The damage bill for the February flood disaster that ravaged Queensland and NSW is about $4.3 billion, the fourth highest from a natural disaster in Australia’s history. In total, Services Australia has received 3.5 million claims relating to the floods.
Federal Labor was critical of the former government over delays to flood assistance payments. But at least some of the delays are being caused by the increasing number of fraudulent claims, which are requiring resources to be put into investigations.
Over the past year, the agency has completed more than 916 investigations into alleged fraud against the natural disaster assistance program, resulting in more than 57 referrals to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions for criminal prosecution.
In July this year alone, the fraud profiling triggers stopped $7 million from being handed out to fraudsters.
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Many of the fraudulent claims were for the one-off $1000 cash payment that was made available after the NSW and Queensland floods in February.
Recent convictions for fraudulent claims include:
- A NSW woman who used 42 stolen identities and 31 fabricated identities to claim payments for numerous natural disasters from the NSW bushfires in September 2019 to the Victorian bushfires three months later. She opened 42 bank accounts at nine banks in the names of the victims, but was later caught and sentenced to 26 months’ imprisonment and made to pay back $86,674 in March this year;
- A NSW woman who was convicted and fined $1,332 for making a false claim after she stated that her holiday park residence sustained damage and received a $1,400 payment. The holiday park later confirmed there was no damage to the property;
- A NSW man who provided a false address and false images of damage for the NSW bushfires in September 2019, later convicted and sentenced to four months’ imprisonment;
- A NSW woman sentenced to an intensive corrections order for attempting to falsely claim a payment for the same event by providing a false image; and
- Another NSW woman who used stolen identity papers to claim four fraudulent payments for the NSW bushfires in September 2019, later sentenced to 14 months’ imprisonment and made to pay back $20,342.
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