Opinion Proud to be Australian.

[beez]

Can anyone think of a better way to recoup money that people claimed as entitlements illegally without hurting peoples feelings?

I mean in the other thread George Kalomboris is being labelled a thief despite his intention to rectify some minor discrepancies, what should we call these people with outstanding Centrelink payments claimed that they were not entitled to?

As has been pointed out numerous times already ITT. It's not about reclaiming money that persons were overpaid. It's about the system that was employed to do it. A system that time and time again has shown to be a complete failure. A system that time and time again incorrectly determined debts that were either non-existent or far and above the debt that was accrued. And to make it worse, the system that determined payments in the first place was wrong or incorrectly implemented by staff/computer through no fault of individuals.

I'm fortunate enough where I haven't had to utilise the Centrelink service, but I can't imagine what it would be like to be a low income earner or have had a high percentage of your income through government payments over the course of a number of years, only to be told that you have a $xxxx debt because of a * up in the application process.

It's just data matching isn't it? I don't see how it could be wrong so often, it just analyses bank accounts vs Centrelink payments to work out if payments were entitled or not. It just springs people who make money on the books who don't declare it or people who have too much money in the bank to be entitled to payments.

In theory you would be correct. But the way the system was implemented didn't take into account people with fluctuating incomes, people who maybe worked full time for three months but then didn't work for the next six months; it assumed a person's income stream was linear. However the robodebt system was set up, its averaging of incomes over the course of a financial year didn't reconcile with the way centrelink payments are determined

 

[TradeDraft]

Can anyone think of a better way to recoup money that people claimed as entitlements illegally without hurting peoples feelings?

I mean in the other thread George Kalomboris is being labelled a thief despite his intention to rectify some minor discrepancies, what should we call these people with outstanding Centrelink payments claimed that they were not entitled to?

Make Big Business Actually pay tax

 

[Black_White]

Make Big Business Actually pay tax

The simplest answer, and the most correct!

 

[CLUBMEDhurst]

Can anyone think of a better way to recoup money that people claimed as entitlements illegally without hurting peoples feelings?

People dead from suicide don't have feelings