Government denies suburb shaming in revealing welfare cheat hot spots

THE government has revealed areas with the highest concentration of welfare cheats, but denied it meant to embarrass the suburbs.

The government has revealed the areas with the highest concentration of people who take advantage of job assistance.

THE Turnbull Government has been forced to deny it set out to shame Australian suburbs after areas like Queensland’s Caboolture and Blacktown in Sydney’s west were declared the nation’s slackest suburbs.

A report released by the government identifies the places with the highest concentration of people consistently miss appointments and job interviews.

The new figures saw one of Sydney’s most populous suburbs nicknamed “Slacktown” by the Daily Telegraph, Mildura in Victoria labelled “the suburb where people refuse to work” in the Herald Sun, and Queensland’s most welfare reliant place called “the nation's dole-bludger capital”.

But Human Services Minister Alan Tudge has rejected the harsh language used in those reports.

“This is not about embarrassing the suburbs. This is simply pointing out where the numbers lie,” he said in an interview on Nine’s Today. “Unfortunately, there are hot spots in this country.”

Blacktown, in Sydney’s west, was named as one of the suburbs.

Mr Tudge said he had been speaking with Blacktown residents who weren’t happy with their suburb’s new moniker.

“Most of the people in Blacktown I have been speaking to this morning say that they are embarrassed and also pretty upset about being labelled as the community of dole bludgers,” he admitted. “Most of the workers I have spoken to say of course there are some people that choose not to work but by and large most people here are incredibly hard working.”

The figures, released to the Daily Telegraph which described the report as “a list of shame”, reveal the suburbs where people failed to turn up to five or more Centrelink appointment or job interview in the past year.

Queensland’s Caboolture had the highest concentration of people with five or more failures, 387. The state had another entrant in the top five suburbs in Deception Bay with 276 people.

Blacktown in NSW was second with 333 people, and Victoria’s Mildura and Frankston rounded off the top five with 329 and 280 people respectively. The Herald Sun also noted Victoria had five of the 10 worst performing welfare states.

An aerial view of Caboolture, exposed by the government as the ‘dole-bludger capital’.

The government released the list as part of its strategy to crackdown on welfare cheats.

Mr Tudge said people who had been not compliant with job assistance had been able to get away with it and avoid penalties for too long.

“We want to change that and have a fair system,” he said.” We have this proposed whereby if you consistently avoid your obligations you are going to face escalating penalties. First of all you will face a week’s payment loss, then two weeks, then you will have payment cancelled for repeat offenders.”