THE KING v ATHENA MURRAY 6 NOVEMBER 2026
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE CUTHBERTSON J
Athena Murray, you have pleaded guilty to two crimes relating to false representations you made to Commonwealth governmental agencies about a child, Hayley Maree Murray, who you claimed was in your care. As to the first crime, between about 25 August 2009 and 8 November 2017 you, by deception, dishonestly obtained a financial advantage from the Commonwealth, namely the payments of Family Tax Benefit (FTB) and Baby Bonus in respect of Hayley contrary to s 134.2(1) of the Criminal Code (Cth). The child, Hayley, was never in your care. In fact, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt she never existed. Your ongoing deception as to Hayley’s existence resulted in you receiving payments of FTB and Baby Bonus totalling $51,760.46 to which you were not entitled. The second crime relates to you furnishing misleading information contrary to s 129(2) of the Health Insurance Act 1973 (Cth). This relates to you submitting a Medicare enrolment application for Hayley to be listed on your Medicare card on 11 December 2012 in circumstances where Hayley was not an eligible person entitled to Medicare benefits as she did not exist. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you enrolled Hayley for Medicare in order to facilitate your ongoing receipt of payments of FTB at a higher rate. In addition, I am dealing with your pleas of guilty to two summary offences of making a false statement in an application contrary to s 136.1(1) of the Criminal Code (Cth). Both of these charges relate to statements you made to the Department of Human Services to the effect that you did not have an interest in a trust knowing that statement was false. The first of those statements was made on 9 October 2013 in relation to a claim for Youth Allowance relating your daughter Tahlia. The second related to an application you made on 12 April 2017 for Newstart Allowance. At those times, you had an interest in a family trust called the Murray Morris Family Trust.
You were born in 1963. During the period of the offending, you were aged between 46 and 54 years old. You lived in various places in Tasmania and Queensland during that period. You have eight children. The eldest, Cassandra, was born in 1983 and the youngest, Taj, in 2007. Between 1983 and 2008, you claimed and were granted FTB or its equivalents in respect of each of your eight children. You received payments of that benefit continuously between 1983 and 2017. Your five eldest children were from a former marriage. In 1996, some years after you separated from your former husband, you commenced a relationship with Colin Morris. In 1997, you moved to Tasmania with Mr Morris and your children. You went on to have three children with Mr Morris; the first, Tahlia, was born in 1997. Mr Morris also had a child from his previous relationship. Her name is Hayley Maree Morris and she was born on 26 March 1983. She lived with you and Mr Morris in Tasmania.
On 26 May 2009, you lodged a claim for FTB and baby bonus in respect of Hayley Murray. This claim was unsuccessful because you had not provided a proof of birth although the claim form contained an instruction to do so. Centrelink sent you a letter on 2 June 2009 advising you that they required proof of the child’s birth. An online document record indicates that you contacted Centrelink by telephone on 16 June 2009 and were told that would need to lodge another claim as no proof of birth had been provided. You lodged a birth certificate for Hayley Murray at the Devonport office of Centrelink and a further claim for family assistance in relation to the child on 3 September 2009. The form was signed and dated on 28 August 2009. In that form, it was stated that you were the parent of a female child called Hayley Maree Murray born on 26 March 2009 and that you expected her to be in your care for at least the next 26 weeks. Notably, this child shared the first and middle name and birth day and month of Mr Morris’ daughter Hayley Maree Morris.
The birth certificate for Hayley Murray that facilitated this claim was issued by a delegate of the Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages Tasmania (Registrar) on 21 July 2009 in the following circumstances. On 28 May 2009, you lodged a Birth Registration Statement with the Registrar which advised that Hayley Murray had been born on 26 March 2009 at home with a gestation period of 40 weeks and that the doctor or midwife was Cassandra Murray. A Notice of Birth dated 29 June 2009 and bearing your signature was also submitted. That notice stated that Hayley was not born stillborn, that her birthweight was 3595 g and the length of gestation was 40 weeks. The notice requested that the birth certificate be posted to your daughter Cassandra’s address in Moonah rather than your PO Box or residential address. On 7 July 2009, a letter was sent to you on behalf of the Registrar requesting that you and Cassandra complete the enclosed statutory declarations and return them for further consideration. Those statutory declarations, dated 17 July 2009, were completed by you and Cassandra and lodged with the Registrar. Cassandra’s stated “I was at the birth of Hayley Maree Murray on the 26th March 2009 at 150 Kings Road Sheffield, I assisted at the birth of the baby girl who was born at 2.10 AM and weighed 3.595 kg. The mother of Hayley (Athena Murray) is my mother.” Your statutory declaration stated the following: “I Athena Murray gave birth to a baby girl at 2:10 AM at 150 Kings Road Sheffield on 26th of March 2009. Weight was 3.595 kg. My daughter Cassandra Murray witnessed and assisted at the birth of my daughter Hayley Maree Murray.”
