Stuart Robert has apologised for a robo-debt notice sent to a dead man's mother.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert confirmed on Tuesday that as many as one in five debt recovery notices issued by his department may be incorrect,and apologised to a woman who had received a debt notice for her dead son.
"Because of the size of the debt being uneconomical to recover and the length of time,the department should have simply waived the debt,"he said during Question Time.
"They didn't,my department was wrong,I apologise for it."
Federal Labor seized on the case to attack the government over robo-debt,with former opposition leader Bill Shorten calling for the system to be scrapped after revelations that Centrelink employees worked to enforcement targets.
Mr Shorten,who is Labor spokesman for government services,said the robo-debt program was"seriously malfunctioning"with more than 100,000 Australians having received"incorrect demands to pay debts to the government that they didn't owe".
"It is being enforced in a harsh and cruel way and we now know it is being driven from above,"he said.