The federal government is refusing to reveal the cost of running a permanent, expanded Centrelink cashless debit card scheme – despite a trial in which the private card operator was paid up to $10,000 in taxpayer funding to manage each card of welfare recipients receiving less than $15,000 a year before the pandemic.
Job seekers will have 48 hours to contact job employment providers before their payments are temporarily cut, after it was revealed that 74,434 welfare payments were suspended in the month since Centrelink’s mutual obligations regime returned.
InDaily recently reported on the mental health impacts for some of the more than one million Australians trying to navigate and live within the welfare system. Today, we report on the toll taken on outsourced Centrelink call centre workers. Four contractors speak up about life at the other end of the line.
Planned cuts to JobSeeker and related payments will cost South Australia’s economy $1.6 billion and 13,200 full-time jobs over the next two years, according to a report commissioned by the Australian Council of Social Service.