You were advised that your claim for FTB and Baby Bonus in respect of Hayley had been granted on 9 September 2009. The grant letter stated you were required to advise Centrelink if Hayley was no longer in your care. You continued to receive FTB in respect of Hayley until 8 November 2017. In that intervening period, you were periodically sent letters by Centrelink reminding you of your obligations to tell them of any changes relating to the children in your care.
Prior to October 2017, you also made a number of other representations to Centrelink regarding Hayley. On 9 September 2013, you submitted an Immunisation Exemption Conscientious Objection form to Centrelink in respect of Hayley. Part of that form was completed by a medical practitioner on 6 September 2013. That practitioner declared they had explained the benefits and risks associated with immunisation to the parent of the named child and informed them of the potential dangers if the child is not immunised. The form also included a parent declaration bearing your signature indicating that you had discussed the benefits and risks of immunisation with the provider and considered that information. You declared that you had chosen not to have your child immunised due to your personal, philosophical, religious or medical beliefs. The child’s details on the form included the Medicare number assigned to Hayley. The provision of this form to Centrelink enabled you to be paid FTB for Hayley at a higher rate.
On 9 October 2013 and 6 August 2015, you completed Parental Income Details forms in respect of claims made for Youth Allowance by your daughter Tahlia. In both of those forms you stated that Hayley was a dependent child in respect of whom you were receiving FTB.
Finally on 12 April 2017, you lodged an online claim for Newstart Allowance. In the claim form, you stated that Hayley was a child in your care.
The Medicare number included in the Immunisation Exemption Conscientious Objection form had been obtained by you as a consequence of the conduct which gave rise to the second count on the indictment. On 11 December 2012, you lodged a Medicare enrolment application form at the Devonport Service Centre. The form, which bore your signature, listed an additional person to be shown on your Medicare card, namely Hayley. It attached the record of birth for the child Hayley issued by the Registrar on 21 July 2009. The application was processed and resulted in a new consumer record being created for Hayley. A new Medicare card was issued to you and included Hayley. The information you provided to Medicare in this context was misleading in a material particular because Hayley did not exist at the time and was not eligible to be enrolled in Medicare. Centrelink’s online document records for the period immediately prior to lodging the Medicare enrolment form indicate you had been in contact with Centrelink by phone on 3 December 2012 regarding your FTB payments. The records referred to health checks being completed in relation to Hayley and Taj. Those health checks apparently included discussion about any exemptions that were being applied for. In respect of the entry relating to Hayley, you are recorded as advising that she would be included in “Reco” for the 2012/2013 financial year for the FTB A supplement to be paid. The Medicare enrolment form for Hayley was submitted eight days later. It is clear this action was undertaken in order to facilitate the ongoing payment of FTB in respect of this child.
The Department of Human Services commenced a review of your entitlements following a tipoff by a member of the public. Enquiries were made of the Tasmanian Home Education Advisory Council, Medicare and Medibank Private, TT Line travel records, and passport information from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. None of those enquiries identified any record of Hayley existing. There was no record of any Medicare or Medibank Private claims being made in respect of Hayley. Hayley was not recorded as a person travelling with you on a TT Line ferry on any occasion. Passports had been issued to you and your three children with Mr Morris, however, not in respect of Hayley.
On 24 October 2017, search warrants were executed at various locations and vehicles associated with you in Airlie Beach, Queensland. You were not at the initial search location. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that an AFP officer involved in those searches contacted you on your mobile phone. He explained that search warrants were being conducted on your vehicles at a holiday park where you were known to stay and that the on-site manager was acting as an independent observer. You told the officer that you were currently in Townsville on holidays with your grandchildren and would not be returning to Airlie Beach for the search warrants that day but at a later time.
