{"id":712427,"date":"2026-06-03T11:09:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/712427\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T11:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:09:13","slug":"hundreds-of-thousands-of-centrelink-payments-cancelled-illegally-albanese-government-admits-centrelink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/712427\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of thousands of Centrelink payments cancelled illegally, Albanese government admits | Centrelink"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government has admitted it illegally cancelled hundreds of thousands of Centrelink<\/a> payments because of a glitch in the automated system that runs the controversial mutual obligations scheme, it has been revealed.<\/p>\n

Speaking at senate estimates on Wednesday, representatives for the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations said the number of illegal cancellations, where people were not given enough time to reconnect to a job provider after missing a compulsory activity as part of their mutual obligations, was in \u201cthe vicinity\u201d of 300,000.<\/p>\n

Guardian Australia first reported analysis from the peak body for community legal centres, Economic Justice Australia, last year that showed 310,000 people had their Centrelink payments unlawfully cancelled between 2020 and 2024.<\/p>\n

At the time, the department refused to comment, only publicly admitting to unlawfully cancelling 9,510 payments. Payment cancellations have been paused since July 2024 because of this.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Asked if the department\u2019s analysis on the total number, which has not been public, is similar to the EJA estimate, DEWR\u2019s Bronwyn Field said \u201cEJA used publicly available data\u201d to find out how many payments may have been unlawfully cancelled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is in the vicinity of that,\u201d Field said. \u201cBut there are a couple of things that we need to consider and why there\u2019s complexity.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the complexities is people who have gotten a job, so do not need to reconnect.\u201d The number of people who had their payments illegally cancelled when they were eligible (ie out of work) would be \u201ca much smaller cohort\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

Field said the department\u2019s \u201cpost monitoring survey\u201d found 55-70% of people who receive a cancellation have lost eligibility because they\u2019ve found paid work above the threshold.<\/p>\n

EJA believes that about 20% of the people affected could be eligible for some form of remediation.<\/p>\n

Economic Justice Australia chief executive, Kate Allingham, said they raised this with the government over 12 months ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince we did this analysis, there have been two reports that have highlighted further issues around unlawfulness,\u201d Allingham said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been told by the department, and the minister said in her speech last week that they\u2019re working hard to fix that. We have not seen anything that assures us that that is occurring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allingham said EJA was concerned about the use of automated systems, including in suspensions.<\/p>\n

Between January and March, there were 299,305 notices of suspension of welfare payments \u2013 which works out to be just over an average of 3,325 each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have concerns that discretion is not being applied when it should be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf things are happening automatically, for example, if I miss an appointment, they just hit a button saying appointment missed, and immediately you get a notification saying you need to contact otherwise your payment will be suspended. It puts people in really difficult situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legally, payments are not allowed to be cancelled for 28 days after someone has missed a mutual obligation and providers are under no obligation to check why a person has not engaged. The cancellations, which may have affected people on jobseeker, youth allowance, parenting payment or disability support pension, happened before 28 days.<\/p>\n

Last week, the department flagged an overhaul of Australia\u2019s employment services system, admitting the system was \u201cill-equipped\u201d to help people find work.<\/p>\n

Minister for employment and workplace relations, Amanda Rishworth, said the new model would be split into three separate streams, depending on a jobseeker\u2019s level of skills and work readiness.<\/p>\n

Antipoverty Centre spokesperson Jay Coonan said the reform did nothing \u201cbut recycle old ideas welfare recipients have heard a thousand times\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut flashy announcements have been helpful in distracting the public from the real story \u2013 the continued use of unlawful welfare penalties under the Targeted Compliance Framework, which has been mired in controversy since 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government has admitted it illegally cancelled hundreds of thousands of Centrelink payments because of a glitch in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-712427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712427","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=712427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}