Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Human Services, Senator Payne. Can the minister advise the Senate what the government is doing to increase compliance and crack down on fraud in the welfare system?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Seselja for his question. I think the best description of the government's approach to people who deliberately rip off our welfare system is to basically say: 'We have zero tolerance towards that sort of behaviour.' Overwhelmingly, the majority of people do the right thing, but we are very serious about detecting those who do not. So, as part of the 2014-15 budget, the government announced a $1.7 billion package that will seriously improve my department's ability to detect of payments, to recover debts and to investigate deliberate welfare fraud. The majority of those savings are going to result from a couple of factors: from improved data-matching capabilities that will see the government recoup, we estimate, more than $1 billion by identifying inconsistencies between income tax payments summaries provided by the Australian Tax Office and income declared to the Department of Human Services in three financial years—during 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13. It is a measure which deals with people who received an income support payment and also received income through employment that has not been declared to the department of human services.

The government expects to uncover undeclared income that may range between several fortnights to a few years and that will result in individual cases of debts between $1000 and $50,000. The budget measure provides funding that will make the processing and recovery of these debts effective for the first time. The budget measure also provides funding for a new Welfare Fraud Task Force to identify and investigate potential fraud hotspots specifically. We will also enable the department to automate our data matching with the Australian Transaction and Reports Analysis Centre—AUSTRAC—to further improve our ability to identify those potential offenders who may have unexplained wealth. (Time expired)

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Could you provide the Senate with further detail on the Welfare Fraud Task Force and explain how it will better target fraud?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can do that. The Welfare Fraud Task Force is going to specifically target high-risk geographic clusters that are identified by the work of the department. The task force will have two teams that are going to undertake very high visibility campaigns to investigate and deter welfare fraud in the specific areas. We are currently working with the Australian Federal Police to appoint a senior member of the AFP to lead this task force. That officer will lead the work to identify geographic fraud hotspots and the associated investigations into both fraud and noncompliance. Certainly, the AFP has previously seconded officers to my department, but this individual will be a significantly more senior officer with a broader whole-of-government approach to tackling welfare fraud.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Can the minister update the Senate on the work the government is already doing to combat welfare fraud?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said at the beginning, the overwhelming majority of people in receipt of payments from my department are honest, but there continues to be a small number of people who try to defraud the welfare system and to actively avoid detection in so doing. We use advanced data-mining and data-matching techniques in conjunction with digital forensics and forensic accounting to detect fraud and non-compliance. The 2014-15 fraud compliance budget measure that I have just been speaking about will significantly strengthen my department's existing capabilities. In fact, in the 2013-14 financial year our department's compliance and fraud control program saved taxpayers over $870 million. In the same financial year my department also conducted over 3100 criminal investigations with more than $49 million and referred 1158 matters to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. In addition, in that financial year the department conducted over180,000—(Time expired)