The Secretary of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), Natalie James, has announced the Department’s decision to pause reductions and cancellations of people’s social security payments, following revelations that the employment services compliance system may not be operating in accordance with the law.
In a briefing yesterday, DEWR said an estimated 10,000 people may have had their social security payments wrongly reduced or cancelled as a result.
The decision to pause payment penalties reflects continued pressure applied by EJA and other key advocacy groups, in light of the increasing number of issues that are being identified in the process of the reviews. EJA has recently stepped up requests for the abolition of the Penalty Zone, and is pleased the Government has at least now committed to pausing it while reviews are underway.
“We remain very concerned about the lawful operation of the Targeted Compliance Framework (TCF) and ask for immediate suspension of the Penalty Zone in order to minimise further harm while legal review of the administration of the TCF continues,” EJA wrote in a letter to Secretary James in late February.
“While it is overdue, it is positive that DEWR has finally committed to legal and independent reviews of the compliance system. We hope to see the Department make these reviews public, and that subsequent decisions will be made consultatively and transparently,” says EJA CEO Kate Allingham of today’s announcement.
However, EJA remains concerned about the process being used to check whether people’s payments were cut off unlawfully, and again asks that compensation is paid immediately and automatically.
“When you’re living off a base rate payment of just $390.55 per week, any reduction is catastrophic. While these reviews show the Government’s commitment to fixing errors going forward, people need to be compensated for the significant harm that has already been caused,” says Ms Allingham.
“It is unreasonable to expect anyone to have trust in Government systems, given the number of problems that are being identified – for example, the number of issues that have emerged from within the Targeted Compliance Framework, the thousands of people who were affected by Robodebt and the unlawful application of income apportionment rules.
“The burden must not be on individuals to prove their payments were incorrectly cancelled. The Government has a duty to ensure everyone impacted is fully compensated without being forced through an arduous and unworkable appeals process, like what we saw with Robodebt.”
EJA is of the view that mutual obligations requirements should be abolished entirely.
“The mutual obligations framework has demonstrably failed to achieve its goals. In theory, these obligations exist to support people while they look for work; in practice, this coercive system has only served to punish people and to cause them significant harm,” says Ms Allingham.
“An accumulation of failures within Australia’s social security system has only gone to show that we are very far from genuinely supportive employment services, and that a new approach is needed. If the Government is determined to continue with a system of welfare conditionality, under the guise of supporting people to look for work, the very least they can do is ensure that any system they apply is robustly backed by evidence, prioritises individual wellbeing over administrative efficiency, and does not strip people of their agency.”
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Media contact: Kirsty Sier | 0435 075 085 | kirsty@ejaustralia.org.au
Further reading: Secretary’s statement – 21 March 2025