Governments of any persuasion will do what they can to decrease welfare expenditure under the guise of going after "dole bludgers".
Robodebt may be gone but Robotheft continues. A case I know involved a couple on a part age pension who were harassed by Centrelink for two years, asking for the minutest details of their financial affairs with threatening letters every few months and some long phone calls. They provided nearly 200 pages, as required and when required, all acknowledged and receipted through the Centrelink website. All of it was completely ignored and the pension eventually cancelled.
Only a formal written complaint elicited an apology, pension restoration and some actual back payment. I wonder how many thousands of aged Australians are getting the same treatment, but don't realise what is going on or have the capacity to fight back.
If Centrelink don't have the staff to read what they ask for, or their staff haven't got the brains to comprehend it, maybe we should abolish means testing altogether, and hopefully a large part of Centrelink with it.