On 31 October 2017, you contacted Centrelink by telephone. At the outset of that call, you told the operator that you needed to remove a child out of your care and off your card, that you did not have the child in your care and that the child was Hayley. You were asked when Hayley left your care. You responded, “Quite a while ago”. The call was transferred to another person. You told them that Hayley was not actually in your care. You acknowledged you had been paid by Centrelink for Hayley. The operator observed that someone had to have claimed for her. You responded that you had claimed for her but that at the time it happened, you had been through five family deaths. You said that Hayley was a “dead baby”. You explained that her birth was registered but her death was not, because it was before the 24 week mark. You then said the following:
“But at the time we’d lost so many people that year and we are under so much stress….I lost a brother and a sister, and my auntie committed suicide just before her death, and my sister was going through cervical cancer, but she ended up dying by the end of that year…and then there were all these other members of the family”.
You told Centrelink that Hayley had been born at home, she was born stillborn and you did not register her death. You claimed that you had the birth certificate paperwork already there as you were expecting. When you were asked questions about that, you then said it must have been after the birth that you asked for the paperwork because you had to register her birth. You claimed that you were not dealing well with death at the time. You said there was no midwife or doctor present and no funeral. You said that Hayley was buried in a private plot at your home in Tasmania. You agreed during the course of the phone call that you are not entitled to payments for Hayley but said, “In my mind I was just trying to keep her alive”.
During the course of the investigation, a search warrant was executed at Births Deaths And Marriages Tasmania. Items seized included a Recognition of Early Pregnancy Loss Application Form that was signed by you and was received by the Registrar on 7 November 2017. The form indicated you had suffered an early pregnancy loss in Tasmania and identified Hayley as the lost baby. The form stated that the loss occurred on 26 March 2009 at 23 weeks gestation and that the baby weighed 380 g.
You were interviewed in respect of this matter on 12 February 2018 and made no comment. A complaint and summons was filed in respect of this matter on 24 April 2019. The summons was unable to be served. The initial complaint was withdrawn on 21 January 2020. It was refiled on 16 March 2022. On 13 September 2022, a further complaint was filed and a first instance warrant was issued by the Magistrates Court. On 25 January 2023, you were arrested in Queensland and extradited to Tasmania.
You initially pleaded not guilty to the complaint on 25 May 2023. You first appeared in this Court on 5 September 2023. The indictment to which you have pleaded guilty was filed on 16 January 2025, shortly before the matter was listed for trial. It was only then that you indicated that you would plead guilty to indictment. Those pleas were entered in 2025.
During the course of the plea in mitigation conducted in May 2025, you maintained that Hayley was a stillborn baby. It is the prosecution’s case that Hayley was never born and never existed. Secondly, you asserted that Mr Morris was controlling and that there were financial issues in the relationship arising from his gambling. I was told that Mr Morris assaulted you when you were about 20 weeks pregnant and that around that time, you gave birth to Hayley. You claimed that in the following days, Mr Morris told you that it was necessary to register the birth and presented you with paperwork to sign. You also claimed that he told you that you needed to claim Centrelink for the child. You claim to have told Mr Morris that the documents could not be honestly signed, but that you went ahead with the claim because you feared Mr Morris. You claimed that when you had arguments with Mr Morris, he told you he would use the fact you had committed a Centrelink offence against you. It was put on your behalf that, but for Mr Morris’s conduct towards you and his request to make the relevant claims, you would not have engaged in this conduct. Prosecution did not accept that your conduct was at Mr Morris’s request and while subject to him exerting pressure on you.
A disputed facts hearing was conducted on 17 and 18 December 2025 to resolve these disputes. Prosecution accept that the onus was on them to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Hayley was never born and never existed as it was an aggravating feature of your offending. Your explanation that your offending was the result of pressure from Mr Morris is a matter which may reduce the gravity of your offending and must be proved by you on the balance of probabilities: R v Olbrich (1999) 199 CLR 270, 281 [27].
A number of documents were tendered on the disputed facts hearing. The Crown called your daughter, Cassandra Elliott (nee Murray). You gave evidence and also called your mother, Beverley Murray, and youngest son, Taj Murray, as witnesses.
On 13 May 2026, I announced my findings of fact. First, I found, beyond reasonable doubt that the account you gave during the course of the disputed facts hearing of being pregnant, learning of that in February 2009, and giving birth prematurely to a stillborn child on 26 March 2009 was false. I was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the child, the subject of your dishonest claims for FTB and baby bonus and the misleading information provided to Medicare, was never born and never existed. Second, I was not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the false representations you made to Centrelink and Medicare were at the direction of and under pressure from Mr Morris. In my view, the evidence overwhelmingly established that you were responsible for making the claim to Centrelink and applying for the child Hayley to be enrolled in Medicare and included on your card. What follows are my reasons for so finding.
