Years of advocacy work to get this far
Did you see Craig on the telly last week talking about Centrepay? We got 2 good bits of news about the Centrepay.
The first was an ASIC decision to temporarily stop a retail business from using Centrepay. Centrepay was set up to support people on Centrelink payments budget their income. It allows money to be deducted from Centrelink payments before it hits the bank, and works well when used for essentials like rent and power bills. It doesn’t work well when businesses have permission to remove money for non-essentials.
Our financial counsellors have long been concerned by the predatory practices of many businesses using Centrepay so the stop order was welcome news.
The second, and even more welcome, was the announcement of a ‘Review of business compliance to the Centrepay Framework’. Our Financial Inclusion team have been working for years to raise awareness about Centrepay and have been calling on a review of Centrepay eligibility.
Anglicare NT is part of the National Centrepay Reform Working Party and we look forward to being involved in the review, and helping to strengthen the Centrepay framework.
Links if you’re interested:
ASIC media release 29/2:
ABC 7.30 Report ‘Predatory Practices’
