Editing Centrelink (section)

=== Injustice, trauma, and suicide ===
Critics and opponents of the automated process revealed and documented that the errors in the system, which became known colloquially as 'Robodebt' (a title later used officially), had coerced welfare recipients into paying either nonexistent debts, or debts that were vastly larger than what they actually may have owed, with the real amount often being a trivial sum of a few dollars or nothing at all. Some welfare recipients were required by Centrelink to make repayments for the fabricated debts while having to simultaneously engage in official reviews and legal challenges to the sham debt claims.<ref name="controversial">{{cite news|last1=Belot|first1=Henry|title=Centrelink's controversial data matching program to target pensioners and disabled, Labor calls for suspension|url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-17/labor-calls-for-suspension-of-centrelink-debt-recovery-program/8187934|access-date=19 January 2017|work=ABC News|date=17 January 2017}}</ref>

In some cases, the debts being pursued dated back further than the standard Australian Taxation Office and Centrelink mandates for Australian taxpayers and beneficiaries to retain their financial documentation <ref name="potential" />(normally 5 years). In one related case, a Tasmanian pensioner was asked for financial records dating back almost 18 years.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2022-08-24 |title=Albanese to announce details of Robodebt royal commission |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-25/albanese-to-announce-details-of-robodebt-royal-commission/101369576 |access-date=2024-10-24 |work=ABC News |language=en-AU}}</ref><ref>{{Cite episode |title='It was panic and then worry. After Robodebt, did they think I'd defrauded them?': Centrelink demands almost 18 years of financial records from Tasmanian pensioner |url=https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/hobart-mornings/centrelink-demands-18-years-of-financial-records-from-pensioner/13542988 |access-date=25 October 2024 |series=Tasmania Mornings with Leon Compton |network=[[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] |station=ABC Hobart |date=15 September 2021 |via=[[ABC Listen]] |language=English}}</ref>
 
The Robodebt scheme also normalised a Centrelink process that reversed the onus of proof that any claimed debt was factual; Centrelink did not require its staff to verify and prove that the information being used to raise the debt claims was accurate. Instead, the individual accused of the debt (often a bogus or wildly inflated figure) was required to prove they did not owe the funds, often with no access to their financial records that had frequently been lost, destroyed, or legitimately disposed of as authorised by the governmental policy requirements for record retention. Human interaction in the [[fact-checking]] and dispatch of the debt letters was extremely limited, with the process relying on a ubiquitous level of automation based on fatally flawed software algorithms (prompting the creation of the 'Robodebt' moniker).

The injustice was further compounded by the ongoing failure of Centrelink call centres and office staff to respond and act within any reasonable time to investigate and correct the bogus debt accusations targeting so many of its clients, with Centrelink's telephone call centres having long become perennially notorious for either failing to be contactable by phone (with all lines often permanently engaged for days on end) or for automating the answering of calls and then keeping their clients 'on hold' for extended periods, sometimes lasting for many hours, as well as subjecting these calls to frequent random hang-ups. Numerous allegations of callous & heavy-handed tactics by Centrelink & its contracted private debt collectors resulted in reports that some recipients had been psychologically traumatised and that there had been consequent suicides, including the tragic case of Corey Web, who had been vulnerable and struggling to repay a Robodebt when he took his own life in 2017.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2022-04-27 |title=Senator backs South Australian family's fight for answers about Robodebt victim Corey Webb who died by suicide |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-28/robodebt-scheme-suicide-royal-commission-corey-webb-centrelink/101019506 |access-date=2024-10-24 |work=ABC News |language=en-AU}}</ref>