The government has been unable to say how much debt it has actually recovered since it introduced its automated compliance system in July.



The controversial debt recovery system has been plagued by complaints since human oversight was reduced and efforts to claw back overpayments were ramped up in July.

Guardian Australia asked the Department of Human Services to clarify exactly how much debt has been recovered under the new arrangements. But the department has been unable to respond, despite being given a week to nominate a figure. It was unable to give an estimate for when such a figure could be provided.

In defending the system, the government has repeatedly and inaccurately claimed that it has recovered $300m in debts from welfare recipients.

“The welfare compliance system is working and we will continue with it,” the human services minister, Alan Tudge, said this month. “Over the last six months, the welfare compliance system has recouped $300m in welfare overpayments and that work will continue.”



He repeated the claim in a written statement to Guardian Australia. “Labor is demanding we cease a process that has successfully recovered over $300m of incorrectly paid taxpayer’s money since July and, frankly, I don’t think many taxpayers would support that call,” he said.

The $300m figure, used chiefly by Tudge, was later clarified to relate only to the amount of debt identified by the government. Centrelink typically struggles to actually recover debts it has identified and historically has retrieved about half. Last financial year $2.8bn was identified but $1.54bn recovered.

Last week the law firm Slater and Gordon confirmed it was looking at whether the debt recovery system breached the law. Complaints about the system centre around its reliance on a comparison of messy sets of data on an individual’s employment and income, held by the Australian Taxation Office and Centrelink.

The removal of human oversight before the first stage of the debt recovery process – coupled with the use of old addresses and problems with Centrelink’s phone an online systems – has left many wrongly lumped with debts.

Tudge announced changes to the system that are chiefly designed to ensure the first letter sent by the automated system is received. He said individuals were then given multiple chances to dispute any debt that may arise.