Services Australia tests found about 64% of employment income-related debts may be affected by the unlawful calculation practice
The 5.3m debts that are potentially affected represent 10% of the total of 53m social security and family payment debts recorded over a similar period.The 5.3m debts that are potentially affected represent 10% of the total of 53m social security and family payment debts recorded over a similar period.About 3 million Australians charged debts totalling $4.3bn by the Australian government may have been affected by an unlawful debt calculation practice.
The true impact could be even higher, with debts owed by deceased persons excluded from the estimate; this has led welfare expert Dr Christopher Rudge to argue that convictions based on dodgy debts are a “miscarriage of justice that will probably never see the light of day”. However, the department noted the figure is “not an estimate of the number of debts affected”, merely those that “may be impacted”, because “it is not possible to know whether a debt is affected … without a manual investigation”.
The 5.3m debts potentially affected represent 10% of the total of 53m social security and family payment debts recorded over a similar period.When the debts were recalculated without using income apportionment, debts still existed in over 90% of cases – although they were smaller in 64% of cases, and actually grew in size in 29% of cases.
The ombudsman said that the income apportionment issue was the result of a “genuinely” held belief by Services Australia that its method was accurate, unlike the robodebt scandal which was “initiated and continued without legislative changes the agencies knew were required”.
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