Senior police officer to lead welfare fraud taskforce to be established by Government
Updated
The Federal Government is set to announce a crackdown on welfare cheats by appointing a senior police officer to lead the attack on welfare fraud.
Human Services Minister Marise Payne said the Government is working with the Australian Federal Police to appoint an officer to lead a special taskforce.
The taskforce will target people who have undeclared income, with pensioners and people who receive the Newstart allowance and disability support to face income audits.
"This measure is targeting people who received an income support payment and have income that they have received through employment that they have not declared to the department," Ms Payne said.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the crackdown was expected to net substantial savings for the budget.
"We think that up to $1 billion a year can be defrauded because people are not being upfront about their income, so it's important that we ensure that people are being straight with us," he said.
As well as the Newstart allowance and disability support, affected income support payments will also include youth allowance, parenting payments, and the age pension.
Payments such as Family Tax Benefit and paid parental leave are not included.
Ms Payne said in a statement her department was bound by law to recover money where people had received more than they were entitled.
"This measure will allow the department to uncover overpayments, recoup debts and investigate deliberate welfare fraud," she said in a statement.
"The amount of money recouped will vary from case-to-case. We anticipate our investigations may uncover undeclared income ranging from a few fortnights to several years.
"Individual cases may result in debts of between $1,000 and $50,000."
Greens senator Rachel Siewert said it was ironic the taskforce was announced in the same week it was revealed that half the calls to Centrelink have not been answered and addressed.
Ms Siewert said the Centrelink system was overly complex and most of the errors that occur are administrative mistakes by Centrelink staff or genuine mistakes by recipients.
"The Government's choosing to address this as fraud rather than addressing the complexity of the system, acknowledging that the system is failing and choosing to blame income support recipients," she said.
Topics: welfare, tax, fraud-and-corporate-crime, police, australia
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