Too hard to manage stimulus payments

FEDERAL Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has rejected Government assertions that making $40 million in stimulus payments to dead people and Australians living overseas was unavoidable. The Australian Tax Office says the cost of the tax bonus payments made to 16,000 dead people is likely to exceed $14 million while another $25 million has been sent to about 25,000 Australians living overseas.

Earlier Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said it was a “ludicrous proposition” to suggest the Government should have ascertained who was dead and who was living overseas before the payments were made. That data was not available at the time and would have taken months to accumulate, he said.

I simply don’t accept that handing out nearly $40 million to deceased estates or people unable to spend the money on the local economy can be dismissed as “too hard” to manage.