“Vague and incoherent”: Ombudsman on the government’s plan for people affected by unlawful Centrelink payment cancellations
Today the Commonwealth Ombudsman released a second damning investigation into the employment department’s administration of compulsory activities known as “mutual” obligations, following an August report on unlawful Centrelink payment cancellations. Around 1 million people on Centrelink payments1 are forced to participate in compulsory activities that cause harm and waste time. The Antipoverty Centre and other welfare advocates are calling for all penalties to stop immediately, including payment suspensions.
Below: Key report findings; list of supporting organisations; comments from welfare advocates. For background and key statistics see bit.ly/TCF_background_v2
The Ombudsman echoed Commissioner Holmes’s observations from the Robodebt Royal Commission, noting that stigmatisation of welfare recipients contributes to the systemic abdication of responsibility described throughout this report. His investigation zeros in on failures of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations in its administration of the outsourced providers who are tasked with policing welfare recipients. Meanwhile, recent data released by DEWR shows a 23% increase in the number of payment suspension notices issued by Workforce Australia Services providers in the most recent quarter as the investigation was underway, from 504,000 in the Apr–Jun period to 618,000 in Jul–Sep.2
Report findings
The investigation exposes chronic, entrenched maladministration in DEWR, showing reckless disregard for the lives of the poorest people in the country. Key findings in the Ombudsman report mirror concerns previously raised by the Antipoverty Centre, including:
- DEWR’s approach to remediating unlawful cancellation decisions is not fair or reasonable and relies on “vague and incoherent” information provided to people affected by unlawful decisions. The process is burdensome, and compensation should reflect non-financial loss such as stress and trauma, not just the value of lost income support.
- DEWR provides misleading communication and failed to update information about penalties promptly, giving people on Centrelink payments the wrong impression about what they are required to do and what penalties they may face.
- The high rate of provider decisions being reversed shows issues with the “quality, consistency and appropriateness” of decisions and indicates a large percentage of job seekers have their payments inappropriately suspended. Provider records are insufficient and hold “minimal and generic” information, failing to meaningfully communicate a person’s experiences. This means that decisions can be made using incomplete or inadequate information, and the greatest factor in decisions is whether or not a person is capable and confident in advocating for themselves.
- There appear to be minimal consequences for providers who make bad decisions. In stark contrast to the high percentages of incorrect decisions being overturned, providers are not held accountable for “potentially catastrophic penalties”.
The Antipoverty Centre, supported by organisations listed below, is calling on the government to immediately:
- Stop all Centrelink payment penalties, including suspensions, reductions and cancellations, related to compulsory activities.
- Commit to permanently removing the Targeted Compliance Framework – a program that has caused significant harm.
The following organisations have supported the call to stop Centrelink payment suspensions immediately and end the Targeted Compliance Framework: Anglicare Australia, Antipoverty Centre, Anti-Poverty Network South Australia, Australian Council of Social Services, Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union, Basic Income Australia, Council of Single Mothers and Their Children, Disability Advocacy Network Australia, Economic Justice Australia, Inclusion Australia, People with Disability Australia, Single Mother Families Australia, Sweltering Cities, West Australian Council of Social Services, Women with Disabilities Australia.
When announcing that ParentsNext employment service would be abolished and replaced, Minister Katy Gallagher said “we don’t want people living in fear that they’re going to have their financial supports taken away”. She lauded the idea of “moving to a program that we can co-design … without taking money from people who desperately need it.”
In an October 2025 senate estimates hearing Senator Jess Walsh admitted that the government knows Centrelink payment suspensions cause harm, but defended leaving them on despite questions over whether they are used lawfully.3 Under repeated questioning, DEWR has failed to produce evidence that suspensions are used lawfully, or to address comments in the Deloitte report that the department itself commissioned regarding the absence of available evidence to even determine this. As was seen with the Coalition’s defence of Robodebt, Labor and the bureaucrats responsible for this system are routinely using anti-welfare rhetoric to justify the harms inflicted by compulsory activities.
Abolishing the TCF and replacing it with a voluntary service is an opportunity to ensure welfare recipients are treated with respect and able to seek the help that is right for us.
Disability Support Pension recipient Kelly Hammond said:
I had my payment suspended by my job provider while I was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and hospitalised in a psychiatric unit due to psychosis. They forced me to leave the hospital and attend an appointment at their offices to restore my payment. At this appointment, the provider pressured me to sign a job plan and later complained that I was ‘poorly behaved’. The provider faced no consequences for their actions, and the Department closed my complaint without conducting an investigation. I have still not received an apology from the Department for their failure to accept multiple medical certificates that should have exempted me from mutual obligations altogether. Mutual obligations need to be suspended indefinitely.
Quotes attributable to Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and JobSeeker recipient Jay Coonan
The Ombudsman’s findings show that this is a system in crisis. For too long, welfare cops have avoided accountability while being gifted billions of dollars in public money to surveil, torment and punish welfare recipients.
Payment suspensions cause immeasurable damage to our lives, destabilising people when we are already struggling to survive. This scandal must end, not when the government decides what tweaks it would like to make to this system, but now.
Labor’s decision to abolish ParentsNext in 2023 has already proven how easy and sensible it is to remove compulsory activities and penalties from the employment services system. With ParentsNext, the government has shown it can do the right thing. The entire employment service system must be similarly rebuilt, without punishment and compulsion, and giving welfare recipients a leadership role in designing a high quality, voluntary, public sector system.
Minister Amanda Rishworth must permanently stop the Targeted Compliance Framework and abolish compulsory activities for people who rely on Centrelink payments, or it will continue destroying people’s lives and drag the country through another deadly welfare scandal.
Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union spokesperson Jessica Harrison said:
Our Advocacy phone line assists many welfare recipients still in the grips of the digital nightmare perpetrated by the Job Service providers under the guise of “help”.
Welfare recipients are still being threatened with heavy handed suspensions of their benefits, often via texts, after fulfilling their obligations in good faith. People have protested outside offices after being denied phone appointments and had their payments breached. Our members complain to the National Customer Service Line to no avail.
The TCF is rotten to the core and must be abolished before more harm is caused.
Anti-Poverty Network South Australia spokesperson Pas Forgione said:
How many more damning reports, how many stories of appalling life-altering misconduct from employment services, will it take for the Albanese Government to do the right thing?
If ever there was a time for the Government to not only scrap the cruel and unlawful Targeted Compliance Framework, but the entire “Mutual Obligations” regime that for decades has inflicted enormous pain and stress on job-seekers across the country, this is it.
For the past 12 years, Anti-Poverty Network SA has heard from hundreds of job-seekers across SA who have gained nothing from being forced to engage with the profit-driven employment services, but who have seen their payments repeatedly and wrongfully cut, and their dignity, health, and time compromised by activities and appointments that are useless at best, and harmful at worst.
Media contact: email media at antipovertycentre.org or call/message 0413 261 362 via Signal
- Public caseload data from DEWR, DSS and NIAA. ↩︎
- Department of Employment and Workplace Relations compliance data. ↩︎
- Senate budget estimates Hansard transcript, 9 October, page 55. ↩︎
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