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The Forum > Article Comments > How to redesign a faulty system > Comments

How to redesign a faulty system : Comments

By Kasy Chambers, published 24/3/2017

Minister Alan Tudge has repeatedly defended the system, using phrases such as 'there is nothing wrong with Centrelink's automated debt recovery system'.

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It's only faulty because garbage in garbage out results in rubbish!

We hear about how efficient the government is at recovering money from folk they've overpaid? And the rules they've very carely thought out and applied, ensures everybody pays their fair tax share. Right?

But if they owe you money? Never happens because they don't make mistakes? If they do? you're the last to know if ever? Right?

The problem here lies in a point blank refusal to incorporate means testing into all forms of welfare; and a stubborn resistance to the implementation of genuine equity and fairness?

Thus we have single mums trying to raise a couple of kids told to find four hours work, or volunteer? To keep their entitlement?

And issued as a directive by folk that have never had to singlehandedly do anything remotely self sufficient, let alone raise a couple of kids?

They seem to think that once the kids are at school, mum can put her feet up and watch soaps?

As opposed to the real world where there's washing, ironing, scrubbing, vacuuming, preparing meals by hand, with a vegetable peelers etc. Then mowing the lawns weeding the garden, pruning the runaway vegetation, then change the oil and do routine maintainence on the family jalopy?

And if she doesn't do it? You'd be forgiven for believing the minister thought it was all beer and skittles and on the public purse?

There are far too many latch key kids in today's society and here we have troglodytes doing their best to make it worse? And if a woman is forced to turn tricks (4 4 hours a week) to make ends met? There'll be many many more of them! And the obvious EM pun (><) was unintended.

Yes, the government budget is tight and growing tighter? But not so tight that we can't keep negative gearing and capital gains exclusions etc/etc! Equity, fairness? What a load of old codswallop!

Inasmuch as you do to the least among you, you also do unto me! Quote, unquote.
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Friday, 24 March 2017 10:26:21 AM
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In principle, Centrelink is right to recover money that has been overpaid, especially when recipients have deliberately underdeclared their income. The big issue is why Centrelink gets its assessments so wrong in many individual cases. I have seen little in the media to explain this.

My guess is that Centrelink does not have adequate data to adequately administer its automated debt recovery system.

Centrelink benefits are paid fortnightly and the income test is based on income received during the relevant fortnight. Centrelink has non-benefit income information from two sources: what the recipient declares, and income data supplied by the Tax Office (ATO). As a small business employer, the only income information I supply ATO on individual employees is their ANNUAL income. Therein lies the problem.

Centrelink can see the annual income of benefit recipients and check whether this matches that declared. The difficulty is that the distribution of income over the 26 fortnights in the year is critical to estimating entitlements and ATO data will not provide this. For those on benefits for only part of a financial year the ATO data will be particularly inadequate because the recipient has not declared non-benefit income for the entire year.

In my view, it looks like Centrelink may be jumping to conclusions in the absence of adequate data, and seems to be sending out bills to vulnerable people prematurely in many cases.
Posted by Bren, Friday, 24 March 2017 11:20:17 AM
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We are asked "Where is the evidence that the Government is working to create an income support system that connects with the lives of the citizens it serves?"

The answer is hidden within the question.

Our government has declared war on its own citizens, starting with those least able to resist attack: those in need. That is not surprising.

The government doesn't see its role as <i>serving citizens</i>. Too many are from those Born To Rule and those who see themselves as having achieved that status. By and large, they are leaners, not lifters.

The list of truly high achievers in parliament is not large and does not include the PM. Turning $500k of Ozemail shares into $57M then selling out before the dot.com crash smacks of either great good luck or insider trading, but put him on course for future Cayman Islands experiences. The NBN is by no means a jewel in his or the government's crown, but seems destined to reach primarily the already well-off suburbs. Poor and rural communicate second or third class.

Centrelink, it is now obvious, is part of a class war being waged by the privileged few, it is at its core only about wealth and at its redistribution from those in need to those who want.

If this was not so, the largest multinationals would be made to pay their tax. Instead, we the big end of town has been tax reductions which can have only two primary outcomes: (1) increased unearned dividends to overseas directors, executives and shareholders, and (2) increased pressure on Australia's balance of trade. Not content with exporting Australia's minerals and primary produce, even the income from those imports is being re-exported via tax-avoiding company structures. Our own PM is leader and primary example of one whose fortune was made in Australia but spirited overseas to avoid taxes.

