The man handpicked by Malcolm Turnbull to head the government’s digital transformation has said the error rate in Centrelink’s data-matching process is so unfathomably high that it would send a commercial enterprise out of business. 

Paul Shetler, the former digital transformation office head, criticised the government’s response to its latest IT crisis, telling Guardian Australia it was symptomatic of a culture of blame aversion within the bureaucracy. 

“It is literally blame aversion, it is not risk aversion,” Shetler said. “They’re trying to avoid the blame, and they’re trying to cast it wide.

“The justifications that have been given I think are just another example of the culture of ‘good news’, reporting only good news up through the bureaucracy.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jan/06/centrelink-crisis...

Centrelink has slashed the debts of two welfare recipients after they spoke out about the Federal Government's controversial $4.5 billion debt clawback program.

• Two welfare recipients had their Centrelink debts cut after speaking out on 7.30
• George Birkett had his debt of more than $7,000 wiped clean
• Amanda Stilbe had her debt slashed from $1,338.07 to $497.03
• Labor wants the audit office to investigate the scheme

Amanda Stilbe and George Birkett spoke to 7.30 on Wednesday about letters from Centrelink accusing them of underreporting their income while receiving benefits.

Ms Stilbe received a call from a Centrelink representative around 8:00pm (AEDT) on Wednesday, just minutes after the program finished, informing her that her debt had been reduced from $1,338.07 to $497.03.

"He said that an employee had entered some data incorrectly so he got them to do a manual recalculation," she said.

"He even gave me a direct number to call him on if I had any more questions. There [is] no way this would have happened if I hadn't spoken out in the media."

Ms Stilbe said she intended to dispute the remaining debt.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-06/centrelink-debts-slashed-after-wel...

But a wrongly-programmed computer need have no such scruples. Even better, its decisions can be presented as objective, hard to overturn. Data scientist Cathy O'Neil outlines scores of examples in her new book Weapons of Math Destruction, from the systems used by credit rating agencies in the lead up to the global financial crisis, to systems that automatically select teachers for the sack on the basis of secret algorithms that grade performance, to systems that deny people job interviews on the basis of proxies for mental health, even though that's illegal.

They are used because they are quick rather than accurate. As an expert told O'Neil, the primary purpose of a workplace hiring system is "not to find the best employee, but to exclude as many people as possible as cheaply as possible".

By necessity, they do it unfairly. People who are wise to the systems will mention the right words in job applications to get to the top of the pile. As she says, they are usually not from racial and ethnic minorities. Here, it's the persistent and well-resourced people who get the better of Centrelink. They are unlikely to be the hardest up.

Many of the automated systems are malicious, created to do harm in the guise of providing a service. The formula used by Centrelink produces consistently false estimates of debts by dividing by 26 the annual wages employers report paying in order to overestimate income received during the smaller number of fortnights claimants get benefits.

Humans didn’t issue debt notices unless they had evidence a debt existed. To do so without evidence would be to break the law. 

The formulas used by for-profit colleges in the US to target internet advertising zero in on single mothers of colour who are poor enough to earn the colleges' valuable subsidies and ill-informed enough not to twig to debt. The formulas O'Neil herself worked on in financial markets presented securities as safe that weren't.

O'Neil says that to be a "weapon of math destruction" a formula has to be used en masse (as the Centrelink formula will be), it has to be difficult to question (as the Centrelink formula will be for many people) and it has to cause damage (as the Centrelink formula is doing).

read more:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/how-centrelink-unleashed-a-weapo...

Human Services Minister Alan Tudge will not scrap Centrelink's debt recovery system, despite public backlash and ongoing warnings over inaccuracies.

• Human Services Minister says debt recovery system is working
• The system cross references employment data from the Australian Tax Office and Centrelink
• The Commonwealth Ombudsman is investigating Centrelink's system

The automated system, which cross-references employment data from the Australian Tax Office and Centrelink, has produced nearly 170,000 notices of potential overpayments since July.

Mr Tudge, who this week returned from holidays, rejected assertions people were being issued with unfounded debt notices or having difficulties in updating their details.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-11/centrelink's-debt-recovery-system-to-remain-government-says/8174644

Inhuman, the whole thing is, since it is run by by robots with no soul. It reminds me of the SS during WWII, but the SS were less sarcastic about the whatver of it. Mr Turgid is full of shit.

Centrelink has apologised to a Melbourne student who was left confused by a letter that includes multiple typos, misspells the agency's own name and cites an irrelevant law.

The letter, sent to Ben Klein on April 20, advised him his Austudy payments would end in February next year.

But the document included at least a dozen errors, including references to Mr Klein's "lastest claim" and incorrectly spelling the agency's name as "Cedntrelink".

It is also unsigned and unevenly spaced.

Despite being about Austudy payments, the letter said the notice was given under "paid parental leave law".

Mr Klein is single with no children.

As Centrelink faces an inquiry over the recent robo-debt crisis, when debt letters were automatically generated by computers, the Department of Human Services said Mr Klein's letter was not produced by a machine.

"This particular letter was created from a manual template which is only designed to be used in situations where a system-generated letter does not appropriately reflect the recipient's circumstances," Department General Manager Hank Jongen said in a statement.

"The mistakes in this letter are the result of human error."

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-28/centrelink-apologises-over-letter-...

The "human error" should be sacked immediately... Possibly a junior staff under instruction from a "human error" above itself under the thumb of a "human error" called the minister for whatever under the "human error" called Malcolm Turnbull...