2025-07-19
The Greens have written to Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek urging Labor to urgently waive over $1 billion in unfair historical welfare debts being assessed by her Department following a court decision in favour of the Government.
In her letter, Greens spokesperson for Social Services, Senator Penny Allman-Payne, has expressed concern that over 100,000 income support recipients may yet again be pursued by the Department for historical debt notices, once more placing vulnerable people at risk of financial and personal crisis.
The debts, which pre-date 7 December 2020, were levied using the Department’s ruthless and dubious methods of ‘income apportionment’, similar to Robodebt.
Pursuing these debts contravenes a recommendation of the Robodebt Royal Commission, which recommended debts not be pursued beyond 6 years. The debts impacted by the Government’s decision date from 2020 back to the 1970s - with an average age of 19 years. Right now there is no time limit on debt collection.
The Greens letter urges Labor to:
1. Waive the debts immediately and
2. Fully implement outstanding recommendations from the Robodebt Royal Commission, including the six-year cap on debt recovery practices and introducing comprehensive protections to prevent people experiencing hardship from compliance actions.
The debts had been paused pending a legal challenge, which earlier this week ruled in favour of the Government allowing the Department to go back and recalculate the alleged overpayments using alternate methods.
The Greens have welcomed the Minister’s statement that the Government is now considering other options for how to deal with these debts. But given the Secretary’s statement that debt assessments will recommence, we are deeply concerned for the impacts this will have on over 100,000 welfare recipients while the government deliberates.
The Greens will use the coming fortnight in Parliament to press the issue and act urgently to protect welfare recipients.
Lines attributable to Senator Penny Allman-Payne, Greens spokesperson for Social Services:
“Chasing people on low incomes for dodgy debts is cruel and wasteful.
“Two years on from the Robodebt Royal Commission and Labor are still aggressively targeting income support recipients with cruel and ridiculous debt notices based on dubious data matching methods.
“Income support payments are already below the poverty line, meaning thousands of income support recipients are making tough choices between skipping meals or paying the rent.
“The last thing recipients need is the Government hounding them to disprove a dodgy debt notice, sometimes from decades ago.
“The Greens will use the first sitting fortnight in Parliament to urge Labor to prevent further harm to welfare recipients and to finally put the Robodebt era behind us.”