Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to raise an important issue that has been coming up in my office for several weeks now, and that is about the Centrelink automated debt letters. My office is receiving call after call, email after email, from people receiving Centrelink notices alleging that they owe money. In some of these cases, we are talking about over five years worth of debt accrual, and the burden of proof is on the individual.

I have to tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I do not have pay slips from 2012 and I am not sure many of us do. My constituents are incredibly upset and incredibly concerned about where they can possibly get these pay slips, so that they can show that they owe no debt. What you do if the company that you worked for is no longer there? These are the experiences of many people in my electorate. I want tell you some of the many stories of hardship and suffering that the Centrelink robo-debts are causing.

One man who called my office—let's call him Jack—broke his collarbone several years ago. While it was healing Jack was unable to work. Now back in the workforce, Jack is working overtime for his family to save money for the imminent arrival of his first child. Centrelink sent him a debt notice for $3,000. Jack has never been overpaid by Centrelink. The debt is wrong. It is false. Jack has tried to call Centrelink to resolve the debt, but to no avail. He has spent hour after hour on hold on the Centrelink line. Jack has tried over and over again to address this debt with Centrelink. If you are calling from a mobile, this call is not free and people are using up their credit just trying to get through.

Anyone who has dealt with Centrelink knows that nothing ever gets resolved quickly. I remember that on Radio National the Minister for Human Services claimed that the average call waiting time for Centrelink was 12 minutes. I am sorry; I have to dispute that. To me that sounds like alternative facts. In the meantime, Jack started making part payments to avoid the debt collectors. He was, and he still is, putting in the hard yards—he is working a huge amount of overtime; he wants to provide for his family—and all of this for a debt he does not even owe.

Outraged people are calling the robo-debts government fraud. I disagree. If there was an individual card company unconscionably scraping money from Australians, then, yes, it would be fraud. But where a government raises debts against its citizens knowing the debts are false means it is no longer fraud; I believe it oppression. Jack called our office, desperate for help. It took us many hours of work, but finally we managed to get through to Centrelink and get a review of his debt. He does not owe a cent—all of that anxiety that Jack has gone through was for nothing.

Centrelink is getting the situation wrong by a factor of 150, and this is an absolute farce. I am having constituent after constituent told that actually they do not owe any money at all. I really urge this government: please, let us put these debt letters to one side; let us get a system that is fair and proper with true oversight. Some people are getting letters—they are providing information to Centrelink and they are being told that no further action is required, but then they get a further letter saying that they owe debt. The robo-debts system, I believe, is in 'robo-chaos'. If somebody owes a debt to Centrelink, then by all means this government should try to recover that money; however, this robo-debts system is scooping up hundreds of thousands of innocent, law-abiding citizens and it is just not right. Again, I call on the government to flick off the switch of the robo-debts automated system until it is fixed. Turn off the machine and end the oppressive hardship that is targeting our vulnerable people. There really is no need for us as a nation to dismantle the integrity of a Commonwealth department, which is exactly what this robo-debt system is doing.