Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I don't know where you got the number of 600,000 from, but, obviously, the process under which Services Australia will undertake the review to identify those people who may be eligible for a review of how a debt has been determined will be a matter for them. Once we do that, we'll be in a better position to understand how many people may well be impacted on by this particular measure. But I would once again draw to the attention of this chamber that, right now, as of 31 October 2019, over 950,000 Australians currently have 1.6 million debts with the government, and those social welfare debts total $5.3 billion—$5.3 billion of money that the Australian government currently has outstanding, to people who have been identified as not being eligible to have it.