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.

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.

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.

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..."

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.

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.