Albanese government admits about 300,000 illegal Centrelink cancellations
The Albanese government admitted at Senate estimates on Wednesday that a glitch in the automated system running the mutual obligations scheme illegally cancelled about 300,000 centrelink payments. Bronwyn Field of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations said the number was “in the vicinity” of that figure.
Payment cancellations have been paused since July 2024 while the department works through the unlawful cancellations. The department had previously publicly admitted to unlawfully cancelling 9,510 payments, but Field told the hearing the scale was far larger than that earlier figure.
Senate estimates hearing
Field said Economic Justice Australia used public data to estimate the scale of the problem. “EJA used publicly available data,” she said at the hearing, adding: “It is in the vicinity of that.”
The cancellations stemmed from people not being given enough time to reconnect to a job provider after missing a compulsory activity under mutual obligations. The scheme uses automated decisions to manage welfare compliance, and the department’s evidence pointed to a glitch in that system.
Bronwyn Field and Kate Allingham
Field said the department’s analysis was complicated by people who had found work and no longer needed to reconnect. “One of the complexities is people who have gotten a job, so do not need to reconnect,” she said. She also said the department’s post monitoring survey found 55-70% of people who receive a cancellation have lost eligibility because they have found paid work above the threshold.
Economic Justice Australia chief executive Kate Allingham said the group had raised the issue with the government over 12 months ago. “Since we did this analysis, there have been two reports that have highlighted further issues around unlawfulness,” she said after the department’s evidence.
January to March notices
Allingham said the group believes about 20% of the people affected could be eligible for some form of remediation. “We’ve been told by the department, and the minister said in her speech last week that they’re working hard to fix that. We have not seen anything that assures us that that is occurring,” she said.
Between January and March, there were 299,305 notices of suspension of welfare payments, averaging just over 3,325 each day. That figure shows the scale of the system’s use while the department tries to work through the cancellations that have already been identified.
