The Compliance Machine
- Opened on fileTwo machines, two clocks
A welfare compliance provision ran automated cancellation decisions unlawfully for two years, a finding the Commonwealth Ombudsman's first report confirmed in August 2025; a second report in December 2025 examined the fairness of the resulting compensation process. Two other powers under the same framework are due to restart in October 2026 under a process neither report investigated.
Fig. 02 / What happened
Fig. 03 / Who the record names
How we know
The exhibits sit beside the title above, each tied to the article that documented it. How evidence and sources are graded: evidence grade, source tiers.
What else is connected
Named in this case and in others. A count of where the record names them, not a finding about what they did.
From the desk
- Watch: the Secretary's promised October statement before the 26 October restartTwo machines, two clocks · The Compliance MachineThe Compliance Machine
Read the desk note
Check whether Secretary Simon Duggan has issued the further statement promised in the 4 August 2026 announcement confirming the resumption of sections 42AM and 42AG(1)(a), whether the 26 October 2026 date still holds, what assurance activity and IT changes the statement reports as complete, and whether Minister Amanda Rishworth has made any statement of her own on the restart. The date is a week before the scheduled restart, as this desk reads it; the restart day of 26 October 2026 has its own calendar entry.
- Correction publishedTwo machines, two clocks · The Compliance Machine
The opening of this article said the figure of more than 300,000 people 'belongs to neither Ombudsman report'. That contradicted this section, which records that the Ombudsman's second report mentions a version of the figure once, in a footnote. The opening now says the figure is a finding of neither report, and that the second report mentions it once, in a footnote, without adopting it.
- Watch: the Digital Protections Framework consultation closed 28 SeptemberTwo machines, two clocks · The Compliance MachineThe Compliance Machine
Read the desk note
Check what DEWR has published on the draft Digital Protections Framework since public consultation closed at 11:59 pm AEST on 28 September 2026, and whether a settled framework exists before decision-making under sections 42AM and 42AG(1)(a) is due to resume on 26 October 2026. The date is the day after the close, as this desk reads it, not a date from any document.
- Record: THE COMPLIANCE MACHINE opened as a case; the 964 figure belongs to a different provision than the one restartingTwo machines, two clocks · The Compliance MachineThe Compliance Machine · attended 9 September 2026
Read the desk note
ATTENDED 9 September 2026 (audit item: THE COMPLIANCE MACHINE, unwritten, restart 26 October 2026).
FINDING. Two Commonwealth Ombudsman reports, dated August 2025 and December 2025, found automated cancellations under section 42AF(2)(d) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 unlawful from April 2022 to July 2024, affecting 964 people across 985 decisions. Neither report examined sections 42AM or 42AG(1)(a), the two provisions the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations intends to restart on 26 October 2026 under a Secretary's statement dated 4 August 2026. The restart is conditional on assurance activity and IT changes, and a further Secretary's statement is promised for October, with a year-end update on the remaining paused provisions, none of which is expected back before the first quarter of 2027. Compensation for the confirmed 964 sits at $872,963.80 paid of $936,124.80 recommended as at 1 December 2025, issued only by department invitation, with no published figure for how many were never invited. A widely repeated figure of roughly 310,000 people traces to Economic Justice Australia's own analysis of section 42AM, not to either Ombudsman report; the Ombudsman's second report records it only as a footnoted, unresolved concern, never as a finding. The independent assurance review DEWR commissioned from Deloitte, covering December 2024 to June 2025, was disclosed in the Secretary's 3 October 2025 statement to contain footnotes and references that Deloitte itself confirmed were incorrect. The Digital Protections Framework, required by legislation for more than three years, remains in draft, with public consultation closing 28 September 2026. Two facts could not be verified to this desk's standard and are not printed as fact: the Deloitte review's reported cost and the researcher who found its errors, and a reported Senate Estimates exchange on the 310,000 figure, neither confirmed against a primary transcript.
ARTICLE CHANGES. Case opened. Article 1, "Two machines, two clocks", published. Four entities registered: DEWR, the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Services Australia and the Targeted Compliance Framework.
STILL OPEN: the Secretary's promised October statement confirming the restart; the outcome of the Digital Protections Framework consultation closing 28 September 2026; a fixed timetable for section 42AF(2)(d)'s own return, not expected before the first quarter of 2027; how many people affected by the unlawful cancellations were never invited to claim compensation; and whether the 310,000 figure is ever tested beyond Economic Justice Australia's own analysis.
NEXT DATE: 29 September 2026, the day after the Digital Protections Framework consultation closes, and 19 October 2026, a week before the scheduled restart.