Human Services Minister Alan Tudge says the continuation of the error-prone Centrelink debt recovery scheme was necessary to maintain the "integrity” of Australia’s welfare system.
Mr Tudge said the system is working and that the government had no plan to discontinue its operation.
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Despite the huge error rates, Mr Tudge said the system is working well and that welfare recipients are given opportunities to “update their information” if Centrelink has erroneously sent them a debt notice and have avenues for appeal if the notice is subsequently forwarded to debt collectors.
Mr Tudge told ABC radio that tight compliance schemes were important to the integrity of the welfare system.
“After all the welfare system constitutes a third of the budget. So we want to make sure that people get the welfare entitlements that they are entitled to and no more, and no less,” Mr Tudge said.
“Consequently we do have a robust system in place, and in the last six months alone we have recovered more than $300 million to the taxpayer through that system,” he said.
“So the system is working and we will continue to work with the system.”
The Commonwealth’s former digital Tsar Paul Shetler has described the debt-recovery scheme as “cataclysmic” and says the error rates in were so high as to be considered fraud.