I received a letter from Centrelink two weeks before Christmas that resulted in a $3,197 debt. I knew that was wrong, so I documented how I believed the mistake happened.

In 2012/13 – the year Centrelink claimed I was overpaid – I earned $26,642. Centrelink divided this amount into 26 fortnights and falsely claimed I had earned $1,021 each fortnight, including the three months where I had no work and so claimed Newstart. You cannot give the necessary level of detail to avoid this error on the Centrelink web portal. They simply don’t give you the option to say anything other than your total annual income, essentially forcing you to go into debt. Then have to take complicated steps to have that false debt taken away. That’s when I contacted the media to tell them what was happening.

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On Wednesday, my phone rang. The caller gave his name – the same name as an (in)famous radio shock jock. Oh no, are we on air, is he about to yell at me for being a bludger?

Phew, no, it was a different man with the same name, from Centrelink’s appeals department ringing to review my debt claim. He started by saying that Centrelink’s records showed that when I first applied for Centrelink back in 2013, as part of my approval process they had contacted my employer and confirmed that I was let go due to lack of clients at the time.

So Centrelink’s computer records this whole time has known that I legitimately wasn’t working for the whole year. Perhaps that’s something that the automated computer system could have flagged in the first place, before sending me a $3,197 bill.

The Centrelink staff member and I spent a few minutes on the phone as I talked through my payslips and I read out the amounts. All the amounts matched the information I had given to Centrelink at the time. He said he thought there would be little or no debt, but that he’d go over the numbers properly and call me back in half an hour. Mr Shockjock was lovely to deal with. The staff at Centrelink are victims in this situation too.

I asked if he was calling because of the appeal request I submitted through the Centrelink website, or because I’d been kicking up a stink in the media? He said the former, that it was a standard review process. I know that friends of mine who started an appeal before I even received my debt haven’t been phoned yet, but who knows – there are lots of kinks in the system. He then said that someone had informed him my case was sensitive as I had been taking my story to the media.

About 45 minutes later, he called again. I missed the call but he left a message to call him back. I was terrified dialling his number and waiting. I knew I was in the right but it was still scary.

He told me my debt had been reassessed, and he had confirmed with another staff member to be doubly sure, I suppose because my case is sensitive. He confirmed that my new corrected debt amount was $54.

This is a legitimate debt. He explained that it was to do with my restarting employment on a Monday, and my day of the week to report earnings (which is different for everyone, depending on when you sign up) was, I think, Tuesday. Then I had some working credit saved up in the system, which is why the amount came down to $54.

Working credit is a system where when in fortnights you make no income, it adds to the credit, so that when you start work you have a buffer before receiving your first pay slip. It means that the system will deduct from your working credit before they deduct from your Newstart payment. Without it, people who have started a full time job could find themselves not eligible for Newstart whilst their first pay packet may be weeks away.

Centrelink had my working credit data saved and used it in my appeal. But as I understand the automated system doesn’t use the working credit data, which if true is itself leading to extra false debts.

I’d like to tell Malcolm Turnbull and Christian Porter and Hank Jongen that I’m very keen to pay that legitimate debt back. I’d tell Alan Tudge too, but lord knows where he is right now. I hope that he’s having a lovely holiday. I like to imagine him coming in through the front door, Hawaiian shirt, sun tan, saying, “Country, I’m hoooommmeee! I wonder if anything happened while I was gone. Ooh, let’s check my messages.”

Mr Shockjock and at least one of his staff spent a few hours just on my own claim. It probably cost a thousand dollars in wages and admin, just to recover a debt of $54.

But I want to talk about some of the interviews that Mr Jongen and Mr Porter have been giving.



Jongen has been saying that the first letter is not a debt letter and that is technically correct. The first letter is one that tells you to log on to myGov and enter more details. The first letter I received said, we think you made $26,000 that year with no further information. So I logged on to the site, clicked “Yes”, that is the correct amount, and instantly got the next letter, which was a debt letter. Instantly: no humans involved. There was no way for me not to be sent the debt letter. There was no way to explain to Centrelink that I worked only part of the year, without having already been issued the debt letter and a due date. So sure, it was the second letter that was the debt letter. I still wasn’t able to stop this false debt letter coming.

That letter was an account payable for $3,197 that contained information on all the ways I could instantly pay – Bpay, direct debit etc. Then, on page two, there was the first mention of an appeals process. It was sort of tucked away, well after the first page that looked like an electricity bill.

So OK, sure Mr Jongen, the first letter wasn’t a debt letter. That didn’t mean there was any way to clarify my earnings correctly before being issued a debt letter. Which is concerning, especially considering that Centrelink’s computer logs already knew for a fact that I wasn’t working for three months, as my reviewer had confirmed.

I wonder if part of the reason they like issuing debts instantly is because it helps them create numbers like “$300m in recovered claims”. That number is very slippery, because as I understand it, it isn’t actually money that’s been recovered, merely money for which debt notices have been issued. They do not have that money, that is simply the money the computer system has demanded from people so far.

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The man who conducted my review, Mr Shockjock, said something which Mr Jongen said too: that Centrelink’s methodology hasn’t changed. And again, I think that’s misleading. The methodology is the same as before, but previously a human being would run the process, and look at the dates, and not make that appalling 26 fortnight averaging mistake.

The methodology is the same, sure, but they’ve replaced the intelligent Centrelink human employees carrying out that methodology, with a dumb computer that doesn’t know what it’s doing, and that makes mistakes constantly because of errors in the way it was designed.

So when you hear Mr Jongen or Mr Porter or Mr Turnbull – if he chooses to speak up – or Mr Tudge if he comes home (please, Mr Tudge, come home, we miss you), then take what they say with a grain of salt. They may be technically correct but they’re being deliberately misleading. They are misusing the data to create a false narrative – much like the Centrelink debt system itself.

The solution is to hire more humans to do the data analysis. As a bonus, that means less people receiving Centrelink benefits!

If you have received a false debt, start an appeal. And in the meantime, shout about it from the rooftops. Tell your friends and your family, and your grandma, especially your grandma. You don’t need to be ashamed but we need all of our voices if we are going to get this system paused, fixed and restarted.