Centrelink's controversial debt recovery system should be immediately suspended, say Tasmanian MPs who have been inundated with complaints about debt notices.
Independent Denison MP Andrew Wilkie and Labor MP Julie Collins have called for the system to be put on hold following an uproar about inaccurate notices.
Centrelink’s controversial data-matching program will be “refined”, as the Turnbull government tries to deflect mounting political pressure from welfare groups and Labor for it to be suspended.
The Australian Council of Social Service yesterday joined the federal opposition in calling for a halt to the scheme and an independent review, declaring that the automated debt-recovery program was treating current and past Centrelink recipients “like second-class citizens”.
The bungled Centrelink debt-recovery controversy has again come under fire with a Perth woman claiming she was hounded to pay back more than $26,000 she allegedly didn't owe.
Today I have joined with victims from my electorate of Grayndler to speak out about of the Turnbull Government’s Centrelink debt debacle.
Over the Christmas and New Year period I have been inundated with calls from constituents distressed because they have been issued debt notices and threats of debt recovery action for debts that they never incurred.
Thousands of people with disability, students, pensioners and people recovering from life threatening illnesses are being told by the Turnbull Government that the onus is on them to prove that they have not acted fraudulently.
There is nothing fair about the Turnbull Government's pension cuts and Centrelink crackdowns, no matter how they spin it.
The government decided to ditch it’s hard-working employers at the Department of Human Services who managed debts owed to Centrelink, despite their warnings that switching to an automated computer system would end in disaster.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Centrelink was sending out letters and hounding people for money they simply did not have thanks to a glitch in the system.
A social media campaign #notmydebt is sharing stories of individual’s debt letters and the effect it has had on them.
The Commonwealth Ombudsman has launched an investigation into the Centrelink debt recovery debacle – which both major parties played a hand in creating.
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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Labor’s leadership team of Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek pioneered the “robo-debt” data-matching system Centrelink is using to target current and former welfare recipients for apparently not declaring their income properly — but they now argue it should be suspended.
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“The automation of this process will free up resources and result in more people being referred to the tax garnishee process, retrieving more outstanding debt on behalf of taxpayers,” Mr Shorten said at the time.
