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Ballarat Centrelink staff saw the debt debacle looming “months ago” but were ignored by their managers, their union has said.
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More than one in 10 customers to Ballarat Centrelink are coming in to query a debt notice but centre staff are unable to help and instead have to refer people to a debt notice hotline, Community and Public Sector Union deputy national president Lisa Newman said.
A longtime Centrelink employee told Fairfax Media said staff were “flabbergasted” by the justification for the process, saying the department didn’t care about “average Australians … their customers or their staff.”
The bottleneck comes at the agency’s busiest time of year with an “avalanche” of people applying for student benefits as well as pensioners seeking to understand the new assets tests.
The department has a target of 900,000 notices for 2017 – more than five times the number issued in the six months so far.
“This issue hasn’t just come from nowhere, Ballarat has lost skilled permanent jobs which have been replaced with casuals,” Ms Newman said.
“The worst thing for our members working on the front desk is that they aren’t even allowed to do anything to help these hundreds of people.
“These people are seeking face-to-face reassurance that they’re not going to be punished for doing the right thing.”
Already Centrelink has begun retracting debts – with one man The Courier spoke to receiving a call from a Centrelink employee late at night last week who told him it was “clear” he did not owe a debt.
A recent university graduate, who received a notice for a $5,880 debt for a year he earned less than $12,000, was told he had been audited for a single year and to provide pay records for that period – when in fact the system had raked through his earnings of three years.
It was only when he made a complaint to Human Services Minister Alan Tudge that he got a response.
“What has happened is when the system set up its audit where it averages out income I have had all my income averaged out back to 2012. Which is why the debt was so inconceivably high,” the man, who did not wish to be named, said.
“It has taken me till today (Tuesday) and over 4 hours on the phone to have this correctly explained to me.”
On Monday Department of Human Services general manager Hank Jongen said he remained “confident” in the system, the same day the Commonwealth Ombudsman announced it would be launching an inquiry into the process.
