A Waverley woman was overpaid $167,000 when she told Centrelink that she was still caring for a friend who disappeared interstate in 2016.
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Ann Louise Wooders, 60, pleaded guilty to four counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception between August 2016 and October 2021.
Chief Justice Alan Blow said that Wooders had obtained payments when not eligible.
He said Kathleen Greta Hodgetts, a disability support pensioner because of agoraphobia and a back condition, lived in Wooders' rented premises in 2011.
She had legitimately received carer's payments until 2016.
"During 2016, Hodgetts, who was on a drug treatment order, travelled to New South Wales accompanied by Wooders," he said.
He said Hodgetts left Wooders after two days and went to Victoria.
"A warrant was issued, but she never returned to Tasmania and has lived in Victoria since August 2016," Chief Justice Blow said.
He said that Wooders then became ineligible for the carers allowance and carers payment she had been receiving.
"She had an obligation to tell the Commonwealth," he said.
"She intentionally omitted to tell authorities of the change in circumstances and continued to receive two benefits."
Chief Justice Blow said she made a number of false representations and received the carers payment between September 16, 2016, and October 4, 2021.
Wooders asked for advanced payments a number of times during the period several of which were granted.
In April 2021, she was denied an application for Hodgetts' pension to be paid directly into her bank account.
Chief Justice Blow said the payments came to an end after Hodgetts' updated her address and details in Victoria, triggering a review.
"On June 30, 2021, Centrelink spoke to Ms Wooders, but she said she was still providing care," he said.
Chief Justice Blow calculated that Wooders would have been eligible for Jobseeker and Newstart allowance payments worth $102,582 if she had declared the carer's payments redundant.
The net loss to the Commonwealth was $65,365, which significantly mitigated the crimes.
Chief Justice Blow ordered that the amount be paid back although it was unlikely the full amount would ever be recovered.
He said Wooders now lived in rented accommodation and did not have any significant assets.
"She lives alone and suffers from depression," he said.
In 1993, she was jailed for two years on 85 counts of stealing and had nine convictions from driving without a licence between 2015 and 2019.
Chief Justice Blow said a home detention assessment report suggested that Wooders' had no contrition about the offences.
However, defence lawyer Olivia Jenkins said there had been a misunderstanding about what Wooders' had told the officer.
He said he considered a 12-month home detention order the most appropriate sentence.
"If she had been found unsuitable [for the order], I would certainly have sent her to prison," he said.
Wooders' case was first heard in the Launceston Magistrates Court in November 2021.
In 2022, Wooders was ordered to forfeit $7000 of a total of $20,000 bail recognizance she posted for drug trafficker Robert Craig Williams.
And in 2023, Wooders lost $8000 of a total of $20,000 she posted for Robert Williams' brother Stephen James Williams after he breached bail.
Wooders sentence compares with a nine-month prison sentence for an East Coast woman in 2017 who obtained a financial advantage by claiming $33,000 from Centrelink.
In 2013, a Mowbray mother of four was jailed for three months with six months suspended for Centrelink fraud.
Also in 2013, a Beaconsfield woman received a three month suspended jail sentence after receiving a $21,400 overpayment from Centrelink.
In 2022, a 29-year-old Hobart man received an eighteen month home detention order after pleading guilty to obtaining a financial advantage by deception in relation to $109,000 of Centrelink payments he was not entitled to.