At least the poor spend their money where they live and they live in Australia. Their dollars go around and around... until someone sends them overseas.
Posted by JohnBennetts, Friday, 24 March 2017 12:40:03 PM
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Correction:

Second last para:
"...we the big end of town has been tax reductions which can have only two primary outcomes..."

=> "...the big end of town has been <b>promised</b> tax reductions which can have only two primary outcomes..."
Posted by JohnBennetts, Friday, 24 March 2017 12:44:55 PM
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Reading back on Kasy Chambers previous submissions, I would characterise her as a Social Justice Warrior seeking Equal Outcomes, a Human Induced Climate Change Alarmist, and a person who has a real problem with a free market economy.

The most interesting things about people like Kasy, is that although they think that governments can endlessly spend taxpayer money to create social Utopia, they despise the very means necessary to create the wealth that the government tax to provide this money. In the Social Justice Warrior mindset, let's support renewable energy and make electricity so expensive that those nasty polluting manufacturers will all go overseas, and take their filthy jobs and prosperity with them. Then we can bask in the glow of our own moral superiority, while we keep thinking up ways to spend money that no longer exists.

Another is to constantly go into bat for the ever expanding dependent demographic of Australia, while never even suggesting that the welfare system in Australia is being ripped off by a large proportion of parasites within of that very demographic. Let's pretend that people overseas don't jump on boats to live the life of indolence on Australian taxpayer money. The fact our welfare system is being ripped off to a incredible extent can be gleaned from the statistic that Australia now has more people on the Disability Support Pension than the total casualties from WW1 and WW2 combined.

Trying to figure out which of the approximately 1.5 million people on pensions and unemployment benefits are completely undeserving would take a large army of public servants to figure out. So, it is only natural in this age of automation that governments are using automated means to assess it. This does not go down well within the public service, or for who defend both the public service and the undeserving parasites in general, like Kasy, Alan B, or JohnBennets.

No, automation may be for private industry, but Kasy and the rest of OLO's socialite socialists are into job creation. In a socialist utopia, the more public servants, the better.
Posted by LEGO, Saturday, 25 March 2017 4:55:25 AM
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Gees lego conspiracy theorist or what.
That is the most tenuous argument I have ever heard.
Especially when the most obvious reasoning is a simple "this government is incompetent".
I bet I can easily come up with more evidence for my reasoning than you can for yours.
Posted by mikk, Saturday, 25 March 2017 8:11:31 AM
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The centrelink debt recovery system was originally initiated by labor when the ATO computer system and the Centrelink computer system became able to cross reference tax information with welfare payments, and found discrepancies that indicated potential $bns in unwarranted payments to 100 000s of recipients.

What the labor left whinge scare campaign ignores is that 80% of those contacted acknowledge and pay the debt, of the remaining 20% who challenge the debt, the majority end up paying some or all of the debt, and the handful for whom it is found that there is no debt, the original discrepancy is generally found to be due to omissions on their part.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/centrelink-is-an-easy-target-for-complaints-but-there-are-two-sides-to-every-story-20170224-gukr4x.html

For example a blogger "Andie Fox" whose highly publicised fight that she won against centrelink "forgot" to mention that "forgot" to file her 2011/12 tax return and "forgot" to inform Centrelink that she had split from her partner, which would have prevented this situation in the first place.

In just about every single sob story told by Labor in parliament with tearful eye and trembling lip has a backstory where the "victim" has been outright negligent or even wildly dishonest.

Can the system be improved? Absolutely, and Centrelink has already taken steps to facilitate the reconciliation process. However, the populist implications by Labor and the greens that these "victims" should be able to keep their often ill gotten gains is ludicrous.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Sunday, 26 March 2017 8:37:52 AM
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Gawd, what a lot of carryon on this subject.
It is very simple.
The Tax Dept says that they have been notified by employers, banks
etc and yourself that you received so many dollars.

You notified Centrelink that you received a different number of dollars.

Why is it so ? Please explain.

Now what is so terrible about that ?
Posted by Bazz, Thursday, 30 March 2017 10:59:35 AM
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