Robodebt
Dear editor,
Five years on and not one Federal Government Minister, including Social Services Minister, Linda Reynolds, the minister responsible, is dismissed.
The Commonwealth’s welfare system’s automated “Robodebt” scheme is a dark history in welfare culture, 2015-2019. Exposed for the scam it is, its victims wait for restitution through the courts, while its architects remain silent. Instead of the protective “social security” for our poor and disadvantaged, this disastrous scheme, illegally demanded supposed debt and overcharged repayments into thousands from vulnerable welfare recipients.
It was tantamount to grand theft. There was no explanation as to how and why. The Commonwealth is now charged with refunding $751million recovered in invalid debts. How did they get it so wrong?
Thanks to Paul Keating and successive political parties of both sides, income averaging for welfare recipients is a perpetual nightmare. From 2015, applicants suffered an automated debt demand, without the details. It drove many to suffer PTSD and even suicide, without knowing how they failed.
$112million is to be compensated to 381,000 victims. Taxpayers are footing the bill, which may amount to $1.8billion. No one can be compensated for the psychological and physical harm to innocent victims. The buck stops at the top.
E. Rowe,
Marcoola.
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BILOELA FAMILY
Dear editor,
Keeping us safe? The Biloela Four will stop the boats? In a Perth hospital, the sick little three year old and her anxious mother, both separated from her father/husband and older sister locked up 800 kilometres away in our Christmas Island prison camp? Really?
Margaret Wilkie,
Peregian Beach.
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