This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Government officials collected background information on a single mother leading a campaign against the ParentsNext welfare program, including the fact that she had previously made allegations of sexual assault.

Documents released to Ella Buckland under freedom-of-information laws and reviewed by Guardian Australia show officials from the Department of Jobs and Small Business reviewed her social media activity and appeared to seek out media mentions after she publicly criticised the program and lodged written complaints. The department denies profiling any person or actively monitoring Buckland.

Buckland cited a 31 October email that detailed “background” about her, written by a departmental official and sent to her job services provider. It pointed out she was “a former NSW Greens staffer who alleged she was sexually assaulted by Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham in 2011”. Buckingham denies the claims.

ParentsNext: single mothers say they were forced to allow 'sensitive' data to be collected Read more

A second internal departmental email, dated 14 November and described as a “daily briefing”, referred to an “article in the Australian [that] refers to the Greens sexual harassment case that Ms Buckland was involved in”. The email appears to be referring to a news clip sent to the department by a media monitoring company.

Buckland claimed the emails suggested the department had been gathering information about her.

“But I was most upset that they had communicated about the sexual assault allegations that I spoke about publicly late last year,” she told Guardian Australia.

“For me it was upsetting because I didn’t understand how it was relevant unless people were trying to discredit me … It didn’t seem appropriate for them to be talking about that in the context of ParentsNext.”

Among the notes about Buckland created by the department is the claim that she had a “strong presence on social media”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An extract of a departmental email provided to Ella Buckland under FOI laws.

“That’s ridiculous … I think that I had 50-100 followers on Twitter [at the time],” Buckland said. “I’m not sure if I had even started my Facebook page.”

Rolled out nationally in July last year, ParentsNext is a compulsory pre-employment program for people receiving parenting payments and considered at risk of long-term unemployment.

Buckland, a single parent, has been locked in a battle with the department and her provider as she has fought to be removed from the program. She is required to follow a participation plan and report her income, or risk having her payments suspended.

She was placed on the program because she receives parenting payment and was deemed to be “highly disadvantaged”.

Buckland disputes this, noting she has a degree and stable accomodation. One departmental email states that Buckland’s file contains “anomalies in the data that may mean the referral was incorrect”, although the department maintains later enquiries show she is in fact eligible.

Late last year, she launched a petition to make the program voluntary, which has garnered more than 20,000 signatures.

“I think ParentsNext is a sexist program that devalues the work that women are doing in the home already,” she said.

The program, which is the subject of a Senate inquiry, has drawn complaints from parents and social service groups, who say it threatens their privacy and is forcing some parents to visit food banks. More than 95% of its participants are women.

Ella Buckland (@ellaNbuckland) I got the info from my FOI with the @JobsGovAU . My complaint is about #parentsnext. However, as u see, they included in their ‘Daily Briefing’ email a link to a story about my allegations of sexual assault. How is this relevant to my parenting payment? pic.twitter.com/y4iG0d6gU9

Guardian Australia last year revealed that some parents had been told to take their children to swimming lessons or “story time” as a compulsory activity to keep their payments.

A department spokesman said: “The Department of Jobs and Small Business regularly monitors coverage of Australian government programs in the media that relate to the department’s portfolio responsibilities. ParentsNext is one of those programs.

Service providers call for Parents Next overhaul after families left without food Read more

“The collection of this information for the purposes of media monitoring is permitted under privacy legislation. Given that Ms Buckland’s tweets specifically mentioned ParentsNext, a program administered by the department, we consider the collection of this information appropriate.

“The department does not specifically profile any person. It does not actively monitor Ms Buckland, but rather the term ‘ParentsNext’ and views of the public in relation to that program in order to respond where necessary.

“References about Ms Buckland’s alleged sexual assault incident were picked up as a result of the department’s media monitoring of workplace relations issues.”

A November email addressed to a senior department official says bureaucrats are “preparing a summary of the other participant who has been active on social media questioning why she is eligible for the program”. It is not clear who this is.