CPSU members will use a Senate inquiry into the Centrelink automated debt crisis to reveal the full extent of dysfunction with the policy and more broadly in the Department of Human Services.
Centrelink workers tasked with enforcing the Government's controversial debt-recovery program will launch two weeks of rolling industrial action from February 13.
The ABC understands the strike action is expected to result in delays at Centrelink offices and call centres across Australia, but those working on robot-debt calls will be exempt.
The Department of Human Services says proposed industrial action next week could disrupt some Centrelink, Medicare and child support services.
The federal government has again defended Centrelink's debt recovery system, saying the practice is not new and has been in place since 1990.
Union says problems ‘far deeper’ than welfare agency’s controversial automated debt recovery system.
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“Our members are doing this because they care about the quality of the services they provide, which is why workers dealing with sensitive clients such as those being dragged through the robo-debt crisis will not be taking industrial action,” [the CPSU rep] said. “These workers are among the lowest paid in the commonwealth public sector and stand to lose the most under the government’s harsh public-sector bargaining policy."
Centrelink is unable to track how many cases of overpayment are caused by government error, according to responses it provided to a senate committee.
The Department of Human Services provided a series of responses to questions posed by the Greens senator Rachel Siewert on welfare overpayments.
Bass Labor MP Ross Hart says his office is doing the work of Centrelink staff, assisting constituents with contesting and resolving letters sent to them from Centrelink demanding repayments of welfare.
Mr Hart said that his office has 21 Centrelink complaints on file that his staff are working to resolve, with “many more” complaints in the past two weeks.
Mr Hart added that he is concerned for Centrelink staff who are struggling to deal with the situation.
Centrelink says concerns reportedly emanating from some of its staff — via their union and a left-leaning activist group — are the result of misunderstanding the complexity of the welfare system and personal disagreements with policy and technological change.
In response to the most serious allegations since the “#notmydebt” campaign began to push back against the agency’s letters asking people to clarify differences between information about past welfare payments and tax data, spokesperson Hank Jongen implies that some employees either don’t understand or don’t agree with how the system works.
Claim sits in stark contrast to allegations from staff and a Centrelink compliance officer says it is misleading.
Centrelink has maintained it is not seeing any significant increase in requests to review debts generated by its controversial automated recovery system, directly contradicting the claims of its own staff.
Despite the continued criticism of the system, the Department of Human Services said the number of requests for formal review had not increased dramatically.
Unionised Centrelink staff have written an open letter to welfare recipients saying they share their pain about the “unfair, unjust and callous” automated debt recovery system.
The letter was released by the Community and Public Sector Union on Wednesday, as the Department of Human Services issued its own statement lambasting the media for saying the system has a 20% error rate.
