In a story that is befitting an April Fools Day joke, independent Senator Nick Xenophon has unearthed a textbook case of bureaucratic waste and mismanagement, whereby the Department of Human Services has spent at least $500,000 of taxpayers’ money in legal fees fighting a child support dispute over $6000. From The Canberra Times:
Throughout the three-year legal battle with the father, a determined litigant known simply as “DT”…, Human Services have tried to resist handing over documents to the court and defied orders to release information to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner…
Now the department, which runs the Child Support Agency and Centrelink, has hired more high-end lawyers to try to block the release of information on its own conduct in the matter, exposing taxpayers to up to a million dollars in legal and other costs…
As of April this year, DHS had paid more than $500,000 to defend the DT case and refuses to say what has been spent since…
“This is bureaucracy gone mad and now they’re refusing to answer how much has been involved,” Senator Xenophon said…
“This seems to be a scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money for no good effect other than to protect the butt of the department.”
Seriously, you cannot make this stuff up. With Budget revenues under extreme pressure and real incomes falling, Australia needs a lean and mean public service, not this wasteful rubbish.
Heads should roll over this. But will they?
