Pension Police

[eddies bank balance]

[~Madness~]

It wont be as if any customer service officer would be doing these searches. There are specific national teams that deal closely with the fed pols on all these sorts of fraudulent incidents and certain certificates and education has to take place before you can even join one of these teams.

They are also not going to just barge into any tom dick or harry's home, Centrelink gets thousands of "dob in's" each year, and some of these can result in a huge refund of YOUR money, "tax payers money".

[Proud Pies]

[~Madness~]

Family tax benefit is so hard to work out. You almost have to over estimate your income each year to avoid the over payments. If it wasn't such a large volume type payment, fortnightly estimations would be a lot easier. But it is literally impossible to do with FTB.

[Proud Pies]

[eddies bank balance]

Oh boy! I think you both missed the point. A little clue; it's not about money.

..click on the link and read the whole article.

[eddiesmith]

[eddies bank balance]

[bucksisgod]

[Proud Pies]

oh gosh, now i'm a public servant????? i think the last time i was a public servant was about 30 years ago when i worked for the commonwealth bank.

Tess, if your going to hijack threads and attack people, make sure you have your facts right (something that quite often goes missing in your posts).

You can now stop the attacks on me Tess.

Oops, did i hijack this ??

Now, Eddie's bank balance, i had read the article, i didn't miss any points, however, i was responding to Madness's post, hence why i quoted it, pointing out how wrong Centrelink often is.

[Proud Pies]

Plan to raid welfare cheats dumped


A PLAN to grant Centrelink officers the legal power to raid the homes of suspected welfare cheats has been dumped by the Federal Government

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/plan-to-raid-welfare-cheats-dumped/2006/11/21/1163871404925.html


Plan to raid welfare cheats dumped

Sarah Smiles
November 22, 2006


A PLAN to grant Centrelink officers the legal power to raid the homes of suspected welfare cheats has been dumped by the Federal Government.

Federal Human Services Minister Joe Hockey said Centrelink had instead reached an agreement with the Australian Federal Police to more effectively combat welfare fraud.

Centrelink had lobbied for the power to search properties and seize documents, arguing before a Senate committee that the AFP was too overstretched with terrorism concerns to respond quickly to welfare fraud offences.

But the AFP expressed reservations about the ability of Centrelink's officers to carry out raids, which would require training, said Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett, a committee member.

Mr Hockey said he was assured both parties would now co-operate more effectively to curb fraud over the dole, family payments, aged care pension and disability and student benefits. "The AFP and Centrelink will develop a new service level agreement to cover the operational requirements for the execution of search warrants in Centrelink fraud cases," he said yesterday.

The search and seizure legislation was strongly opposed by Labor MPs and welfare groups.

"The Government already has significant powers to detect and prosecute welfare fraud, and mounted no real argument over the need for these new powers," said Labor's Senate leader, Chris Evans, yesterday.

"Any one of the 2 million families receiving family tax benefit payments could have had their home searched and property seized under the powers proposed by the Howard Government."

A Centrelink employee in turn argued in a submission to the committee that Centrelink's existing fraud unit would misuse the powers because of an adversarial culture that had prejudiced staff against welfare recipients.

Michael Raper, president of the National Welfare Rights Network, said yesterday: "It's a rare piece of good news for Centrelink clients. It was an unjustified grab for power that Centrelink should never have."

[~Madness~]

Centrelink have been working with the fed pols a long time, especially with ID fraud. But it looks as though the SLA is going to become more in depth from that article. Ties are strengthening all the time it seems.

The "cash economy" projects are worked together with fed pols, imigration and centrelink.

[Proud Pies]