Australian government to reclaim billions of dollars in 'overpaid' welfare

The Australian government is attempting to reclaim more than 3 billion U.S. dollars' worth of incorrectly paid welfare handouts, local media reported on Monday.

The government is reportedly handing out around 20,000 "compliance interventions" on a weekly basis in order to reclaim the funds, which it says were incorrectly paid.

Recipients who failed to update their income details can expect to be hit with the notice, while the government is also cracking down on deliberate fraud.

More than 1.7 million "compliance interventions" will be handed out to welfare recipients as the government continues to attempt to lower its debt bill, according to Human Services Minister Alan Tudge.

He told News Corp that a number of overpayments were made between 2010 and 2013, and while some might be honest mistakes, there are a number of cases in which the government has been the victim of welfare fraud.

"Our aim is to ensure that people get what they are entitled to - no more and no less - and to crack down hard when people deliberately defraud the system," Tudge said on Monday.

The latest federal budget estimated that more than 3 billion U.S. dollars would be overpaid between 2010 and 2018 unless something was done, while under the debt recovery scheme, the government is expected to save more than 1.2 billion U.S. dollars over the next five years.

Since July alone, the government has identified and handed out notices worth almost half a billion U.S. dollars, while 3.4 million U.S. dollars' worth of notices are sent in the mail every day.

The crackdown is part of the broader overhaul of the nation's welfare system; earlier this year, Social Services Minister Christian Porter warned that Australia's welfare bill would explode unless those on welfare can be helped out of the 'never-ending' welfare cycle. Endit