TURNBULL ACCUSED OF ENFORCING ILLEGAL DEBT NOTICES ON INNOCENT AUSTRALIANS

Former Administrative Appeals Tribunal judge Professor Terry Carney has delivered a scathing assessment of the Turnbull Government’s disastrous robo-debt debacle - accusing it of enforcing illegal debts on innocent Australians. 

 

Malcolm Turnbull and the Minister for Human Services, Michael Keenan need to clarify immediately the legality of debt notices issued to thousands of innocent Australians under the disastrous ‘Robo-debt’ debacle.  

 

The Turnbull Government has been calculating overpayments based on estimates of average income, rather than actual income, and passed these guesstimates as debt notices.

 

We know that almost 40,000 Australians were sent Centrelink robo-debt notices which were inflated or completely quashed.

 

Many vulnerable people who receive these notices were too afraid to challenge the legality of the debts and ended up paying them anyway.

 

This is a scathing indictment from the longest serving member of AAT’s social services division, someone who witnessed firsthand the stress and pain experienced by many vulnerable Australians who received these debt notices.

 

It appears that many debt notices should never have been issued in the first place.

 

Mr Keenan has serious questions to answer. Did any Government Department warn the Turnbull Government that enforcing these debts might be illegal, and if so when? 

 

The Government needs to urgently clarify the lawfulness of these debt notices and immediately respond to the concerns raised by Professor Carney.