Unemployment union disputes reports one in four Australians on welfare are rorting it

The Australian Unemployment Workers Union has disputed reports suggesting one in four people on welfare are abusing it.

A whopping 276,000 people are alleged to have rorted the system from July to September last year alone.

Neil Mitchell branded the figures ‘atrocious’ and said it suggested the system was easy to exploit.

‘We must have NewStart ? it’s there to help people in an emergency, but it’s not there to subsidise laziness,’ he said.

But Owen Bennett, president of the union, said the figures were misleading.

‘We’ve received many stories about people being fined and sanctioned for not attending interviews that they didn’t even know about, to begin with,’ he said.

‘It’s very unfair to call these people rorters when they’re actually being suspended for something they never did.’

Click PLAY below to hear Neil question Owen Bennett on 3AW