Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The government's robodebt scheme has been an absolute disaster. For years they've been pretending there is nothing wrong with a scheme that has proven to be inaccurate, unfair and incredibly damaging to some of our most vulnerable citizens. The robodebt scheme is a perfect example of this government's heartless approach to governing. Known as 'online compliance intervention', the automated debt recovery system was anticipated to recover up to $4.5 million in welfare debt every single day. It sounds good when you put it that way, if what you're looking at is the budget bottom line. The trouble is, of course, that we're talking about a system that impacts on our most vulnerable citizens—a computer-generated system that delivers automated debt letters to welfare recipients without being checked first by an officer.

The human toll of this robodebt scheme has been enormous. It's a mess. There have been so many terrible stories of the mental and emotional toll the robodebt scheme is having on Australians. It is only after immense and sustained pressure from Labor that the minister has hit the emergency brakes on this scheme—too little, too late and with major questions still remaining. What happens to all those people who've already been victims of robodebt? And what happens to all that money improperly obtained by the government? What happens to that?

The Department of Human Services reportedly believes about 600,000 robodebts have been raised using income averaging and will need to be reassessed. The Northern Territory provides a case in point of the shortcomings of this heartless approach to recovering debt from the most vulnerable. In the Northern Territory, as of December 2018 there were 15,196 residents receiving Newstart payments, 2,255 receiving youth allowance and 9,557 on the age pension. The NT's population of 254,854 is geographically dispersed and has very low population density. Over 50,000 people in the Northern Territory live in remote areas outside of the main urban centres of Darwin, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine and Nhulunbuy. There are over 600 homelands and 96 Aboriginal communities right across.

Aboriginal Territorians make up 33.3 per cent of the population, and 49 per cent of Aboriginal Territorians live in rural or remote areas, so the nature of our population in the Territory impacts Centrelink's compliance program as well as the delivery of the agency's services. Remoteness gives rise to challenges regarding access to services, internet, telecommunications and online banking and access to translators or services and resources in language. The reality of robodebt means that, if recipients are cut from payments, connecting back to the correct income support is not straightforward. Delays in accessing payments mean that women and children go without material basics. This means food, with kids going hungry. This means housing, as people are unable to pay their rent.

The government's own data shows that thousands of debts have been generated in error, with approximately one in five debts having been incorrect or waived. How many of these incorrect debts apply to vulnerable people in the Northern Territory? How many debts have simply been paid because people have been unable to provide all the supporting documentation and evidence that's required retrospectively by Centrelink?

The submission from Financial Counselling Australia to the Senate inquiry into Centrelink's compliance program highlights the fact that the government's failure to take extra care with vulnerability makes the debt collection process unsafe and unfair. The FCA recommends that all debt collection processes must be fair and must meet best practice standards, that binding standards are needed to ensure that Centrelink complies with best practice at all times and that there must be a reasonable basis for collecting the debt. It's astounding to consider that this hasn't necessarily been the case. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.