Posted
| UpdatedAttorney-General George Brandis draws laughter from the Q&A audience as he suggests victims of the Government's error-plagued automated debt recovery system can simply contact Centrelink to have their case resolved.
Topics: welfare, refugees, human, immigration, government-and-politics, australia
Posted
| UpdatedThe Nick Xenophon Team says it will not support the Federal Government's package of changes to child care and welfare benefits, meaning the Coalition will have to negotiate with the Greens.
Topics: welfare, community-and-society, government-and-politics, political-parties, law-crime-and-justice, laws, australia
Posted
The Q&A panel disagrees on the government's proposed cuts to early childhood education.
Topics: access-to-education, government-and-politics, federal-government, welfare, community-and-society, education, preschool, australia
Posted
| UpdatedProposed strikes in relation to working conditions at Centrelink are off after the Government lodges an official complaint with the Fair Work Commission.
Topics: welfare, federal-government, australia
Posted
| UpdatedThe Department of Human Services is rejecting Freedom of Information requests relating to Centrelink's plagued debt recovery program from various journalists, saying it could not find relevant documents, found too many documents, or that it was unclear which program requests referred to.
Topics: welfare, community-and-society, federal-government, government-and-politics, australia
Posted
| UpdatedThe Federal Government concedes 1.5 million people will see family payments reduced, but argues 1 million families will get better child care.
Topics: federal-government, government-and-politics, welfare, family-and-children, australia
Posted
| UpdatedThe Federal Government says it has heard the concerns of struggling farmers, and will move to make it easier and faster to access income support payments.
Topics: welfare, drought, water, rural, sustainable-and-alternative-farming, dairy-production, agricultural-subsidies, agricultural-policy, parliament-house-2600
Posted
| UpdatedCentrelink's controversial debt-recovery program will be investigated by a Senate committee to determine why thousands of Australians were incorrectly told they needed to repay money.
Topics: welfare, government-and-politics, federal-parliament, australia
Posted
| UpdatedThe Federal Government has combined a range of stalled and revised welfare measures into a single bill to try to force nearly $4 billion in savings through the Parliament.
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, budget, child-care, welfare, tax, australia
Posted
| UpdatedCentrelink staff will launch two weeks of rolling industrial action from February 13 in response to the Government's debt-recovery scheme.
Topics: welfare, government-and-politics, unions, australia
Posted
We need to do more to stop the scourge of loneliness, writes Deirdre Fidge. If that means responding to an online ad for a fishing buddy, so be it.
Topics: relationships, welfare, mental-health, internet-culture, social-media
Posted
Groups representing older Australians are up in arms over a "massively unfair" proposal to put an asset test on the family home, saying the "most vulnerable" people should not be held "responsible for budget repair".
Topics: government-and-politics, tax, community-and-society, business-economics-and-finance, welfare, housing, australia
Posted
Tasmania's Premier gives no guarantees that a suite of recommendations from the state's children's commissioner will be funded in this year's state budget.
Topics: welfare, child-care, child-abuse, tas
Posted
| UpdatedChildcare benefits are in for a huge shake-up if the Government can convince the Senate to pass its new legislation, but the Greens are accusing the Coalition of trying to blackmail the Parliament to push the changes through.
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, community-and-society, children, social-policy, welfare, australia
Posted
| UpdatedThe Federal Government will introduce a new bill combining streamlined childcare subsidies with cuts to family tax benefits, in an attempt to pass the repeatedly-delayed package early this year.
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, community-and-society, children, social-policy, welfare, australia
Posted
| UpdatedTreasurer Scott Morrison visited London last week and suggested Australia could learn from an "exciting" housing project there. But the development has been at the centre of protests and accusations it's driving up prices.
Topics: housing, welfare, community-and-society, government-and-politics, federal-government, united-kingdom
Posted
| UpdatedThe Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry in Northern Ireland recommends children who were transported to Australia in the 1940s and '50s be given compensation for the trauma they suffered.
Topics: child-abuse, community-and-society, children, welfare, immigration, northern-ireland, australia
Posted
Tasmania's Government urges its federal counterpart to delay expanding Centrelink's troubled debt recovery to pensioners until the system is working properly.
Topics: federal-government, welfare, community-and-society, tas
Posted
| UpdatedCentrelink staff working on the agency's controversial debt claw-back program have been told to ignore errors in calculations and push through debts they know are incorrect, according to an anonymous letter written by a person claiming to be a compliance officer with the agency.
Topics: welfare, federal-government, australia
Posted
| UpdatedLeading economists are backing a job guarantee program over a universal basic income, to better address both inflation and unemployment.
Topics: welfare, economic-trends, social-policy, social-capital, work, australia
Posted
| UpdatedA leaked email reveals Centrelink management has warned staff they may be committing a criminal offence by leaking internal information, as the welfare agency struggles to manage a backlash from staff angered by the debt claw-back project.
Topics: welfare, federal-government, government-and-politics, australia
Posted
| UpdatedCentrelink's automated debt-recovery program is likely to face a Senate inquiry, with Labor vowing to move a motion when Parliament returns next month to examine "what can be done to fix this mess".
Topics: welfare, government-and-politics, federal-government, federal-parliament, australia
Posted
| UpdatedThe Commonwealth Ombudsman is wasting no time in starting its investigation into the Federal Government's welfare debt claw-back scheme, scheduling meetings around the country this week to quiz welfare groups about the impact of the controversial project.
Posted
Pauline Hanson's call for a national identity card is a policy zombie, and it needs to be eliminated.
Topics: welfare, fraud-and-corporate-crime, pauline-hanson, ethics, australia
Posted
| UpdatedThe Federal Government is looking to claw back $1.5 billion by expanding Centrelink's automatic debt recovery program to target aged pensioners and those on disability support payments.
Topics: federal-government, government-and-politics, welfare, community-and-society, australia