Coalition says it has no duty of care for welfare recipients over robodebt

The government has claimed it does not owe welfare recipients a duty of care over the robodebt scandal and has denied alleged debtors were placed under “duress”, despite admitting in court documents that some debts were based on “false” assumptions.

As the Coalition refuses to provide its legal advice about the scheme to a Senate inquiry, documents filed in the federal court reveal the government has conceded that debts issued using tax office income summaries could “not be validly established” under the law.

Coalition warned robodebt scheme was unenforceable three years before it acted

But in the documents, obtained by Guardian Australia, the government argues it should not be required to pay compensation because social security law makes no mention of a need to exercise “due or reasonable care”.

i hope the people affected start a class action against the govt and win big time.

While a federal court order striking out a Melbourne woman’s debt suggested the government now considers parts of the scheme unlawful, its defence to a class action filed by Gordon Legal represents its first public statement conceding that it issued potentially thousands of debts that were not valid under the law.

The debts considered unlawful are those in which Centrelink sought repayments from people based solely on the agency’s estimate of a person’s employment earnings, known as “income averaging”. In these cases, Centrelink did not obtain payslips or other evidence that could prove a person misreported their earnings.

In its defence to the class action, the Commonwealth admitted that in the case of the five lead applicants, income averaging was not “the same as their actual fortnightly income, and was not necessarily referable to or indicative of their actual income in any fortnight”.

And in such cases, the “fortnightly income assumption” relied on by Centrelink “was false”, the court documents say.

More than 600,000 debts have been issued under the robodebt scheme, which demanded people provide evidence to prove they did not underreport their income to Centrelink – which would led them to be overpaid welfare benefits. If they refused or could not obtain the documents, a debt was issued.

Setanta wrote on Feb 21^st, 2020 at 7:33pm:


The Government is using the lack of definition in the welfare act to determine they have no duty of care because it is not specifically stated....How can the courts determine the money does not need to be refunded when it was taken illegally and was not owed in the first place....This is theft and the Government knew it was illegal before it rolled it out....Bastards???

Bam wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2020 at 4:33pm:


It is what the Government want's the Courts to accept is their responsibility....This Government wants the court to accept it should not be required to pay compensation because social security law makes no mention of a need to exercise “due or reasonable care”....In other words screwing over welfare recipients is perfectly acceptable for this Government???

Dnarever wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2020 at 5:18pm:

A Royal Commission into Centrelink is fully justified by Robodebt alone, and there's a lot more going on at Centrelink that the media haven't found out about yet.