Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Tasmania's Liberal Premier Will Hodgman has said the flawed Centrelink data-matching system needs to be fixed, and Liberal Senator Eric Abetz has said Centrelink's robo-debt mess has 'let-down the Australian people'. Is the mess inside the Liberal government the reason the Prime Minister has ignored the mess his government has made of Centrelink?

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Barton for her question directed to the Prime Minister. I am happy to take this question. I note what the Premier has said today, and I also note what Senator Abetz has said. And what the member did not say that Senator Abetz of course also said was that the policy was good and the principle was right, and that the changes we have made are sensible resolutions to the matter. Of course, the Premier and Senator Abetz also know that we have already made a number of refinements to the system and will continue to make a number of refinements to the system because we want to be reasonable to Centrelink recipients and make it as easy as possible for them to be able to validate their records or correct their records, if that is indeed what they want to do.

We also want to be fair to the taxpayer, and that is exactly why we have this system in the first place. What we do is that we look at the self-reported income provided to Centrelink and we compare that to the data provided to the Australian Taxation Office. If there is discrepancy between the two then a person is asked if they can explain that discrepancy. Sometimes they can, but if they are unable to do so then a debt may be issued. This practice has been in place, by the way, since the Labor Party introduced it in 1990 in the data-matching act. Then, of course, automation came into place in 2011, under none other than the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.

But why do we have to do this important work? The reason is because it is the unfortunate reality that some people deliberately abuse the system while many others, inadvertently, do not update their employment income. I would like to provide some examples of this. I will give you one. This was a Queensland man, who was on Newstart for all of the financial years 2011-12 and 2012-13, and during that time he declared to Centrelink that he had earned income of $5,000. But the Australian Taxation Office, which relies upon income data from employers, showed that he had actually earned $100,000 during this time. This occurred when Labor was in office. Had Labor actually picked up this person at the time, when perhaps Tanya Plibersek was the Minister for Human Services—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will refer to members by their correct titles.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the member for Sydney was the Minister for Human Services, she would not pick that up. We are now doing this hard work. We want to be reasonable to the Centrelink recipients, but we are also going to be fair to taxpayers and they expect us to do this hard work. (Time expired)