2017-02-15
The Government’s announcement of ‘improvements’ to the debt recovery system are fiddling around the edges and do not address the fundamental issues of the Centrelink automated debt recovery system, Australian Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said today.
“Making an awful clunky system that lacks proper human oversight slightly more user friendly is not going to stop the fact that thousands of struggling Australians are being issued with debts that they do not have. Why should people have to navigate a slightly improved system when they shouldn’t be navigating it at all?
“We know many people do not have the debts at all but are having to prove their innocence, which is reversing the onus of proof. This in itself shows a fundamental flaw in policy.
“I urge the Government to scrap the automated debt recovery system entirely. Let’s inject ‘human’ back into the Department of Human Services”.