Yesterday in the parliament, the house of representatives were discussing amendments to the government bill to compensate people for the unlawful Centrelink debt repayments, which is a bit of a bandaid solution to some of the issues surrounding a different type of unlawful debt to Robodebt.

Yes I know it is confusing, but stay with me here.

Among the amendments, the government slipped in one which is, totally unrelated to this bill, which would give police the power to recommend the suspension or cancellation of a person’s Centrelink benefits, before they are convicted.

The chatter around the parliament is that this is the government’s attempts to address criticises Desi Freeman received benefits, but it will apply to anyone the police decide should have benefits cancelled. Before a conviction from the courts. This amendment and the ‘reasoning’ pretty much guarantees that the Coalition will vote for the bill, blocking the Greens from negotiating in the senate.

This didn’t get a lot of attention yesterday, but it is a pretty major step and also conflates powers between the police and the public service without any input from the courts.

There was an inquiry into this bill a few weeks ago, which didn’t raise this issue- there was nothing in the bill or the department’s evidence that this was coming – the government has surprised everyone with this amendment and from the quick conversations I have had with advocates, there doesn’t seem to have been much consultation about it, even about unintended consequences.