The man who led the first audit of Centrelink data-matching in 1999 says the government has known for decades that the process was prone to error without human oversight.
John Mayger, a retired auditor with the Department of Social Services, said his audit showed that detecting overpayments through data-matching was problematic without a high degree of staff vetting to provide an effective balance.
Government softens debt recovery system after backlash over recipients being required to pay back money even if they are disputing the debt
The Government’s announcement of ‘improvements’ to the debt recovery system are fiddling around the edges and do not address the fundamental issues of the Centrelink automated debt recovery system, Australian Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said today.
The Senate has voted to conduct an enquiry into the Department of Human Services’ (DHS) automated debt recovery system.
Senator Rachel Siewert (Greens) said the inquiry would enable those who had been affected to have a voice.
The government has formally tried to congratulate itself in the Parliament on its digital transformation of services in a sign of either “irony or grand self-delusion,” according to the shadow minister for the digital economy Ed Music.
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The motion pointed to the government’s Centrelink technology, its health and aged care payment system and the MyGov online system.
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has said its members will use the Senate inquiry into the Centrelink automated debt recovery debacle to reveal the full extent of "dysfunction" in the Department of Human Services (DHS).
Greens Senator Rachel Siewert will chair the investigation after the Australian Senate passed a motion on Wednesday to initiate an inquiry into the system that has some seen letters demanding money repayment sent in error to welfare recipients.
Centrelink staff are planning to use a Senate inquiry into the automated debt recovery system to highlight the level of dysfunction within the Department of Human Services, according to the Community and Public Sector Union.
A motion referring the controversial system to the Senate’s community affairs references committee passed on Wednesday afternoon, as expected, with the support of Labor, the Greens and the crossbench.
Labor and the Greens have proposed a wide-ranging Senate inquiry into the Centrelink debt scandal, which would examine how the system went “so dismally wrong at the expense of struggling Australians”.
The Labor senator Doug Cameron and the Greens senator Rachel Siewert gave notice of their proposed inquiry to the Senate on Tuesday afternoon and it is likely to pass a vote on Wednesday, with One Nation and the Nick Xenophon Team previously expressing support.
Labor and the Greens are set to force a Senate inquiry into Centrelink's controversial automated debt recovery system, an issue that had dogged the federal government for more than two months.
The Senate will vote on a motion to establish a wide-ranging probe on Wednesday as the government continues to defend data-matching of records held by government agencies to recover millions in overpayments to welfare recipients.
Centrelink's controversial debt-recovery program will be investigated by a Senate committee to determine why thousands of Australians were incorrectly told they needed to repay money.
