Centrelink is currently pursuing $4.93bn in unpaid debts, with the oldest dating back over 40 years - despite the government having nodded along to a recommendation to stop that nonsense. The debts, which number 1.34m, include some that are positively ancient, with 600 over 30 years old and a median value of $5,451.49. Another 76,800 are between 15 and 30 years old, carrying a median of $2,197.64. The single oldest is so old that Services Australia won't even say how much it is, citing privacy - which is perhaps a kindness, given the debtor might not have paid it back in the 1980s because they were a baby.

Advocates, including Economic Justice Australia, are calling for the debts to be wiped, and welfare expert Christopher Rudge from the University of Sydney says the calculations "cannot be trusted to be correct." He points out that for debts under $2,000, no human will even look at them - a computer will decide if they're "likely" correct. For older debts, the systems used to calculate them are "incompatible with today's auditing tools." In other words, Centrelink is trying to collect money based on math that might as well be written in hieroglyphics.

The government did agree in principle to the Robodebt royal commission's recommendation to reinstate a six-year statute of limitations on debt recovery, but has not said when - or if - it will apply to current debts. Meanwhile, interest keeps accruing on some debts, because nothing says compassion like charging interest on a debt from when your hairstyle was regrettable.

Last year, Services Australia found 147,773 debts that may have been unlawfully calculated using income apportionment, though freedom of information records suggest about 3 million Australians could have been affected. So far, only 78,000 people have claimed under the Income Apportionment Resolution Scheme, which has paid out a grand total of $92,000 in resolution payments. The government also announced it would provide resolution payments of up to $600 to affected individuals - a sum that barely covers the cost of the therapy you'd need after dealing with Centrelink.

Kate Allingham, CEO of Economic Justice Australia, notes that until 2017, there was a time limit preventing recovery after six years. She asks: "How is it fair for the government to expect you to have held on to a paper payslip for decades?" Indeed, in the 1990s, payslips were printed on actual paper, not stored in the cloud of a tech giant that will probably go bankrupt.

A spokesperson for the Department of Social Services insists the government believes "the recovery of social security related debts must always be legal, fair, and done so with compassion towards Australians who are doing it tough." They tout a $300m package that includes increasing the small debt waiver threshold and expanding special circumstances waivers. They claim the small debt reform has waived more than 1.1m debts - more than reintroducing the original six-year limit would have. Which is a bit like saying you've thrown a lot of people out of the lifeboat, so it's fine to keep drilling holes.

Rudge suggests that for debts held for decades, the cost of collection might exceed the debt itself, and that many debtors are likely in financial circumstances that are "prohibitive." In other words, chasing a $2,000 debt from 1985 is like trying to squeeze blood from a stone that has long since become a pebble, then dust.

So, Centrelink continues to pursue debts that might predate the internet, while the government considers - at some unspecified point - whether to stop. In the meantime, if you owe money from the era of shoulder pads, you might want to check if your payslips are still in that shoebox under the bed.