Hundreds of thousands of fraudulent flood assistance claims have been made this year, with more than $10 million dollars in support denied.
Payments have been offered to people impacted by the floods in New South Wales and South-East Queensland in February and the recent Sydney floods in July.
While money is being offered to those who need it, others are taking advantage of the system, according to Bill Shorten, Minister of Government Services.
He said that the safety net needs to be given to those who need it and that it makes my blood boil when I think there are some people out there taking advantage of other people's misery to steal $1,000.
The Disaster Recovery Allowance gives 13 weeks of support at the rate of the JobSeeker allowance and the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment of $1,000 per adult and $400 per child.
Between February and July there were 3.5 million claims for assistance.
Mr Shorten said it was important that all fraudulent claims were picked up by the system.
He said that he's mindful that this is taxpayer money and that taxpayers are happy to help Australians in trouble.
They do expect government agencies to be as careful as possible to separate the legitimate from the illegitimate. Shorten said he was concerned that opportunistic behaviour was robbing flood victims, and he was concerned that they had been, or could still be, opportunistic.
He said something.
I want to make sure that detection systems for fraud are what they should be and that it undermines public confidence in the provision of support for victims. He said there were now 793 criminal investigations underway.
More than $1 billion has been given to Australians this year in flood support.