The 2001-02 Annual Report of the Commonwealth Ombudsman was tabled in Parliament today. Although complaint numbers were down 13%, it was still a busy year for the Ombudsman.

During the year, 19,263 complaints were made to the Ombudsman, Ron McLeod. Of these, over 8,800 were about Centrelink, more than 2,600 involved the Australian Taxation Office and 2,000 concerned the Child Support Agency.

Mr McLeod commented that ‘the end of the 2001-02 financial year saw the completion of twenty-five years of continuous service to the Australian people by the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office. During that time, well over half a million people have approached our office seeking help.’

This year’s report highlights some of the major areas investigated by the Ombudsman in 2001-02. One of these related to the administration of social security breach penalties, where the Ombudsman has recently released a public report including 29 recommendations for improvements in agency procedures. Almost all of these recommendations have been implemented or adopted. The Ombudsman also noted that the most significant social welfare complaint issue to arise during the year related to the impact of the new family assistance payment arrangements and the debts incurred by families as a result of those procedures.

The Ombudsman received 1,098 complaints about the immigration programs of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, an increase of 10% over the previous year. Mr McLeod said that this is ‘a difficult area of work’ and noted that ‘complaints continued to rise in a year when there was considerable media attention devoted to immigration matters, particularly the policy of mandatory detention’.

‘Conditions in detention centres are a focus of many of the complaints received and this year my staff undertook a number of visits to Immigration Detention Centres. I am still concerned at the number of women and children held in detention, despite my earlier recommendation that alternatives should be developed. However, I do note that the numbers in detention have reduced over the past year.’

The report also contains major sections on complaints about taxation, law enforcement and defence.

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Email – Media@ombudsman.gov.au

Date of release: 31 October 2002