Welfare

Kathryn Campbell tells how her department has worked tirelessly throughout the bushfires and the pandemic, and what public servants across the country should be considering for the future.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a “Jobkeeper” payment worth $1500 a fortnight would “pay employers to pay their employees”. The initiative would last for at least six months, and equates to 70% of the average wage.

The federal government plans to refund more than 400,000 Centrelink debts as part of a looming class action against the controversial robodebt scheme. A ministerial submission to cabinet shows the debts add up to $555.6 million.

The government is upgrading myGov’s capacity by creating more load space in the information and communications technology systems to accommodate the surge in demand.

The government services minister has taken back his claim that a cyber attack similar to the one used to bring down the 2016 Census had crashed the MyGov website.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the boost in staff numbers on Sunday, as part of the government’s second stimulus package worth $66 billion.

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 […]

Minister for Human Services Stuart Robert says there will be “no apologies” from the federal government over how its much-maligned robodebt program has operated in the past, as his department scrambles to reverse a key element of the system that is widely seen as unfair and unreasonable. Robert fronted the media on Tuesday afternoon to […]

The Department of Human Services will no longer raise welfare debts based only on the unproven assumption that a person earned an income from employment at an even rate over the course of a certain year, and that person’s inability to prove otherwise. The change removes a key bone of contention from the highly controversial […]

The solitary confinement of young Victorians in prisons and youth justice systems is “distressing” and “simply wrong”, according to the Victorian Ombudsman. Ombudsman Deborah Glass tabled her report on inspections into Port Phillip prison, Malmsbury Youth Justice Precinct and Secure Welfare Services in the Victorian Parliament on Thursday.

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 […]

Former New South Wales department head Martin Hoffman lost out in recent machinery-of-government changes but has been hired by the Commonwealth government to guide the Department of Human Services’ transition into Services Australia.