"Sheer terror": Pensioner slapped with five-figure government fine
Pensioner Rosemary Gay opened up about the “sheer terror” she faced upon receiving a letter from the government demanding she pay back the $65,000 Robodebt bill they claimed she had been overpaid.
Rosemary’s nightmare began on September 19, 2016, when the letter arrived, an event that Rosemary confesses “turned my life upside down and created an enormous emotional and mental strain on me."
The letter detailed that she was required to pay the total of $64,999.17 in overpaid welfare benefits. Centrelink claimed this was because her declared amounts did not reflect what she actually earned during the period of July 9, 2010, to 6 October, 2016.
“It turned my life upside down,” Rosemary told the Robodebt Royal Commission on Monday, “I’ve never earned that much money, how could I owe that much money? And the fact I was to come up with it within a matter of three or four weeks, it was sheer terror.”
The emotional 76-year-old admitted that she feared she would have to sell her home to cover the debt, and detailed the bleak path she saw before her, “all I could see was that I may be faced with selling my home and losing everything that I had worked for in my 70 years, and I just saw it all going away instantly.”
After contacting Centrelink, Rosemary confirmed that what she had reported was the same as what was on the paperwork. She admitted to assuming that would “be the end of it.”
Officials at Centrelink eventually told Rosemary that it came down to a “glitch”, and after a review, the total of her debt was reduced to $6,600.
Of her Robodebt experience, Rosemary said, “it was a very dark period of time for me and one that is very difficult to re-live. My mental health and physical health, at that stage, were at a very low ebb.”
A second review brought a new letter to Rosemary in December 2016, this time stating that her debt had been reduced to $120.
Finally in 2020, Rosemary was informed by Centrelink that she would be refunded the $120, with the Coalition government winding up the unlawful scheme - ruled as such by the Federal Court in 2019. It is suspected that more than 381,000 people were affected, and that over $750m was wrongfully recovered from the victims.
“I was shocked and angry by this time to think they could initially cause such a traumatic experience to anybody accessing support from a pension,” Rosemary told the Royal Commission, “it will continue to remain with me forever. It’s just something I will never get over and it has had a huge impact on my physical and mental wellbeing …
“That they could turn someone’s life upside down and still get it so wrong over and over again.”
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