Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

():  In respect of Auditor-General's report No. 4 of 2023-24, Performance audit: accuracy and timeliness of welfare payments, I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The Auditor-General's investigation looked into the effectiveness of the management by the Department of Social Services and Services Australia of the accuracy and timeliness of income support payments, and, unsurprisingly, the report revealed that Services Australia has been only partly effective at doing either. According to the Audit Office, nearly one in five of those receiving income support payments are being paid incorrectly, and one in four claims were not processed within the agency's own deadlines.

Despite the clear errors in Services Australia's systems, Services Australia reported that it had accurately paid people receiving income support 98.9 per cent of the time. However, the Auditor-General found that this rate was in fact only 81.4 per cent, rather a considerable difference. So not only is Services Australia failing in its responsibility to manage income support payments in a timely and accurate manner, but it's also fudging its monitoring and evaluation to give itself a pat on the back. This is completely unacceptable. People on income support are barely scraping by on poverty payments. Many of these people have illnesses, injuries or disabilities that prevent them from working, and they rely on income support payments to survive. They need their payments to be accurately made to them in a timely manner by our government agencies.

Our Social Security system is supposed to be a robust safety net. It's supposed to provide people with financial aid when they find themselves suddenly without an income. It is supposed to give people assistance in a timely and accurate manner when they need it. Instead, over the last month, we have heard report after report of Australia's social security system failing people on all counts. Last Monday, the Commonwealth Ombudsman released a report detailing how Services Australia's poor IT systems had resulted in errors in nearly 48,000 child support assessments, and earlier in August the Ombudsman also reported that up to 100,000 Centrelink debts or potential debts had been miscalculated over the last 20 years due to unlawful practices used by Services Australia and the Department of Social Services.

These mistakes that the department makes have real impact on people's lives. When people don't get their payments, they don't eat. When people don't get their payments, they can't afford to go and see their doctor. When people don't get their payments, they can't afford their medications, they can't afford to pay the rent, and they are living under constant financial stress that is really sending people's mental health over the edge in so many circumstances. The recent evidence has come in the wake of the robodebt royal commission report. Of course, we know the robodebt scheme was one of the darkest chapters of Australia's social security system, causing devastating emotional and psychological harm to people across the country and costing Australia over $1 billion. Commissioner Holmes's scathing and thorough review of robodebt highlighted the inhumane actions and lack of accountability from the government.

Robodebt, the Auditor's report and the Commonwealth Ombudsman's findings reveal a pattern of failing Social security systems in this country. So our Labor government, who claim to not want to leave people behind, can no longer stand idle and let our social services safety net decay any further. Our Social Security system needs urgent and drastic change. So, in the light of yet another report, I am urgently calling on the government to immediately raise the rate of all income support payments above the poverty line, to $88 a day; to abolish punitive mutual obligations and all other punitive measures of our social security system; and to immediately suspend all social security debt recovery to ensure that the harm of robodebt is not repeated.

Poverty is a political choice, and we are a better country than to have a system that leaves people trapped and mired in poverty. At the moment it is Labor's choice to keep people in poverty and to keep our social security system broken. We have to do better; people's lives and people's wellbeing depend on it. There are so many people who are suffering so much and there are actions that this government can take; there are choices being made and I plead with the government to please make the right choices and mend our social security safety net. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.