It would surprise the federal Coalition government — that assumes we dislike welfare recipients as much as it does — that one of its biggest problems at the start of the year is the Centrelink debt fiasco.
Over the past six months, 170,000 people received debt notices from Centrelink, with the number gradually rising to 20,000 a week.
By comparison, only 20,000 debt notices were issued for the whole of 2015.