Centrelink tells receptionist she owes them $65,000

An elderly retiree has revealed how her life was turned ‘upside down’ after she was told she had to repay Centrelink $65,000 as part of their failed debt robbery scheme.

Rosemary Gay, from Ballarat in Victoria, told the royal debt theft commission in Brisbane on Monday that she experienced “sheer terror” after a letter warned her she had only two weeks to pay.

The 76-year-old woman said the message arrived on September 29, 2016, and had stated that Centrelink had received information from the ATO about income from her work.

The income listed in the letter was $17,436. Ms. Gay said she earned a part-time receptionist job between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2011, while working for a transportation company in Ballarat.

However, Centrelink said the amounts she declared were different from what she actually earned, something Ms Gay said left her “shocked” and “surprised”.

“The data I gave you about my earnings would be exactly the same as what would appear on my group certificate on my tax return at the end of that tax year,” he said.

After verifying that the documentation was the same as what she had reported, Ms. Gay thought the matter would be resolved.

“I figured once I confirmed that (the amount) was on my group certificate, that would be the end of it,” he said.

“That they would correlate that to be the same as what he had reported to them, and they hoped that would be the end of it.”

Ms. Gay had been employed permanently, part-time at the time and was paid about $22 an hour for 14 hours of work a week, she said.

However, on October 12, 2016, Ms. Gay received a notice of debt for $64,998.17, something she said left her desperate.

The mammoth payment, more than three times his annual salary, was due in less than a month, he said.

‘It turned my life upside down. It was pure terror that he owed such a large amount that he had never earned so much money. How could he owe so much money and he had to get it in three or four weeks? It was pure terror,” she said.

‘I just couldn’t see the forest for the trees. I couldn’t see what I had to do.

“All I could see was that I could face selling my house and lose everything I had worked for in my 70 years and I saw it all go away instantly.”

“My mental health and my physical health, at the time, were at a very low point,” Ms. Gay said. Above, queues at Centrelink

When Ms Gay filed a dispute with Centrelink, $133 a week was taken out of her pension as reimbursement before being reduced to $60 a fortnight.

“It was a very dark period of time for me and very difficult to relive. My mental health and my physical health, at the time, were at a very low point,” she said.

However, on December 7 of the same year, Ms Gay said that Centrelink sent her a letter saying that her debt was in error and that the correct amount was $120.33.

“I was shocked and angry to think that they could initially cause such a traumatic experience for everyone accessing pension support,” he said.

‘That they can change someone’s life and still do it so wrong over and over again.’

The royal commission aims to investigate how Australians’ annual tax information was used to determine average biweekly earnings and automatically establish welfare debts.

The practice was ruled illegal by Federal Court in 2019 and is believed to have improperly recovered more than $750 million from 381,000 people.