients asking them for money back, says those feeling “lost in the system” should write to him directly: hank [at] humanservices.gov.au
The man in charge of Centrelink’s new system, which is sending thousands of automated letters to welfare recipients asking them for money back, says those feeling “lost in the system” should write to him directly: hank [at] humanservices.gov.au
The government has intensified its efforts to retrieve debts from low-income Australians since mid-2015, when it began using a new automated data-matching system to detect overpayments. Since the system was introduced the number of compliance letters being sent by Centrelink has jumped from 20,000 a year to 20,000 a week.
Recipients are given 21 days to dispute the debt online, forcing them to track down payslips and employment history from up to six years ago to prove they did not wrongly claim benefits.
“If you do not respond, it will be assumed no reasonable excuse applies and the 10% recovery fee may be added to the debt amount,” the letter warns. But problems with Centrelink’s online service have left some users unable to lodge a dispute.