debt

Josh Frydenberg said Australia has experienced a ‘health and economic crisis like nothing we have seen in the last 100 years’, and it would take many years to pay back the hefty debt.

The taxation watchdog has launched an investigation into whether the Australian Taxation Office effectively informs taxpayers of their rights. Inspector-General of Taxation and Taxation Ombudsman (IGTO) Karen Payne on Tuesday said she would examine how clearly and completely the ATO communicates with taxpayers about their right to review, complain and appeal decisions and actions made […]

The Community and Public Sector Union says the government has been ignoring the concerns of Centrelink staff about the robodebt system for years, while the Senate has passed a motion calling on the government to table the legal advice that presumably warned it was unlawfully demanding repayment of alleged debts.

The Commonwealth government has conceded one Centrelink’s robodebt was invalid due to the use of income averaging in the absence of concrete evidence — the exact system the government suddenly abandoned last week after insisting for years it was built on solid legal ground. It seems that rather than strong legal advice, which is easy […]

The Northern Territory’s Health Department has blown its budget for the eighth time in the past nine years. It’s one of 17 departments to go millions of dollars over their allocated budgets last financial year, according to Treasurer Nicole Manison’s Annual Financial Report for 2018-2019.

Some said it couldn’t be done but after a chat with Bill Shorten, Gordon Legal has announced a class action lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of robodebt recipients. The idea has been thrown around a few times over the past few years and was reportedly dismissed as very unlikely to succeed by a […]

Centrelink continues to duck, weave, and occasionally throw a defensive jab as former contractors speak out about their experiences of working on the robodebt system, this time accusing the media spokesperson of lying in response to their previous anonymous accounts. The issue is whether contractors work to specific targets for finalising income reviews. The process […]

The Australian Taxation Office is destroying some small businesses with its approach to debt repayments, argues Small Business Ombudsman Kate Carnell.

Centrelink has agreed to keep working on the robodebt system to make it fairer and more transparent in line with new recommendations from the Commonwealth

Nobody likes copping a ticket, but there are signs the use of infringements to modify behaviour is ready for a holistic reset beyond just dollar values.

Home ownership rates are falling and debt is rising among Australia’s younger generations, new HILDA survey data shows. There are questions about the sustainability of our retirement system.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman reports Centrelink’s automated debt recovery drive is an example of digital transformation that failed to maintain good public administration, procedural fairness under administrative law, and risk management.

Centrelink bosses think they stayed within the law but they “rode roughshod” over conventional attitudes to privacy, writes ethicist Matthew Beard. Governments should pick their battles to earn the trust of the public.

The Department of Human Services rejects speculation that 90% of Centrelink’s automated assessments of past welfare entitlements are wrong, as more staff speak out against their employer.