The 32-year-old Rushworth woman pleaded guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to three charges of theft from a Commonwealth entity and one charge of acting intentionally dishonestly to obtain gain from a Commonwealth entity.
The court was told that the woman claimed a total of $13,624 from Services Australia.
In 2020, the woman added herself as a person permitted to inquire on her father’s Services Australia record and made claims in his account for JobSeeker payment, rent assistance and crisis payments in a national health emergency, with the money going into her bank account between April 25 and July 10, 2020.
The woman claimed $6430 in economic support payments, coronavirus supplements and a PAYG refund from Services Australia between April 28 and July 28, 2020.
Two years later, she also claimed four pandemic leave disaster payments, worth a total of $3000, between April 4 and 16, 2022.
The woman also dishonestly appropriated a Robodebt class action settlement payment of $451 from Services Australia on September 21, 2022.
Defence solicitor Luke Slater told the court his client had no relevant prior convictions, and was on Centrelink payments herself.
He also said she had a medical condition that required surgery every two months.
Mr Slater said Centrelink had also been taking money from what she was usually given in her own Centrelink payments regularly, having already paid about $600 off the debt.
In sentencing the woman, magistrate Peter Dunn said while it was “not an insignificant sum” of money that was taken, it “didn’t quite reach the threshold of prison”.
“But it strikes at the heart of our system,” Mr Dunn said.
He placed the woman on a $1000 recognisance bond to be of good behaviour for two years.
If she does not get in trouble with the law in that time, she will not have to pay the $1000.
The woman was also ordered to repay Services Australia the $13,024 that was still outstanding.
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