Overview

• The Commonwealth Ombudsman found an automated framework cancelled 964 JobSeeker payments without individual discretion between April 2022 and July 2024 and wrongfully cut 45 more after a pause due to ongoing IT errors.
• DEWR and Services Australia have accepted all seven ombudsman recommendations, including maintaining the moratorium on automated penalty actions until a full legal review is completed.
• An unpublished Deloitte review identified instability and design flaws in the Targeted Compliance Framework’s IT system, prompting a planned technical overhaul.
• The ombudsman warned that failing to implement the mandated digital protection framework and to exercise case-by-case discretion exposed vulnerable jobseekers to potentially catastrophic hardship.
• A second ombudsman report on the framework’s fairness and the role of employment service providers is due later this year before any resumption of automated cancellations.