There's a rhinoceros wandering the world looking for a hide as tough as Bill Shorten's. You need one to promote data matching enabling the claw-back of welfare overpayments one day and criticise the government for doing just that the next.
No doubt some will discount that remark as day-to-day politicking from a former politician on the other side of politics to Shorten. Well, hop on the internet and look at his press release, with Tanya Plibersek, in June 2011. Check it out for yourself. You'll be amazed that he can, without the slightest blush, tell us how mean and nasty the government is in collecting overpayments from existing and former Centrelink recipients.
![Bill Shorten is looking like a flimsy opportunist with his complaints about the Coalition clawing back welfare overpayments.](/web/20170116145555im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/2/k/z/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtqo3l.png/1484518737745.jpg)
In that release, the virtue of a new data-matching system between Centrelink and the Tax Office is proudly proclaimed as enhancing Centrelink's debt recovery ability. To quote Bill in debt-collection mode: "The automation of this process will free up resources and result in more people being referred to the tax garnishee process, retrieving more outstanding debt on behalf of taxpayers." Closely followed by: "The new data matching link is expected to increase the number of former Centrelink customers identified for this process." It's this link that the government is using to do exactly what Shorten was proclaiming when he was assistant treasurer.
Improved computing capacity means that it's easier now to cross-match larger sets of data. The principle is, however, the same. Data matching allows the government to make sure that a person in the same circumstances as another doesn't get more than the other person. That's not being nasty. It's doing what we expect. We want people in the same circumstances to get the same. We don't want their neighbour getting more.
People who appear to have had an overpayment get the chance to explain what's happened, they can seek a review and they can go to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. That's as it should be.
This whole debate is a Groundhog Day for me. I once had the welfare portfolio and there were inevitably occasions when people had overpayments and were expected to repay them. There was always the possibility to pay back over time, but many took umbrage at having to pay anything at all. Many in the media, and just about everyone in opposition, played it for all it was worth. The department, Centrelink and the government were always portrayed as mean and nasty people who just wanted to give welfare recipients the boot.
Hogwash of course, but few let the facts get in the way of a good story. The fair question is, why should someone who has been overpaid get more than their neighbour in the same circumstances? The answer is, other than in some fairly rare circumstances, they shouldn't.
There are about 4½ million of people getting one or more payments through Centrelink. The permutations are mind-boggling. There are 69 different payments or supplements. Among those 4½ million recipients, every payment fortnight there are children being born, children becoming adults, people dying, people moving in together or separating, changes of income, people getting and losing jobs, finishing or starting study, becoming carers. Each of these changes can affect the amount Centrelink is meant to pay out. Frankly, they do an outstanding job.
What is it about us, what kind of bongo juice are we on when we fall for some schmaltzy rubbish suggesting that everyone should be allowed to keep overpayments? If Shorten has changed his tune, let him come out and tell us. He could say: "We don't give a hoot if you get overpaid, by accident or design; it doesn't matter. Keep the lot. You've figured out how to get more than your neighbour? Good on you. There's plenty more where that came from."
The reason they don't adopt that policy is they know it's bunkum. We want, for equity purposes, to pay the same people in the same circumstances the same amount.
My husband has for years rattled on about things I buy and what they cost in pre-tax dollars. His favourite recitation is about parking tickets. Believe me, when you say to yourself, "I had to earn X dollars to spend this", everything looks a little more expensive. If you pay tax at 33c in the dollar you have to earn $100 to have $66 in your pocket to spend but you have to earn $200 to give the taxman $66 to spend.
Take a $3000 Centrelink debt. A person who pays about $26,000 a year in tax has to work for about six weeks to give the taxman that $3000 to dish out in the first place and certainly wants it paid out according to the rules.
Every taxpayer I know wants people in need to be looked after. They are proud to live in a country with a decent social security system and both happy and proud to contribute taxes towards that. They do, however, want it spent according to the rules. They don't want someone with an overpayment being allowed to keep it.
That people think it's fair to collect overpayments isn't Bill Shorten's problem. His problem is that he knows, his colleagues know, his staff know, and any journalist with a scintilla of interest in what he said in government knows, that he agrees with the system he set up.
That leaves him looking like a flimsy, hypocritical opportunist. That's not a building block for respect of any kind. Without that, what's he got?
Amanda Vanstone is a Fairfax Media columnist.
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