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FORGOTTEN HISTORY: Centrelink - The Untold Story

When ‘the birdman’ of St James tunnel died, Sydney commuters streamed past his body for days

Exclusive: The strange and lonely death of Bikram Lama exposes a glaring gap in homelessness services. What hopes and dreams brought him to Australia, and what went wrong?

The Guardian - AU

Robodebt was the great test of Australia’s accountability mechanisms – and they failed

The final report into the Centrelink debt recovery process that wreaked havoc on the vulnerable is not the full-stop many wanted. It has not restored the trust that was so fundamentally broken

The Guardian - AU

‘Naming them is not justice’: robodebt victims feel let down by findings of corruption watchdog

Nacc report into unlawful scheme found senior public servants engaged in corrupt conduct but declined to refer them for charges in what victims call a ‘massive letdown’

The Guardian - AU

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Outsourced call centre sweeps Centrelink customer privacy breaches ‘under the rug’, staff allege

Workers accuse government-contracted Telco Services Australia of fabricating performance statistics, denying adequate breaks and penalising staff for taking leave

The Guardian - AU

Debt collector hired to chase unpaid taxes for the ATO pays zero corporate tax itself

Neither Recoveriescorp nor its parent entity has paid the tax since securing multi-million dollar government contracts

The Guardian - AU

Call centre operator that won major Centrelink contract paid no corporate tax for two years

Telco Services Australia generated more than $185m in revenue in 2024-25 and $130m the year before but paid zero tax

The Guardian - AU

Almost half of people using employment providers threatened with payment suspensions, new data shows

Government not maintaining ‘effective oversight’, with majority of decisions being overturned, commonwealth ombudsman found

The Guardian - AU

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The ATO is meant to be bringing work back in-house. But its target to cut consultants is ‘woefully inadequate’

Figure revealed this week was so low the Australian Services Union asked if it was a typographical error

The Guardian - AU

Centrelink threatening payment suspensions at rate of five a minute, new analysis suggests

Exclusive: As jobseekers continue to have payments suspended, advocates call for the regime to be stopped until it’s proven to be lawful

The Guardian - AU

Microsoft sued over ‘misleading’ emails; power outages after storms; and could the internet go offline?

Australia’s consumer watchdog claims in federal court that the tech company misled nearly 3 million customers on software prices

The Guardian - AU

Morning Mail: ATO’s private debt collector, questions over Pine Gap’s role in Gaza war, Louvre heist suspects arrested

More than 355,000 taxpayers referred to debt collector by ATO; Australia’s complicity in Gaza war scrutinized; French police arrest two men after Louvre theft

The Guardian - AU

ATO refers hundreds of thousands of taxpayers to a private debt collector – including people on Centrelink benefits

Suzanne is one of more than 355,000 people the tax office has referred to the private equity-backed debt collector, Recoveriescorp, since January 2024

The Guardian - AU

Sometimes defective, maybe unlawful: what can be done about Australia’s crisis-ridden welfare system?

Run by multiple departments and hundreds of private companies, advocates warn errors will continue to rock a system ‘in crisis’

The Guardian - AU

Revealed: some Australians have overpaid their Centrelink debt by more than $20,000

Exclusive: Services Australia spokesperson says automatic BPay payments and Centrelink being unable to contact customers may be to blame

The Guardian - AU

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The Guardian - AU

Centrelink illegally cancelled Daniel’s jobseeker payment. He fought back against the system – and won

After taking his case to the administrative review tribunal, Daniel’s complaint then went to the commonwealth ombudsman, which is now investigating Centrelink

AAP

Repeated info sharing for government services to be cut

People applying for government services could now only have to fill out personal information once under reforms to be introduced to parliament.

The Guardian - AU

Morning Mail: Albanese’s diplomatic triumph, the rise of Andrew Hastie, a rethink of human evolution

The prime minister heads to London after successful week in New York; is the WA Liberal a potential leader or just a disruptor?

The Guardian - AU

More than 300,000 Australians had Centrelink payments cancelled illegally, new analysis shows

Peak body for community legal centres finds number of payments suspended due to IT glitch higher than department initially identified

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The Guardian - AU

The people who helped expose the Coalition’s ‘crude and cruel’ robodebt scheme

New documentary The People vs Robodebt tells the story of how a disastrous automated Centrelink debt recovery scheme was brought down

The Guardian - AU

From jobseeker to the pension, Centrelink welfare payments are about to increase – slightly

Payments to increase on Saturday with indexation, with youth allowance to become $1,027.70 a fortnight and jobseeker to be $793.60 a fortnight

The Guardian - AU

About 3m Australians affected by unlawful Centrelink debt calculation to be eligible for up to $600 compensation

Announcement comes after the federal government admitted the use of income apportionment to determine welfare payments was invalid

The Guardian - AU

Details of Monash IVF review to remain secret – as it happened

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The Conversation

The ghost of Robodebt – Federal Court rules billions of dollars in welfare debts must be recalculated

A recent landmark court decision could have significant ramifications for several million social security recipients.

AAP

Battlers overcharged millions by monopoly power utility

A power monopoly raked in millions of dollars from Centrelink customers by continuing to draw payments after their accounts were closed, a watchdog has found.

AAP

Web of systems exploited for insidious financial abuse

Perpetrators are largely unchecked as they use courts, banks and Centrelink to inflict financial abuse on an intimate partner, research has found.

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