Well, how about we think about being sensible, being compassionate and actually treating people like people? Earlier this week on World Suicide Prevention Day research highlighted the underlying influences or triggers for suicide. Suicide Prevention Australia, the national peak body, released its Turning Points report, and that report reinforces that people don't need to have a chronic mental illness to be suicidal. They specifically state:

… we know that long periods of increased financial pressure such as unemployment can result in decreased self-esteem and anxiety about the future, and have severe consequences for suicidal behaviour.

They go on to say:

This is reflected by the finding that unemployed males are 4.6 times more likely to suicide than employed males.
Why would I speak of this today? Only a few weeks ago a constituent was in touch with my office, letting us know of the near suicide of a person to whom the idea of a Centrelink debt was simply an overwhelming trigger. When you subsist on Centrelink payments, especially when it's unemployment benefits, your economic situation is bleak and unrelenting.
Now, that person, thank goodness, received support, but we can't be blind to the real human effects of the brutality of the government's approach to real or fake Centrelink debts. I cannot fathom that this minister and those opposite are blind to it, but they clearly are. My office receives calls and emails—in some weeks we get one or two a day—about robo-debt. I can't imagine that those opposite are not receiving the same phone calls, or perhaps their constituents know there's no point in even going to their offices for help.

One of the really common themes is that we get told the original debt was reduced either through our efforts or the efforts of a constituent. One gentleman from Springwood advised me that he'd had notification of an alleged debt which was slashed following a few pertinent questions by him during a 20-minute phone call. You have to ask why when some people find they have to produce documents that might be five or seven years old and that others have an almost immediate alleviation of the debt. Of course the people who don't ask, who don't challenge, the quiet Australians, are the ones who are not going to get their debt wiped or reduced. This is a government that's put the onus on individuals to fight for their rights.

The reasonable expectation that government will empower its departments to protect the rights of individuals has been thrown out the window. This government's approach breaks down trust between individuals and government and it leaves only the noisy people, the people who still have fight left in them, to be treated fairly. The reality is that the department knows, and the government knows, that the robo-debt matching is crude. The approach that they use of smashing together tax office data and human services data appears to have absolutely no human oversight until after letters alleging the debt are received.

The minister's refused to reveal how many of the 640,000 debts collected were reduced from the original amount demanded. We just don't know that number. We do know that, on top of the reductions, 160,000 debts since July 2016 were simply found to be in error. That is the stated 20 per cent error rate plus the errors the minister won't reveal to us.

There are many cases in my electorate. One woman received a Centrelink debt. Her earnings had been incorrectly calculated, but this was only after someone looked at it. It took hours and hours of her time to have it rectified. There was no debt liable, but she lost days off work. Another woman was transitioning from Newstart to a disability pension. She was told as she went through that process that she had an $8,000 debt. That debt has also been cleared. So here are people who should not have gone through the stress that they did.

We also had a gentleman who provided proof of income to Centrelink. It was reviewed and in the end there was found to be nothing wrong, but he says to me: 'I worked for two different employers. I kept my receipts, but even then this was a stressful process.' He said: 'I'm not so worried for myself, but I didn't want a debt collector at my door. I really worry about what this will do to other people who don't have the wherewithal to fight.' Your constituents, the Australians who have these alleged debts, should not have—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ): The member will resume her seat. I call the Assistant Minister for Community H