Spinning on welfare

How often are Australian people in receipt of welfare payments identified by this govt as cheats? Frequently, you'd have to admit. So what is the real frequnecy of fraud? The figure of 250,000 is bandied around by ministers of the Howard govt with the implication that these are all welfare cheats. Actually, this is the approximate number of cancellations or reductions of benefit payments. We hear numerous reports of lost letters or phone calls leading to cancellations or reductions, so what are the number of actual frauds which are prosecuted by Centrelink, now our welfare payment agency. Centrelink's National manager spoke in a Senate Committee recently, and revealed that only 3,000 of the 250,000 are convicted of welfare fraud each year. That's about 1.2% by my reckoning. It doesn't seem to fit the picture we hear so frequently.

"Fewer than 3000 of the 250,000 people labelled as welfare cheats each year were convicted for frauding the system, a Senate committee was told yesterday. Centrelink's national manager for detection and review, Phil Richardson, said the agency referred fewer than 4000 cases of suspected welfare fraud to the Department of Public Prosecution last financial year." (Cheats just confused: welfare bureaucrat in Canberra Times 22 Feb 2002 p.7)

The actual total was 2,788 convicted cases of welfare fraud in the financial year. Richardson agreed that the other 247,000 cases wwere more a matter of clients becoming confused about completing forms and passing on details! Apparently, Family and Community Services MInister Amanda Vanstone had said earlier that month that the govt was saving $20 million a week by catching welfare cheats.