Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am just astounded that the member for Tangney and the member for Fairfax believe that the briefing notes that they have received from the minister's office can be read verbatim. You may as well just table them, because we have all seen them, and they are what you are talking about.

Let me just undo a few of the things that have been said in this chamber this morning. I have also thought that Tudge and Porter Debt Collection Agency Pty Ltd might be a new company that could be set up. If these two men ever lose their seats they could go into debt collection. Tudge and Porter has a certain sound around it. What has been claimed by the coalition is that somehow or other this is the exact same system that Labor used for debt recovery. It is not the same system. What Labor had as part of the quality control was human eye oversight. There is no human oversight in this. It is totally an algorithm between two agencies, fully automated. That is why there have been so many problems.

What astounds me is just how intransigent and stubborn the ministers involved, Porter and Tudge Debt Collectors, have been in terms of publicly admitting that there are mistakes. Of course we know that privately they have admitted that, because there have been very quiet changes made to the system over the last couple of weeks as a result of Labor's persistence in drawing to the attention of the public just how unfair this is. What makes me very angry is the cynical decision taken by this government that they would kick welfare recipients. They would kick people that had to rely on Centrelink and had a right to rely on Centrelink, and no-one would care. Hasn't that backfired wonderfully? Hasn't that backfired, because the Australian people do not put up with what is unfair.

What is fundamentally unfair about this assessment system is that those people that did not respond to an impossible 21-day deadline were forced to enter into debt repayment systems, and that is the only way that they could get a review. How criminal is that? If it were not for the legislation, that would not be allowed under the laws of this country. They had to enter into a repayment system and accept a debt that they fundamentally did not believe that they owed, or were questioning, to even get a review. On Sky last night, Patricia Karvelas interviewed Alan Tudge, and as I understand it the interview was a train wreck. Mr Tudge could not answer, even though he was asked for times, about the review process—where was it at, how many people have been reviewed and how many people have been found not to have that debt. By the government's own admission, 40 per cent of the people identified do not have debt. If you extrapolate that, you could make the assumption that somewhere around 40 per cent of people that have received these so-called non-debt-collection letters do not in fact owe any money to Centrelink.

I cannot understand any government of any persuasion thinking that it was okay to slug Centrelink recipients, many of whom are now running our schools, teaching our children and running our emergency departments. Most of them have jobs. That is what is so perverse about this: this is a punishment for people who have sought employment, often under the most difficult circumstances. They would not been getting these letters had they not worked. That is what is perverse about this, because of the automation between the Tax Office and Centrelink.

The other thing, of course, is that the article in The Australian that the member for Tangney and the others wave around, saying that somehow Labor, and me by implication, had given Simon Benson those examples, is actually wrong. I want to put it clearly on the record that those examples were not provided by me or my office, because I am absolutely careful about making sure that examples of people that have been victims of this system are absolutely checked out. That article that keeps getting waved around is absolutely scurrilous. Simon Benson and I have had a discussion about it. (Time expired)

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