News

This is a joint submission led by Financial Rights Legal Centre, supported by Consumer Action Law Centre and:

• Australian Communications Consumer Action Network
• AnglicareNT
• Brotherhood of St Laurence
• Care
• CatholicCareNT
• CHOICE
• Consumer Credit Legal Service WA
• Economic Justice Australia
• Financial Counselling Australia
• Financial Counselling Victoria
• Mob Strong Debt Help
• Money Mob Talkabout
• Redfern Legal Centre
• South Australian Financial Counselling Association
• Welfare Rights & Advocacy Service (WA)

We would first like to emphasise that we believe Centrepay is an invaluable service provided by Centrelink for people receiving social security payments.

Financial counsellors, community lawyers and other front-line workers in our organisations agree that Centrepay is an important financial self-management tool for disadvantaged consumers, and we strongly
support its continued operation.

For the last 15 months our organisations have been closely consulted by the Centrepay Reform team on all the reforms proposed in the Consultation Paper. We are pleased to see that since this reform process began in earnest the number of businesses registered to use
Centrepay has already reduced from 15,000 to 10,000. This reduction is helping to ensure that Centrepay is fit for purpose and has appropriate safeguards in place to prevent financial harm to vulnerable Australians.

While this submission contains some comments and recommendations about the detail of the new Terms of Use, we strongly endorse all the overarching proposed reforms.

Read the full submission (PDF).