The Greens are urging Labor to avoid a second Robodebt-scale scandal by stopping all welfare payment suspensions immediately, following the release of a second damning report into the welfare system in two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Deloitte report<\/u><\/a>, released late yesterday, shows widespread legal and technical failures in the system responsible for the accurate administration of income support payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the second report in two weeks to smash the welfare compliance system, after a damning Commonwealth Ombudsman\u2019s report that found over 1,000 welfare recipients had their welfare payments unlawfully cancelled<\/u><\/a> by the automated system over two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Labor has paused all cancellations and reductions of payments under the compliance scheme, tens of thousands of welfare recipients are still subject to harmful payment suspensions each month. Nearly 350,000 payment suspensions were issued in the first quarter of 2025, from roughly 800,000 welfare recipients who had compliance requirements during that period.1<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The government excluded payment suspensions from the scope of the Deloitte review, but they will be considered by the Commonwealth Ombudsman in a further volume later this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Greens have called on Labor to stop these welfare payment suspensions immediately, a call which has been echoed by a broad coalition of community groups including the Anti-Poverty Center, Economic Justice Australia and the Australian Council of Social Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Senator Penny Allman-Payne, Greens spokesperson for Social Services:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLabor doesn\u2019t seem to care if people on income support get the payments they need to make ends meet or not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHundreds of thousands of people are losing access to vital payments that they need to put food on the table – all because of a system flooded with inaccuracies that treats ordinary income support recipients like criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCan the Employment Minister hold her hand on her heart and say that over 100,000 payment suspension penalties issued against welfare recipients each month are accurate? Are they lawful? Are they fair?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRobodebt showed us that automated systems can\u2019t be trusted with peoples lives, and nor can so-called employment service providers who profit out of peoples poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cClearly this system has not been fixed since Robodebt. And while Minister Rishworth hides behind Department officials, income support recipients are unfairly losing payments they need to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLabor can\u2019t wait for another report – they need to end payment suspensions right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Key findings from <\/strong>the Deloitte report<\/u><\/strong><\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Deloitte review confirmed legal issues in the system, stating that \u201clegal and evidentiary basis for compliance actions […] cannot be consistently documented, verified, or reconciled with legislative provisions or policy intent.\u201d (p8)<\/p>\n\n\n\n It describes a system where \u201cerrors and noncompliance may go undetected, and where systemic issues are not reliably escalated or addressed\u201d (p10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the passing of new laws requiring the use of discretion when pursuing welfare debts, the report found \u201cno records were available to demonstrate compliance with this requirement.\u201d (p9)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Deloitte review demonstrates that the Government has for years shown disinterest in meeting their legal obligations and avoiding undue harm to welfare recipients in keeping with the recommendations of the Robodebt Royal Commission. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Greens are urging Labor to avoid a second Robodebt-scale scandal by stopping all welfare payment suspensions immediately, following the release of a second damning report into the welfare system in two weeks. The Deloitte report, released late yesterday, shows widespread legal and technical failures in the system responsible for the accurate administration of income support … Continue reading “Dodgy welfare penalties must end, Greens urge Labor after second damning report in two weeks”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34315,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34314\/revisions\/34315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}