$169m in social welfare payments unverified

The Government has been paying out more than $169 million a year to over 146,000 welfare recipients without keeping a complete record of who those people are, a national audit has found.

The Auditor-General's 2024 report, tabled in Parliament this month, found the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Protection did not maintain a full list of individuals receiving benefits under its Social Protection Programmes

This meant there was no reliable way to check whether payments were going to the right people.

Information such as names, dates of birth, residential addresses, bank details, tax identification numbers and how long someone had been receiving assistance was not being recorded for all recipients.

Without these details, auditors warned there was a real risk of duplicate and unauthorised payments, meaning some people could be receiving money they are not entitled to, while legitimate recipients may be missed.

The six programmes affected include the Social Pension Scheme, Family Assistance Scheme, Bus Fare Programme, Child Protection Allowance, Disability Allowance and Food Voucher Programme for rural pregnant mothers.

The ministry said it had reached 80 per cent completion of digitising recipient data by March 2025 and was targeting full completion by September 2025 before rolling out a new payment system.

"The digitised data includes the Recipient Listings for all programs and features additional verification fields," the ministry said.

The missing records issue has been flagged by auditors before, making it a recurring concern.

The same audit also found $3.1 million in welfare payment vouchers unaccounted for, a 67 per cent underspend on capital construction, and unreconciled discrepancies of more than $28 million between payment records and the ministry's financial system.