This chaotic and dysfunctional government has stuffed up the Centrelink debt scandal in the worst handling of any government program for decades. Is it time for a Royal Commission?
Centrelink's debt mistake: 'There's no way I could explain to them' Quote:When Centrelink’s letter arrived two weeks before Christmas, Michael Griffin instinctively knew he was going to be unfairly trapped.
So he meticulously documented, step-by-step, how the system wrongly deemed him to have a $3,197 debt.
Griffin’s ordeal began when he received the standardised letter from Centrelink, telling him there was a discrepancy between income information held by the Australian taxation office, and what he had reported fortnightly while claiming the dole in 2013.
He was told to go online to his MyGov account to confirm his income details.
Griffin originally claimed benefits between February and May in 2013, receiving a total of $3,754 from Centrelink.
He reported working small amounts in three fortnights within those months.
In two fortnights, he worked 24 hours and earned $618 a fortnight, and in the third he worked 15 hours and earned $386.
Griffin has provided payslips to Guardian Australia that clearly show he reported this income accurately.
He boosted his working hours in the rest of his year, while not claiming welfare, and ended up with a total income of $26,642 for the 2013-14 financial year.
Centrelink’s online system asked him to confirm that he had earned $26,642, which Griffin did. This is where his problems began. Screenshots show how Centrelink’s system then averaged out his $26,000 yearly income across every fortnightly reporting period.
(View article to see screenshots.) Quote:It wrongly assumed he had consistently earned $1,021 every fortnight across the year, including between February and May, instead of different amounts in different fortnightly reporting periods.
That wrong assumption made him ineligible to claim welfare for that period, and he was told he must repay almost all of the dole he claimed, a total of $3,197.
This problem is quite common.
What's all the fuss about Centrelink reclaiming debts? A summary and a simple exampleThe cause: Multiple issues.
(1) Centrelink is fraudulently claiming "debts" by attempting to use annual income from the ATO as a basis for calculating a fortnightly income. People are being slapped with fraudulent debt claims accompanied by threats and menaces and given 21 days to respond during the holiday period with a website that is not working. According to the government, this is working as intended.
(2) Data matching that uses company names instead of matching companies by ABN. Any difference in the name and Centrelink assumes they are different employers and there's undeclared income (for example: "PriceWaterhouseCoopers" and "Price Waterhouse Coopers"). A competent system would match by ABN.
The Minister is trying to pretend all is well, but he is lying.
Minister defends Centrelink over welfare debt compliance system Quote:Porter defended the system on Tuesday morning, saying it was fair and reasonable, and that only 276 complaints had been received so far.
“I think that this is about as reasonable a process as you could possibly derive,” Porter told ABC Radio National.
A formal complaint, however, is different from lodging a dispute against a welfare debt. Porter would not say how many disputes had been lodged against welfare debts.
He won't say how many disputes have been received because these figures are likely to be damning.
Quote:Porter said individuals who disagreed with Centrelink’s notice had plenty of opportunity to contest it.
Oh, really? Sending out these notices a week before Christmas and giving people 21 days to respond at a time when many employers are going to be closed for up to a month? Having a website that crashes repeatedly? This clown is nuts!