After flicking on the 'on' switch in July, roughly 170,000 letters were sent out, advising people that, according to their calculations, they owed an amount to Centrelink. Unfortunately, people were and are frequently being advised of incorrect debt amounts and, thanks to the wording of the letters, are being lead to believe that this is their actual debt, not just advice that they need to update Centrelink with more information.
In addition to that, if the person in question hasn't updated their contact details (a lot of these debts are from a fair while ago and are being issued to people who haven't received Centrelink payments for years), Centrelink has been automatically handing the debt over to debt collectors.
The government is finally starting to budge, though, despite continual insistence from Human Services Minister Alan Tudge up until as recently as last week that everything is all ridgey-didge:
"The system is working and we will continue with that system."
"I'm not aware of individuals who are completely convinced that they don't owe money but have been given a debt notice."
Despite being unaware of that happening, Tudge is now enforcing changes to ensure that it stops, with the Centrelink process being adjusted so that debts will not be transferred to debt recovery agencies until after the client is aware of the supposed debt.
Clients will now be able to request an official internal review into their debt before debt proceedings begin and, additionally, Centrelink will attempt to use other government addresses (such as the one registered on the electoral roll) to contact clients. They will also use registered mail and a follow-up phone call to ensure the letters actually end up with the intended recipient.
The government has taken a major hit at the polls over the Centrelink scandal, with one Reachtel poll seeing the government drop from 54 points down to 46, and they are trying their best to simultaneously fix it and insist that it doesn't need to be fixed in an attempt to salvage the situation.