Cassandra, your mother and you all gave evidence relevant to the first issue of disputed fact.
As to Cassandra’s evidence generally, she confirmed that she had been sentenced in this Court in 2021 and had given a formal undertaking to cooperate with authorities, included by giving evidence, if necessary, in proceedings against you. It was her understanding that this undertaking would be taken into account on her sentence. Giving evidence on the disputed facts hearing was in fulfilment of that undertaking. I have kept this in mind when assessing her evidence. Despite that benefit, I found Cassandra to be a credible and reliable witness. She gave evidence clearly and without embellishment. She readily acknowledged her involvement in signing the false statutory declaration that was used to support obtaining the birth certificate for Hayley. She described a close relationship with you as she grew up, and how good you were with her own children. She did not leave home until she was aged 23 which was sometime in 2006. She gave evidence that your close relationship continued after she left home. After she left home, you maintained daily contact by phone and visited each other frequently. Cassandra had been present at the home births of her four youngest siblings. On 8 February 2009, Cassandra gave birth to her second child. She was living in the Hobart area at the time. You were present during the birth of your grandchild and stayed with Cassandra for a period after the birth. She has no clear memory of when she first visited you at the family home in Sheffield after the birth of her second child, but her baby would have been more than one month old, maybe three or four months old. The first time she heard of a baby called Hayley born in 2009 was when her home was searched by the AFP in 2017. She gave evidence that she spoke to you about the search by phone after the event. You told her that you had made up a “fake child”. She denied being present when you gave birth to a baby in 2009. She had no knowledge of a pregnancy. She denied any knowledge of a burial site. She gave evidence that she had a phone call with you in 2019 during which she discussed a court case she was going through and how you were handling your own charges. She says that during that phone call, you told her that you were going to blame other people in the family and mentioned that you were going to say that you had a stillborn child. It was her evidence that you had not previously mentioned a stillborn child. After this call, she decided she was not going to have contact with you because it did not seem healthy anymore.
By contrast, the evidence you gave about the pregnancy and birth was internally inconsistent as well as inconsistent with other evidence. I did not consider you to be a credible witness. You presented as fundamentally dishonest. I ultimately concluded that I could not accept any aspect of your evidence unless it was corroborated by objective and credible evidence.
You gave evidence that you found out you were pregnant when you sought treatment after you were assaulted by Mr Morris. Your evidence of the circumstances of the assault, its timing, and how it led to the discovery of your pregnancy varied throughout the course of your evidence. You initially said you had been in a car accident in Moonah when visiting Cassandra in February 2009. You claimed that on your return to Sheffield that you told Mr Morris that “I really need to have our property sorted out; I want this over” because you were now pregnant, you wanted to be separate from Mr Morris. By property, this was a reference to the family home in Sheffield being held in Mr Morris’s name. You claim he would not do it, lost his cool and told you he would kill you and the baby. You claim he attacked you, you ended up unconscious and then ending up in Hobart with facial injuries. You claim you had injuries to face including a broken cheekbone, nose, jaw and chipped teeth. You relied on a letter from the ENT clinic of the Royal Hobart Hospital in support of this assertion. That letter confirmed you had an injury to the left side of your face but recorded that you reported incurring it on 1 February 2009. The cause of the injury is not recorded. The letter is dated 27 February 2009. When you were questioned further about the timing, you said you went to Hobart on 1 February and that the assault occurred two days earlier. You were then asked if you knew you were pregnant around 1 February 2009 and you said no. As I understand the evidence you then gave, you claimed that the pregnancy was confirmed after you received the facial injuries from the assault by Mr Morris. You claimed that your GP told you were pregnant and that this pregnancy was confirmed by another doctor in Hobart. Not only are these two accounts inconsistent, but I do not accept that you would not have discussed this pregnancy with your daughter Cassandra while you are visiting her in the Hobart area. I accept her evidence that you never told her you were pregnant.
This account is also inconsistent with Centrelink records. On 17 March 2009, you are recorded as making contact with Centrelink regarding an appointment you were due to attend at the Devonport office on 19 March 2009. You advised you had been involved in a car crash and could not go to that appointment. You were then told that you needed to attend the office within the next 14 days. The record reports the following: “however customer is due to have a baby within the next 14 days, therefore is unable to attend”. It is, of course, the case that you claim the child Hayley was born within 14 days of that date, namely on 26 March 2009. The Crown argue that this contact with Centrelink is consistent with preparing to make a false claim. I agree. I am satisfied you provided this information to Centrelink on 17 March 2009. It is consistent with the false information you provided of the child being born full term when you applied for the birth certificate. Your evidence in this Court and your contact with Centrelink in 2017 about having given birth to a stillborn child, however, is to the effect the child was born well before the expected due date.
