Families are receiving letters saying that they owe debts to Centrelink because they were overpaid the childcare subsidy. Challenging the veracity of the debt is a nightmare.
The public service and Services Australia will be bolstered as the federal government vows to deliver “robo-justice” to welfare recipients affected by the Coalition’s unlawful debt recovery scheme.
History repeats itself as the Department of Industry once again makes a mess of its grant program for female entrepreneurs.
Centrelink’s “income apportionment” method is a disastrous throwback to another ill-starred scheme that heaped misery on welfare claimants.
Keith Wolahan has delivered a speech rare in both its honesty and its intellectual framing.
Keith Wolahan said robo-debt offended the sanctity of the individual,due process and the presumption of innocence and urged his party to learn the lessons from it.
The former prime minister has described the commission’s findings against him as “disproportionate,wrong,unsubstantiated and contradicted by clear evidence”.
Obfuscation over the former public servant’s fate raises questions about what the public will be told about others shamed by the robo-debt royal commission.
Kathryn Campbell’s resignation,effective last Friday,comes after damning findings were made against her by the robo-debt royal commission.
It is apparent that senior public servants are so grossly overpaid that they aren’t going to rock the boat with “frank and honest” advice to their ministerial masters who earn far less.
The Royal Commission into the Robo-debt Scheme has claimed its first bureaucratic scalp,but the scythe is surely swinging for politicians involved in the iniquitous and unlawful program to recoup Centrelink debts.