After The #Robodebt Debacle, The Government Has A New Strategy

Forget robodebt — the government’s got a new dystopian strategy for going after people who owe welfare debts. In a crackdown kicking off today, Centrelink will threaten to charge interest on outstanding welfare debts if they’re not at least partially paid back within a month.

The crackdown is targeted at $900 million of outstanding welfare debt, held by 170,000 people who have accepted more money than they were entitled to from Centrelink. The government has started to contact people with these debts, threatening to charge an 8.77% interest rate unless the debtors commit to a repayment plan within the next month.

While some media outlets are describing these people as “welfare cheats” and  “rorters”, don’t be fooled — people can accrue welfare debt when either they or the system makes an error causing them to be overpaid. The recent robodebt clusterfuck also made it pretty clear that welfare agencies frequently get it wrong, and tell people they have debts they simply don’t.

Oh, and it also made it clear that intimidating people into paying debt is fucking awful, as is giving people a very small window of time to contest debt notices that might be incorrect.

Centrelink threatens to charge interest on $900m worth of welfare debts – but debt forgiveness granted to pollies that knowingly collect wages & benefits knowing they were not entitled. This is the sort of stuff that starts a revolution⚡https://t.co/Q87NdcZo4p via @abcnews

— Mona K⚡??? (@tagwacheOz) 19 April 2018

The same LNP government that wrote off Murdoch’s $900 million tax debt & followed up with a $30 million no strings gift to his Foxtel comes down heavy with the poor & middle who have been overpaid welfare payments.

While their own MPs rort millions
And Banksters steal billions. https://t.co/RHducaw9HG

— Michael Dowling against Dutton (@MeckeringBoy) 20 April 2018

Announcing the program, Minister for Human Services Michael Keenan said the government has a responsibility to recover welfare money that was wrongly paid. He stressed that the program will only target people who are no longer receiving welfare, which he’s taken to mean they “are now working and have the means to start paying back what they owe”.

“For those who refuse to take action, interest charges are only the beginning,” Keenan said. “My department will also look at other measures such as garnishing wages and tax refunds, or referring matters to external collection agents.”

A representative of Shadow Minister for Human Services Linda Burney agreed that “if people owe the government money, they ought to pay it back”, but took issue with the threatening approach of the new crackdown, in particular the threat to charge interest.

“If we go back to the robodebt debacle, the government got that so wrong — there were so many notices that are incorrect. A heavy-handed approach just doesn’t work. This is just a continual attempt by the Turnbull government to demonise vulnerable Australians who rely on the social security system.”

“If the department has a view that somebody may have been overpaid, they should check with that person and make sure the information is correct before they start sending debt notices.”

On Twitter, Burney noted that the 28 day window was especially crushing given that some of the debts being targeted here go back 15 years. As Burney put it, “have you kept your payslips from 15 years ago?”.

https://t.co/tkBtvzH9hI Have you kept your payslips from 15 years ago? Well get ready b/c Turnbull and Keenan demanding 170,000 Australians disprove alleged overpayments from #Centrelink as far back as 2003. The same Govt that brought us disastrous #robodebt

— Linda Burney MP (@LindaBurneyMP) 20 April 2018