Hundreds hit by debt farce

THE local impact of the Centrelink robo debt “debacle” has been borne out by figures which show 600 Tasmanians had false or incorrect debt raised against them, federal Labor says.

Franklin MP Julie Collins said figures released by Human Services Minister Alan Tudge revealed 247 Tasmanians had their debt reduced to zero and 397 others had their debts reduced.

“The figures for our state are particularly alarming with more than 600 Tasmanians having a false or incorrect debt raised against them,” Ms Collins said. “Of course, these figures only represent debts that were challenged, forcing the Turnbull Government to admit they were wrong.

“Sadly, we know many Tasmanians paid debt notices without questioning them.

“The Turnbull Government made these Tasmanians feel frightened, anxious and treated them like criminals, and it should apologise.”

But Mr Tudge said that an Ombudsman’s review had found that the computer-generated figures were comparable with manually calculated debt.

“The Ombudsman did a full review of the Online Compliance System and found the system calculates debts accurately,” he said.

“Of course, if someone provides new accurate information, then a different debt figure is calculated. This has always been the case.”

He said the amount of debts “reduced to zero after the welfare recipient has provided further information” was almost identical to under the old manual system, which came to about 3 per cent.

“It is also virtually identical to the percentages of debts reduced to zero under the former Labor Government,” he said.

“The unfortunate reality is that while most welfare recipients do the right thing, some deliberately defraud the system while others inadvertently fail to accurately declare their income and consequently receive an overpayment.”

Mr Tudge said the compliance system was aimed at ensuring there was “integrity in the system”.

“We want to be fair and reasonable to welfare recipients but also fair to the taxpayer who funds welfare payments,” he said.

He said the Labor Party was not serious about welfare debt recovery.

“While in Government they halved the number of compliance checks that they undertook,” he said.

The figures released show that 7456 people across Australia had their debts reduced to zero and 12,524 had their debts reduced.