Cancer survivor Tony Barber got a Christmas present from the government he could never have imagined - a debt-recovery notice for $4500 dating back to his recovery after chemotherapy.
The welfare agency's letter plunged the 29-year-old Sydney man into stress as it told him it was his responsibility to provide evidence of work and welfare payments from six years ago while he was fighting for his life.
Mr Barber is among many welfare recipients who have received erroneous debt recovery notices from Centrelink over the Christmas and New Year period.
He stood beside his local member, Anthony Albanese, on Friday as the Labor MP for the inner-western seat of Grayndler told his story as an example of the government's "callous" attitude to those wrongly targeted by the welfare agency's data matching system.