Hundreds of thousands of Australians have been left feeling afraid and unsafe after Centrelink incorrectly sent them debt letters, community groups say.
The Australian Council of Social Services chief executive Cassandra Goldie says sending debt letters to people, in some cases incorrectly, does nothing to address worsening poverty in Australia.
The Government is taking steps to ensure people pay back their welfare debts if they have received payments they are not entitled to.
Two Bills are being introduced to Parliament today to strengthen the integrity of Australia’s welfare system.
The Coalition government has misled the Australian people about its conduct of the Centrelink "robo-debt" debacle, according to MP Andrew Wilkie.
The Tasmanian independent delivered a scathing blast to the Turnbull government in Parliament on Monday morning, accusing it of being "incompetent, cruel and uncaring" over the "terrible terrible episode".
While there has been some controversy over the government’s reliance on big data to save taxpayers’ money, none of the commentary has come close to understanding the complexities hidden in the notion of the error rate.
The system that Centrelink employs is an example of artificial intelligence, and the problems it faces are intrinsic to all decision systems.
The Turnbull government says it is catching twice as many welfare cheats as Labor did in power, forcing those who lied to Centrelink to repay the extra money they took home.
The Liberal senator Eric Abetz said Centrelink’s debt recovery system has “let down the Australian people”, while refusing to rule out support for Labor’s proposed Senate inquiry.
Sustained criticism over the system’s tendency to issue bogus debts to vulnerable Australians continues to place pressure on Liberal politicians in Tasmania.
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.
Staff in the Department of Human Services including Centrelink workers are planning six days of rolling strikes over a stalled enterprise bargaining process and the auto-debt recovery program, according to the Community and Public Sector Union.
The union said Centrelink, Medicare and child support workers would strike and take other forms of industrial action at various times and various locations starting on 13 February.
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.
