A COUPLE received more than $100,000 in government benefits over a decade despite living a life of luxury in eastern suburbs mansions and holding large amounts of cash, a tribunal has been told.
Jian Wang and his wife Yan Ping Gu received Newstart and parenting payments as well as Austudy benefits from August 1995 after they migrated from China until March 2007.
But documents showed they owned a $3.1 million Point Piper mansion and another eastern suburbs home worth $1.8 million.
Details of the pair's finances - including $600,000 in cash kept in a cupboard - were revealed in a decision by the Federal Administrative Appeals Tribunal last week.
The case went to court after the pair argued they shouldn't have to repay the dole and other payments because they didn't own the homes, as their parents had sent money from overseas to buy them.
Mr Wang and Ms Gu also tried to argue they separated in 2001.
The tribunal rejected both claims but is yet to rule on whether they should repay the benefits.
Centrelink has asset limits for parenting payments, Austudy and Newstart allowances.
The limits vary but are usually about $200,000 and don't include the value of a family home.
Centrelink began an investigation into Ms Gu's entitlement to social security in March 2007 and began moves to claw back funds from Mr Wang.
Centrelink argued that until May 2004 the couple had owned both eastern suburbs houses jointly and that, since March 2004, Mr Wang owned the Woollahra property and Ms Gu owned the Point Piper property.
The tribunal heard the couple bought the two houses with $600,000 in cash sent to Australia by Mr Wang's elderly parents in 1996 and $900,000 sent in 1998 by Ms Gu's mother, and other money.
The couple now claim the houses belong to their elderly parents, who live in Shanghai, even though title deeds show the pair own them.
Tribunal member Peter Taylor SC was sceptical, saying that if their parents owned the houses then they had committed a crime by breaching the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act by not telling the Federal Treasurer of the purchase.
Source: News