Centrelink has sent text messages to welfare recipients warning them that an Australian federal police welfare fraud taskforce is operating in their area, and to keep their personal information up to date.
On Monday the opposition’s human services spokeswoman, Linda Burney, criticised Centrelink for “victimising and harassing vulnerable Australians” by sending welfare recipients letters carrying the Australian federal police logo and warning them that welfare fraud could result in prison and loss of payments.
On Tuesday, Guardian Australia was alerted to text messages warning welfare recipients that Taskforce Integrity was in their area and “focusing on welfare fraud”. Taskforce Integrity is a joint operation between the Department of Human Services and police which uses payment data to focus on regions where customers are at a higher risk of receiving the wrong payment or committing fraud.
The text messages and letters follow a Senate inquiry into Centrelink’s controversial automated debt recovery system known as “robodebt”. The inquiry found the system was error-prone and needed to be redesigned, after 217,403 letters were sent between July and December last year to welfare recipients, 36,305 of which did not result in a debt. The inquiry also called for communication with welfare recipients to be improved, with the letters described as intimidating and confusing.
Greens senator Rachel Siewert chaired the inquiry and told Guardian Australia the text messages indicated Centrelink had not yet changed its approach, despite the findings.
“There are a whole lot of changes and processes that the Centrelink inquiry highlighted are desperately needed, and yet these texts are designed to intimidate people,” Siewert told Guardian Australia.
“Those on welfare are often vulnerable people with disabilities, and one person I know of who received the text is in his early 20s and is on the disability support pension with poor mental health. He was scared and intimidated.
“It is an unthinking and cruel thing to do to someone with poor mental health and it is not the way that you handle people on disability support payments.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services said Taskforce Integrity had identified $28.9m of debt owed to the Commonwealth nationally, and had referred 57 matters to the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecution.
She did not elaborate on how the taskforce identifies text recipients, only saying: “It targets geographic locations where a higher risk of non-compliance and welfare fraud has been identified”.
“A small number of people deliberately defraud the Commonwealth by claiming benefits they’re not entitled to or by not informing the department when their circumstances change, which is why our fraud and compliance work is so important,” she said. She did not respond to questions about the tone of the texts.
Dr Cassandra Goldie, the CEO of the Australia Council of Social Service, described the debt collection campaign as operating with an “untenable level of harassment and intimidation”. She questioned how the government was identifying people to target with the texts.
“Imagine being on the receiving end of this kind of message when all you’re doing is struggling to get by and trying to find employment and navigating a difficult government department,” Goldie said.
“The tone of the texts is worrying. The implication is that people are being given a warning. The government has a higher level of duty of care to people who are accessing this kind of support from the department because they are often vulnerable.”
