Junking Centrelink's antiquated computer system could save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, Prime Minister Tony Abbott says.
Centrelink's 1980s era IT system is set to be scrapped at a cost of $1 billion because of concerns it won't cope with a planned overhaul of the welfare system.
Asked if the government could afford to replace it at a time of budget restraint, the prime minister asked: "Can we afford not to have an efficient Centrelink system?"
"The antiquated system ... is costing us tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs because data has to be re-entered manually time and time again," he told reporters in Perth.
"We need to have a proper computer system which is capable of ensuring that people get paid in a timely way ... and that all of the administration is as efficient as it possibly can be."
Social Services Minister Scott Morrison said when the system was introduced 30 years ago about two-and-a-half million people received payments.
Now there are about 10 million welfare recipients, with $400 million spent on 50 million transactions every day.
"This is a system that still has manual processing attached to it, and it's been left to basically wither for many years," he told Sky News.
Labor backed the push to replace the Centrelink computer system.
"The case ... has been pretty strongly made that this system is groaning under the weight of what's being demanded of it," shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh told Sky News.
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