Commonwealth prosecutors have dropped dozens of welfare fraud cases affected by unlawful Centrelink debt calculations, as Services Australia continues the cleanup of tens of thousands of doubtful debts.
But the federal government’s welfare agency and prosecutors have been unable to say how many past convictions may be affected, after an embarrassing commonwealth ombudsman report revealed that up to 100,000 debts were incorrectly calculated over two decades by “unlawfully apportioning” welfare recipients’ income.
