Centrelink threatening payment suspensions at rate of five a minute, new analysis suggests | Centrelink
New analysis shows Centrelink is issuing more than five payment suspension notices per minute to jobseekers and people receiving disability support payments, amid concerns over the legality of the troubled system.
In total, government data compiled by the Anti-Poverty Center shows 2,683,605 removals took place between June 2024 and July 2025.
These were carried out under Centrelink’s reciprocal obligations regime, which aims to ensure that recipients actively seek and prepare for work. Their payments may be suspended if they fail to complete activities such as completing job applications or attending meetings with job providers.
Despite new rules giving people a five-day grace period to contact their employment provider before their payments are blocked, data shows this still happens frequently, according to the Center for Poverty Action. However, most suspensions are lifted before a person’s income is affected.
“The numbers are so unimaginably high, it’s easy to miss just how crazy this whole thing is,” said Kristin O’Connell, a spokeswoman for the Center for Poverty Action.
In the past, such suspensions could lead to cancellations. But since March all cancellations have been stopped because the government cannot say whether they are happening legally.
Data on suspension actions was compiled from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), the Department of Social Services and the National Indigenous Australians Agency, which operates the remote Community Development Program (CDP).
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Job seekers, people receiving disability support payments, some youth allowance recipients and those receiving parenting payments are all included in the data.
However, the number of people affected could not be determined as some people would be suspended more than once. Nearly 30% of the 37,000 people on CDP experienced more than five payment suspensions in the last quarter.
“It gives you the sense that the whip is being used brutally and there are some people who can’t escape it,” O’Connell said.
People with disabilities and Indigenous Australians are overrepresented in the data. Approximately 33% of all removals affected people with disabilities, and at least 26% of all removals affected First Nations people.
Previous reporting by Guardian Australia showed jobseekers had their payments suspended during hospital stays for psychosis or after brain tumor removal, despite submitting paperwork to Centrelink stating they were receiving medical treatment.
At a Senate estimates hearing last month, DEWR secretary Natalie James said the system “does not always work as intended.”
He said the government was investigating whether providers made illegal decisions about suspensions and cancellations.
“Thousands of decisions are made every week under these provisions,” he said.
“People aren’t perfect, and frankly, as we’re learning, our systems aren’t perfect either.”
O’Connell said suspending payments could be used as a tool to “bully” job seekers by making them attend a meeting or hand over pay slips, which could trigger public funding for job providers.
The Commonwealth ombudsman is currently investigating the target compliance framework (TCF), the automated system that runs mutual obligations, and has found that payments were unlawfully cancelled.
Social welfare expert and University of Sydney law lecturer Christopher Rudge said it was “possible” that the problem the ombudsman identified “could also affect the entire system of mutual compliance action, including suspensions”.
Kate Allingham, chief executive of Economic Justice Australia, called for the suspension regime to be halted until it can be proven it was done legally.
“People often tell us that they have not received a phone call, cannot reach the offices and have no record of any contact before they were notified of the threat of payment suspension,” Allingham said.
A DEWR spokesman said around 90% of payment suspensions were lifted before there was any gap or delay in a person’s payment last financial year.
The spokesman said measures had been introduced to protect the use of suspensions. These include extending resolution periods to five days, ensuring that suspensions for missed appointments do not apply if the person is working at the time, and issuing warnings for the first breach of the mutual obligation clause.
“The Department regularly monitors important aspects of the TCF system, including how providers make decisions under this system,” the spokesperson said.
“If incorrect or improperly implemented noncompliance action is identified, including suspension of payment, the department will overturn those decisions and provide feedback to providers as to why those decisions were reversed.”
