Join today and you can easily save your favourite articles, join in the conversation and comment, plus select which news your want direct to your inbox.
Join today and you can easily save your favourite articles, join in the conversation and comment, plus select which news your want direct to your inbox.
Centrelink would be shut down for fraud for its conduct in the recent botched "debt" recovery efforts if it were a private company, according to the Commonwealth's former digital government chief.
There's been no apology from the Deputy PM over the Centrelink debt recovery saga, with Barnaby Joyce saying it's a necessary process to recoup money people aren't entitled to.
Up Next
Leyonhjelm: roll back regulation for 'wiping noses'
Leyonhjelm: roll back regulation for 'wiping noses'
Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm declares he will not support a bill for childcare reform without amendments, telling The Project he would like to see qualifications for childcare workers rolled back altogether. Courtesy The Project, 6.30pm weekdays on Ten.
A "mechanical issue with the chain" forces a Movie World roller-coaster to stop mid-ride on Wednesday, stranding 20 passengers for 90 minutes. 7 News Queensland
Three hospitalised after stabbing at boarding house
A fight at a Sydney boarding house lands three men in hospital with one man under police guard after an argument erupted at the home in Casula. Vision courtesy Seven News Melbourne.
A department of finance report shows that the Foreign Minister claimed almost $3000 to attend a marquee at the Portsea Polo event. Vision courtesy ABC News 24
A 40-year-old man, caught hiding under a stranger's home at Guildford after he allegedly jumped the fence to get away from police, will face court on Tuesday. Vision courtesy Seven News.
There's been no apology from the Deputy PM over the Centrelink debt recovery saga, with Barnaby Joyce saying it's a necessary process to recoup money people aren't entitled to.
Mr Shetler, who resigned from his job in November, told ABC radio on Monday morning that a private company would be shut down for fraud by regulators if it had behaved like Centrelink in sending large numbers of demand for repayments of bogus debts.
"If that company, if it was operating in any sort of a free market, would go out of business, and if it didn't go out of business, it would be shut down by regulators for fraud," Mr Shetler said.
The former DTO chief executive, who was hired personally by Mr Turnbull in 2015, said the giant Department of Human Services must have know there would have been a high error rate before the letters started going out.
"The idea that they didn't know this, speaks to an incredible incompetence that is absolutely unacceptable, or is just not true," he said.
Advertisement
Do you know more? Send your tips to ps@canberratimes.com.au
Mr Shetler also shed further light on the reasons behind his resignation, which came just six weeks after the office was re-organised, renamed the Digital Transformation Agency and he was replaced as its leader.
Former head of the Digital Transformation Agency Paul Shetler. Photo: Supplied
He said he and Minister Angus Taylor had a fundamental disagreement over the role.
"Its extremely difficult to get a an incredibly Balkanised bureaucracy to decide that it wants to transform itself," Mr Shetler said.
"There's an awful lot of inertia in the system, it's built in.
"When you have a disagreement with your minister about the approach that you want to take, I believe in delivery, you can't do policy without delivery for one of the reasons you just saw here with Centrelink, you have to tie the result to policy.
"The idea that the DTA should just become a policy agency and essentially stop doing its delivery, that's not the way I want to work."
129 comments
Comment are now closed