Centrelink has been issuing payment suspension notices to jobseekers and those on disability support pensions at a rate of more than five a minute, new analysis suggests, amid concerns over the legality of the troubled system.<\/p>\n
In total, government data collated by the Antipoverty Centre shows there were 2,683,605 suspension actions between June 2024 and July 2025.<\/p>\n
They have taken place under Centrelink\u2019s mutual obligations regime, which is meant to ensure recipients are actively looking and preparing for work. If they do not fulfil activities \u2013 such as completing job applications or attending meetings with job providers \u2013 their payments can be suspended.<\/p>\n
According to the Antipoverty Centre, the data shows this is still frequently occurring, despite new rules offering a five-day grace period for people to contact their job provider before their payments are blocked. However, the majority of suspensions are lifted before a person\u2019s income is impacted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe numbers are so unimaginably high, it is actually easy to lose sight of how crazy this all is,\u201d said Kristin O\u2019Connell, a spokesperson for the Antipoverty Centre.<\/p>\n
In the past, such suspensions could lead to cancellations. But since March, all cancellations have been paused because the government cannot say if they were happening legally.<\/p>\n
The data on suspension actions was collated from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), the Department of Social Services and the National Indigenous Australians Agency, which runs the remote Community Development Program (CDP).<\/p>\n
Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n Jobseeker recipients, those on the disability support pension, some youth allowance recipients and people on parenting payments are all captured in the data.<\/p>\n But the number of individuals affected could not be determined, as some people will have multiple suspensions. About 30% of the 37,000 people in the CDP received more than five payment suspensions in the most recent quarter.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just gives you a sense that there are some people for whom the whip is being used so relentlessly, they can\u2019t escape it,\u201d O\u2019Connell said.<\/p>\n People with a disability and Indigenous Australians are overrepresented in the data. About 33% of all suspensions affected those with a disability, and at least 26% of all suspensions affected First Nations people.<\/p>\n Previous reporting from Guardian Australia shows jobseekers are having their payments suspended while in hospital for psychosis<\/a> or after having a brain tumour removed<\/a>, despite sending paperwork to Centrelink saying they were receiving medical treatment.<\/p>\n During a Senate estimates hearing last month, the DEWR secretary, Natalie James, said the system \u201cwas not always operating as intended\u201d.<\/p>\n She said the government was looking into whether providers are making illegal decisions around suspensions and cancellations.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are thousands of decisions being made in any week under these provisions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cHumans are not perfect, and obviously, as we\u2019ve found out, nor are our systems.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Connell said payment suspensions could be used as a tool \u201cto bully\u201d jobseekers, by getting them to attend a meeting or hand over payslips, which trigger public funding for the job providers.<\/p>\n The commonwealth ombudsman is currently investigating the target compliance framework (TCF), the automated system that runs mutual obligations, and has already found that payments had been cancelled unlawfully.<\/p>\n Welfare expert and lecturer at the University of Sydney\u2019s law school, Christopher Rudge, said it \u201cis possible\u201d that the issue the ombudsman has identified \u201cmay also affect the whole system of mutual obligations compliance action, which would include suspensions\u201d.<\/p>\n Economic Justice Australia\u2019s chief executive, Kate Allingham, called for the suspension regime to be stopped until it\u2019s proven it is being done lawfully.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are frequently telling us that they didn\u2019t receive a phone call, they haven\u2019t been able to get through to offices, and that there was no record of contact before they were notified of a payment suspension threat,\u201d Allingham said.<\/p>\n A DEWR spokesperson said about 90% of payment suspensions were lifted before any gap or delay in a person\u2019s payment last financial year.<\/p>\n The spokesperson said measures to safeguard the use of suspensions have been introduced. They include increasing resolution times to five days, ensuring suspensions over missed appointments did not apply if the person was working at the time and the issuing of warnings for a first breach of a mutual obligation requirement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe department regularly monitors key aspects of the TCF system, including how providers make decisions under it,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere incorrectly or inappropriately applied non-compliance action is identified, including payment suspensions, the department overturns these decisions and gives feedback to providers about why those decisions were reversed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Centrelink has been issuing payment suspension notices to jobseekers and those on disability support pensions at a rate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-256381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}