Aussie man in UK sent invoice for non-existent stint at Howard Springs quarantine facility in health dept bungle
AN Australian man living in the UK has been issued an invoice for a stint at the Howard Springs quarantine facility despite never staying there, in a serious bungle by the health department.
Northern Territory
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AN Australian man living in the United Kingdom has been issued an invoice for a stint at the Howard Springs quarantine facility despite never staying there, in a serious bungle by the health department.
And it’s not the first time this has happened.
The man revealed on social media that he had been sent an invoice by the commonwealth Health Department seeking $2500 from him for staying at Darwin’s premier COVID-19 quarantine facility.
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The problem is he remains in the United Kingdom amid the pandemic-induced shutdown of international borders and does not have a seat on an upcoming repatriation flight. The invoice, received on March 24, was also dated March 25.
Fearing a sophisticated phishing scam, the NT News asked the health department to verify if the bill was genuine and if so how the mistake could have been made.
A spokeswoman for the department said “several sources of information” was used to validate whether people had undertaken quarantine and that in the “lead-up to arrivals of facilitated flights, information may change due to passenger changes”.
“Unfortunately in this instance, an incorrect invoice has been issued,” she said.
“The department is working with the person to rectify this error.”
The department did not explain how they got it wrong.
But it did confirm that a “small number” of invoices had been issued incorrectly.
“(This was) due to incomplete information and all have been appropriately managed and withdrawn,” a spokeswoman said.
NT Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy seized on the bungle, slamming the government for “shirking” its constitutional responsibility for handling quarantine.
“How many other Australians have wrongly been invoiced for a stay that never happened at the Howards Spring facility? More mismanagement from a government in crisis,” she said.
It comes after the NT News this week revealed the commonwealth’s deal with the NT government to fund the Howard Springs quarantine facility had increased to $513.5m.
Originally published as Aussie man in UK sent invoice for non-existent stint at Howard Springs quarantine facility in health dept bungle
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