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Calls for Centrelink debt bungle probe: claims welfare recipients are being wrongly hounded

4 January 2017
Staff writers, News Corp Australia Network
Daily Telegraph

The Commonwealth Ombudsman has been asked to investigate faults with Centrelink’s new automated data matching system that has resulted in welfare recipients being wrongly hounded to pay debts. 

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has asked the ombudsman to step in after receiving more than 100 complaints to his electoral office about problems with the debt recovery process.

“The government has terrified countless people, ruined the Christmases of many and even driven some people to contemplate taking their own lives,” Mr Wilkie said in a statement. “I’ve had four people now approach me ... who I would describe as presenting as suicidal,” he told reporters in Hobart.