The further matter that makes your explanation simply implausible is that you claim the child was born on the same day as Mr Morris’s daughter, Hayley Maree Morris, and was then given the same first and middle name in circumstances where she continued to be a member of the extended family. The evidence that has been given about the decision to name the child Hayley is frankly unbelievable and inconsistent. First, you claimed that Mr Morris decided to name the child Hayley because the child was born on the same day as his own daughter and was a “gift”. Your mother, by contrast, gave evidence that after you told her you were pregnant, you had a discussion about names and that you said Mr Morris wanted to call the child Hayley if she was a girl. This discussion occurred, according to your mother, before the child was stillborn. I consider that the decision to allocate the same name and birthday to the fictional child was intended to assist you to remember the relevant details if questioned.
Fourth you also gave inconsistent accounts of the gestation of the stillborn child. During your evidence. you claimed the child had been born at 20 weeks gestation. The account you gave to Centrelink in 2017 and in the subsequent documents submitted to the registrar concerning early pregnancy loss both asserted that the child had been born at around 23 weeks gestation.
Your mother gave evidence that you told her you were pregnant when you were both at a funeral on 14 March 2009. She gave evidence that she received a phone call from you towards the end of March and that you told her you lost the baby, you were crying and said it was all your fault. She also gave evidence that you showed her where you had buried the baby. I did not find her evidence convincing. I also found it difficult to accept that you did not advise her of the pregnancy at an earlier time in circumstances where I understood you to be very close.
As to the second issue, my rejection of your explanation that your offending was the result of pressure and was at Mr Morris’ direction does not mean that I reject that there was any family violence involved in the relationship. You gave evidence of extensive violence towards you and towards your children. I approached this evidence, like all of your evidence, with caution for the reasons I have already stated. A report completed by a psychologist and provided to your GP that was tendered during the course of the disputed facts hearing establishes you attended counselling on six occasions from between December 2017 and January 2018. It referred to trauma in your life, an “abusive marriage”, financial difficulties and Centrelink prosecution contributing to your presentation but falls short of independently verifying the truthfulness of your account of family violence perpetrated by Mr Morris. Your mother gave evidence of observing bruises on you in 2009 and again in 2015, but as I understood her evidence, there was no discussion about the source of the bruising. Taj gave an account of witnessing you being assaulted by Mr Morris in 2017. From my understanding, it seemed to have occurred around the time the AFP conducted their searches as your granddaughters were with you at the time. Cassandra, by contrast, denied witnessing Mr Morris committing any family violence against you. She had witnessed her own father’s violence towards you, but not Mr Morris. She confirmed that Mr Morris did use corporal punishment when disciplining your sons, but denied it was excessive, and gave evidence it was in the context of the boys engaging in problematic behaviour such as breaking into neighbouring property. She had no knowledge of you having any facial injuries. She recalled that the two of you were involved in a car crash in Hobart shortly after she gave birth in 2009 when another car ran into the back of your parked car. You said that your face hit the steering wheel, but she did not see any injury.
