{"id":4758,"date":"2017-01-07T06:04:18","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T22:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/?p=4758"},"modified":"2020-09-27T00:36:55","modified_gmt":"2020-09-26T16:36:55","slug":"labor-flips-on-robo-debt-system-shorten-plibersek-pioneered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/labor-flips-on-robo-debt-system-shorten-plibersek-pioneered\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor flips on \u2018robo-debt\u2019 system Shorten, Plibersek pioneered"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Labor\u2019s leadership team of Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek pioneered the \u201crobo-debt\u201d data-matching system Centrelink is using to target current and former welfare recipients for apparently not declaring their income properly \u2014 but they now argue it should be suspended.<\/p>\n<article class=\"node-545 node node-news-article node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p>The automated system of matching income data from the tax office and income as reported to Centrelink to identify discrepancies was announced in a joint release\u00ad by the then minister for human services, Ms Plibersek, and the then assistant treasurer, now Opposition Leader, in June 2011, adding an extra $71 million to the budget. The release said the \u201ctax garnishee process had been carried out manually once a year for the past 15 years and involved a significant amount of time on the part of departmental officers\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe automation of this process will free up resources and result\u00ad in more people being referred to the tax garnishee process, retrieving more outstanding debt on behalf of taxpayers,\u201d Mr Shorten said at the time.<\/p>\n<p>The measure was forecast to \u201cidentify\u201d 63,000 former customers over four years in addit\u00adion to the 43,000 captured in 2009-10.<\/p>\n<p>The amount of debt recovered from welfare letters in 2010-11 was $1.8 billion, jumping to $2.2bn in 2013-14.<\/p>\n<p>Under a dramatic escalation of the same system, the Coal\u00adition plans to recover almost $4bn in debt over the next four years, partly <strong>helped by a bipartisan vote<\/strong> in parliament that extended the statute of limitations on old debt that can be chased.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-read-more field-type-link-field field-label-above\">\n<div class=\"field-label\">Source link to full item:&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\"><a title=\"Labor\u2019s leadership team of Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek pioneered the \u201crobo-debt\u201d data-matching system Centrelink is using to target dole recipients\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/news\/nation\/labor-flips-on-robodebt-system-shorten-plibersek-pioneered\/news-story\/0a2bb18f5a6ab279073f6bcd36f712d7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Labor flips on \u2018robo-debt\u2019 system Shorten, Plibersek pioneered<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-news-date field-type-datetime field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\"><span class=\"date-display-single\">7 January 2017<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">Rick Morton<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-source field-type-text field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">The Australian<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Labor\u2019s leadership team of Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek pioneered the \u201crobo-debt\u201d data-matching system Centrelink is using to target current and former welfare recipients for apparently not declaring their income properly \u2014 but they now argue it should be suspended. The automated system of matching income data from the tax office and income as reported [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,106,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australias-move-to-the-right","category-pensions-and-unemployment-benefits","category-political-issues"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}