Repeated errors that resulted in the unlawful cancellation of more than 900 JobSeeker payments are being called “Robodebt 2.0”. Source: News.com.au.
Welfare advocates are urging the Albanese Government to stop the “brutal” automated systems plaguing welfare recipients.
It comes after the Commonwealth watchdog found 964 Jobseeker recipients had their social security payments unlawfully terminated between April 2022 and July 2024 due to a series of IT glitches through the Target Compliance Framework (TCF).
The automated system was set up by the former Coalition government and ensures jobseekers are undertaking their mutual obligations like attending job appointments and actively search for work, and penalises those who fail to meet the requirements to suspensions, reductions in payment and cancellations.
In a scathing report, Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson said the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and Services Australia “failed to take adequate steps to ensure the TCF was implemented in accordance with the 2022 amendment,” which likely had a “catastrophic impact” on vulnerable Australians.
The amendment required a person to exercise their discretion in the cancelling and changing of welfare payments, which did not occur in the noted 964 cases.
Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Cassandra Goldie likened the systematic errors to the Robodebt scandal, which incorrectly sent out debt notices to welfare recipients.
Dr Goldie said the welfare group’s repeated warnings over “brutal” and “unfair” framework had been ignored, which has resulted in vulnerable Australians being “unlawfully and harshly” punished.
She said the mistakes subjected struggling Australians to “hell on Earth,” and urged the Government to scrap the TCF, extend the pause on cancellations, and payment reductions to suspensions as well.
Antipoverty Centre spokesperson Kristin O’Connell urged more action, including the permanent removal of the framework, a move backed by Greens’ social services spokeswoman Penny Allman-Payne.
The Ombudsman’s report, released yesterday, said the cancellations were done “without consideration of the job seeker’s circumstances” and the “failure to exercise … discretion … (posed) potentially significant, if not catastrophic, consequences for vulnerable job seekers”, he wrote.
FULL STORY
DEWR, Services Australia unlawfully cancelled 964 Jobseeker payments, advocates liken scandal to Robodebt 2.0 (By Jessica Wang, News.com.au)
