ACOSS is demanding an ongoing pause to the enforcement of mutual obligations following latest IT failures which have required the government to suspend them.
Since January 6th, the government has paused mutual obligations due to ongoing failures with the Workforce Australia IT system. The pause has now been extended until Tuesday 28th January 2025 .
The latest failures of the employment services system come after a string of errors uncovered in 2024, including that income support payments may have been illegally cancelled, affecting at least 1,000 people between April 2022 and July 2024. In addition, over 1,000 people had wrongful financial penalties applied to them in a separate IT issue uncovered in January 2024.
"The latest IT failures in Workforce Australia are yet more evidence the system is failing and needs a full and thorough investigation," said ACOSS CEO Cassandra Goldie.
"We cannot have any confidence in a system which repeatedly fails, placing even greater stress on people living on the brink."
ACOSS is calling for the suspension of the Targeted Compliance Framework and a fully independent, arms-length legal and human rights review.
"The compliance system cannot continue to operate against hundreds of thousands of people whilst the IT system is vulnerable to failure and the legality of decisions are in question," Dr Goldie said.
In December 2024, ACOSS referred the Government to the Commonwealth Ombudsman over potentially illegal cancellations of people's vital income support payments and called for the immediate suspension of the compliance system.
Since 2018, ACOSS has consistently opposed the Targeted Compliance Framework and warned successive Ministers about the serious harm it causes, including calling for the cessation of payment suspensions which impact nearly 240,000 people in Workforce Australia.
"Payment suspensions and cancellation have extremely harmful impacts on people, including not only the loss of income but also potential homelessness, relationship breakdown and destitution," said Dr Goldie.
