I forgot to mention one important point in my last video titled, “Victim of Centrelink
Robo-Debt”. When somebody receives money from Centrelink, what do they do with it?
They spend it of course. They may not spend it wisely, but they certainly spend it. They
buy groceries, pay the rent, they might go down to the pub and have a couple of beers
with their mates, they might play the pokies, or buy some cigarettes. Most Centrelink recipients
would certainly spend most of their money in any given fortnight.
So when the government give people money, they surely must know that most of it is being
spent. When they hit somebody with a Centrelink debt a few years down the line, they can’t
possibly expect that person to have any of the money left. To say that an individual
was overpaid over the last three years, and therefore must pay back the government, is
like giving somebody a gift card for their birthday, and then asking for it back three
years later. It’s silly to think that they would still have the unspent gift card.
Not only that, but by demanding back a payment that has already been spent — that doesn’t
just hurt the individual — that also hurts the economy. Centrelink recipients, due to
their low income, are spending most of their money, in turn, directly stimulating the economy.
The economy operates on one simple principle: When people spend money, the economy grows.
If they don’t spend money, the economy stagnates. So when Centrelink hit people with debt, recipients
must cut back their spending in order to pay back the government. This has the opposite
effect of stimulating the economy — it hurts the economy.
There’s an easy fix to all of this. A law should be enacted that states that any money
given to an individual by Centrelink, is their money. It no longer legally belongs to the
government. If Centrelink happens to overpay somebody, due to their incompetence or otherwise,
they cannot chase down the debt. The debt will not exist. The money is no longer theirs.
If somebody defrauds Centrelink, well that’s a different issue where legal action can be
taken. In that case, a debt could exist and could be chased down by Centrelink.
This new law would have two benefits: 1. Recipients will never have to fear having a sudden debt
to pay back to Centrelink. They can safely live their lives, spending or saving their
Centrelink benefit as they see fit. 2. It will incentivise Centrelink to make sure that
they calculate payments correctly. If they overpay people due to an administration error,
well that’s on them. They should improve their staff-training and processes. Furthermore,
they should make sure that their fortnightly income reporting process is easy and accurate.
Currently, recipients of some payments must regularly report their income to Centrelink
via an online form (I suppose there’s also a way to do it via the phone). The online
form, as my wife and I have experienced, is extremely prone to error. You can enter any
amount in and it is not checked. You could lie and enter a lesser amount, with the chance
of being caught and asked to repay the debt. Or you could just accidentally enter the wrong
amount and be hit with an unexpected debt some time in the future. You could accidentally
enter too much income, and therefore be underpaid.
As my wife and I have found out, the online form also allows you to enter in any name
for the business that you worked for. Some company’s legal names are completely different
to their trading names, so it can cause a lot of confusion. You might work for 7-Eleven,
but the actual name of your employer is “R. C. & co.”. As I’ve found out, this matters.
Centrelink duplicated my income due to me working for a company called Bill’s Home
Tutoring, but the actual ABN was registered as “William J. Smith”.
The form does have an ABN search tool that allows you to enter the Australian Business
Number, which then returns the legal name of the business. But I’ve found that sometimes
the legal business name is too long for the actual form. It throws an error when you try
to submit it. I have made a complaint about this to Centrelink, but nothing seems to have
been done about it, so I’m not holding my breath. Isn’t that amazing? An online government
form where you can’t even enter the correct legal name of a business due to its name being
too long. It forces the user to modify the business name to suit the text field. It’s
ridiculous.
A possible solution for this error-prone form, would be to require the user to upload their
most recent payslip. The user does not need to enter in any other information. Centrelink
employees would then be tasked with entering the correct information in order to calculate
the correct payment. User error would be removed. Whether or not this is a good solution or
not, doesn’t matter. But it should be Centrelink’s duty to make sure that the reporting process
is accurate and as error-free as possible.
As I mentioned in my last video, Centrelink’s robo-debt program is a sham. It should be
gotten rid of. When you hit a normal Centrelink recipient with a big debt, you are not only
hurting that individual, but you’re also directly taking money out of the economy.
That individual will no longer be able to spend that money, and therefore, there will
be direct, economic consequences. That’s not good for the individual. That’s not
good for the economy.
What do the government fear? Is it really so bad that poor people are spending a little
bit more money? Is it really so bad that they are using their over-payments to help grow
the economy? It’s not as if the individuals are aware of the over-payments. The government
should look at it in a different light. Instead of being the harsh disciplinarian demanding
back every last cent, why not give poor people a break and just accept that the money will
naturally flow back into the economy, helping Australia.
When Centrelink hits an individual with an unexpected debt and forces them to pay it
back, that not only hurts the individual, that not only hurts the economy, that hurts
Australia. Centrelink, what is your purpose? Is it to help, or is it to hurt? Centrelink’s
robo-debt has got to go!