Human Services Minister Alan Tudge is getting regular updates from his department on welfare recipients who are "criticising or unhappy with the system", a senate estimates committee has been told, as Centrelink staff trawl social media to keep an eye on people complaining about their treatment by the agency.
On Monday, department chiefs were interrogated about the decision to release the personal financial information of a Centrelink recipient to a journalist for an article published in The Canberra Times.
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Defending Centrelink
The head of the Department of Human Services has fronted a Senate hearing defending the online debt recovery system that has seen people pay what they don't owe.
Documents seen by Fairfax Media reveal Mr Tudge's office asked the department for extra personal information on the recipient, including her tax returns and the date of her separation from her partner, so that the minister could respond to the recipients allegations in Question Time.
Department of Human Services secretary Kathryn Campbell defended the practice, saying it was a "standard operation".
"We are allowed to publicly correct the record," said Ms Campbell. "We have had this capacity for many years."
The committee was also told the department actively monitors social media for people's criticisms and complaints, and "anybody that makes a statement about their treatment by Centrelink."
"We look at it as being about service delivery," said Ms Campbell.
Jonathan Hutson, the department's general manager of customer and media engagement, said it depended on the nature of the complaint.
![Centrelink debt: 6600 people were alerted to their supposed debt by debt collectors.](/web/20170308024421im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/y/v/d/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guonzx.png/1488435368398.jpg)
"There are a number of complaints that are made on social media that are unidentifiable and may be of a minor nature," he said.
Ms Cambell said the department had not secured a public interest certificate before releasing the woman's information nor had any inquiries been made to the privacy commissioner.
She said this was not required under the terms of the legislation, "when it was for the purposes of maintaining the integrity of the system."
The developments have prompted Victoria Legal Aid to advise their clients not to publicly disclose any personal information.
"It is important to remember the real human consequence of this decision," the legal body said in a statement.
"We would now have to advise any person who thinks they have an incorrect Centrelink debt, that if they speak publicly about their situation, their confidential information is no longer safe with Centrelink."
Centrelink numbers: 2.4 million debt notices, 28 million busy phone signals, 4.1 million abandoned calls, avg 14 minute wait time #estimates
— Eryk Bagshaw (@ErykBagshaw) March 2, 2017
The committee also heard that more than 6600 Centrelink welfare recipients only discovered they owed the agency money when external debt collection agencies began chasing them.
"I acknowledge that some recipients have not received their formal reminder letter because we did not have their addresses," Ms Campbell said.
"Then the first they may have known about their debt is when they were contacted by the debt agency."
Ms Campbell said this had occurred in about 5 per cent of cases.
The statement comes despite previous claims by the department that welfare recipients who had been issued with a debt notice, some worth tens of thousands of dollars, had multiple opportunities to appeal their notices before debt collection agencies began pursuing them.
"We deal very constructively with the complaints we receive," Ms Campbell said. "We are a big organisation with 35,000 staff, we make mistakes and we admit to that."
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