I was shocked and panicked to receive a letter from Centrelink to say that I owed them $13000 in "overpayments" from when I was a student in 2011/ 2012. I had always been honest and diligent in reporting my earnings when I was on Austudy and couldn't understand how I had gotten it so wrong. At work I was distracted and anxious while I called various Centrelink department trying to find out more information and how to get the validity of the debt reviewed.
I was told that I had to begin making repayments immediately ($100 per fortnight) as the government had already deemed that I owed them the money. To have the debt reviewed I needed to provide them with every payslip from a15 month period which was over 5 years previous. I was anxious about having such a large debt as I am supporting my one year old and partner at university.
I was very lucky to have worked for a government department in 2011 and 2012 and they were able to email me all of the payslips I required without delay. It took Centrelink many weeks to review the debt and in the meantime I was making fortnightly repayments. It turned out that I didn't owe them a cent and they had to repay me the money that I had paid to them.
It took a lot of time and emotional energy to work out what had gone wrong and how to clear my name. I feel sorry for those less educated, less resourced and less knowledgable of the system. I'm sure there are people who now have "debt" and have not been able to get payslips to prove they correctly reported their earnings.
I think that this whole thing has been handled extremely poorly by the government. If you accuse people of incorrectly reporting their earnings and send them a bill for thousands of dollars, then you need a person, not a grossly inaccurate automated system, to verify the validity of the debt. It's ethically wrong for the government department in charge of social welfare and cause so many vulnerable people distress and harm. This is people's lives they are mucking around with. I'm just lucky to be an educated, professional person who has the literacy and social capital to have straighted out this mess when it came knocking on my door.