Ultimately, the question for me was whether Mr Morris directed you to make and maintain the false claims and whether you did so because of pressure he exerted on you. I was not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that this was the case. In my view, the evidence overwhelmingly established that you were responsible for making the claims independently of any such direction and pressure. Your account that Mr Morris filled out various paperwork that you had to sign, varied during the course of your evidence. At times, you refused to acknowledge that it was your signature or initials on the relevant documents, claiming that Mr Morris was known to get Cassandra and the “real” Hayley to forge your signatures. I do not accept that evidence. I have given careful consideration of the documents that are before me that bear or purport to bear your signature. They are all similar. The handwriting in most of the documents is consistent. I am satisfied you completed them and signed them. The evidence is consistent with you routinely contacting Centrelink in respect of your various benefits and the progress of claims. You claimed the payments of FTB were being made to a bank account which was jointly held with Mr Morris and yourself in the name of the family trust. You claimed not to have your own bank account. It was established during the course of the hearing that there was a bank account to which you were the sole signatory and it was that bank account to which the Centrelink benefits were paid. You denied being responsible for completing the immunisation exemption form in circumstances where Medicare records confirm you attended the very medical practitioner who completed the form on the day it was completed. The only reasonable inference is that you had the doctor complete the form on that day. You continued to refer to Hayley being in your care in forms completed for the purpose of Tahlia’s receipt of benefits. You also maintained Hayley was in your care when you made an application for Newstart allowance at a time when you claimed to have already separated from Mr Morris, or were at least living largely separate lives. Your contact with Centrelink on 17 March 2009 advising of the impending birth of a baby is inconsistent with your account that the paperwork for the birth certificate and Centrelink payments were presented to you after the birth of a stillborn baby by Mr Morris and over your initial objection. As I have already concluded, you had put the plan in train yourself before 23 March 2009. Your evidence that Mr Morris exerted financial control in the relationship is otherwise not born out by the evidence. Cassandra observed you to be controlling of Mr Morris and of the family’s finances. She recalled you discussing the family trust in her presence, and that you explained assets could be placed there for protection. She considered you to be financially and emotionally violent towards Mr Morris. She agreed the house at Sheffield was bought in Mr Morris’s name with your money. You gave evidence that this occurred in the context of not having finalised your divorce from your previous husband. It seems more likely this was a decision undertaken for the purpose of attempting to protect your assets at that time. Other evidence suggests you were very involved in the financial arrangements of the family, including approving payments from the family trust and arranging the leasing of equipment for a business you jointly operated with Mr Morris.
Your explanation now is in stark contrast with that given to Centrelink on 31 October 2017, to the effect of wanting to keep the “baby alive”. You also claimed in evidence that you made that call to Centrelink with no knowledge of the search warrants being executed at your property one week earlier. Not only is the coincidence implausible, it is contrary to the statements made by two AFP officers involved in the searches who both said you were contacted by telephone and advised of the searches on the day they occurred.
Your maintenance of these implausible explanations for your offending conduct underscores your fundamental dishonesty and speak of your lack of remorse. These are serious examples of such crimes. You took significant steps to give effect to your scheme to obtain payments for a non-existent child. You involved your own daughter in the offending, a matter I also consider to be aggravating. There is little to mitigate your conduct. The evidence tends to suggest that this offending was based on greed rather than need. You and Mr Morris had a business in Sheffield at the time you made the claim and at least two residential properties between you: one in Sheffield and one in Scamander. I accept that the home in Sheffield was destroyed by fire in 2013, but it was not suggested it was uninsured. Around that time, a significant amount of money from the family trust was expended on a boat. You were able to purchase a business in Queensland around 2013/2014. Little information has been put before me to establish that there were any particularly pressing financial issues at the time of making the claim, other than your general explanation that Mr Morris was spending money gambling and on a horseracing program. There was no other information before me capable of supporting that claim. I accept there were a number of traumatic events in your life in around 2009, but only the death of your aunt and your sister’s declining health predated the commencement of this offending. I do not accept that either of these events contributed to your offending in any causative way.
You are now 63 years old. You have been living in Queensland since 2013. You have had two major relationships in your life, the first to the father of your first five children which commenced when you were 17 years old, and the second with Mr Morris which commenced in 1996. Mr Morris died in 2019 after you separated in about 2017.
For a period after your offending came to light in 2017, you ceased relying on Centrelink payments. I understand you recently recommenced receiving benefits. Your youngest son Taj is now 18 but he is still living with you. That has been made difficult because of the restrictions I have more recently placed on your bail preventing you from returning to Queensland pending the resolution of these matters. He has otherwise been reliant on you to transport him to sporting events. I am told you live a frugal life, relying on friends and family and small amounts of employment. You also told me that you have been assisting in the care of your father who is in declining health and suffering from dementia and lives in Tasmania. As I understand it, when you are free to do so, you will return to Queensland and it is unlikely that you will be having such a hands on role in his care in that event.
You have relevant prior matters. In 1997 and 2003, you were dealt with on charges of stealing without conviction. In 2000, you were convicted and fined on a charge of stealing. In 2010, you were again dealt with on a charge of stealing without conviction. The outcomes and limited details in relation to these offences suggest they were at the lower end of the scale of seriousness, but are indicative overall of your dishonesty and the need for specific deterrence.
I take into account your pleas of guilty. For the reasons I have already outlined, I do not consider that the plea or any of your subsequent conduct is suggestive of any genuine remorse. The weight to be afforded your pleas of guilty is also reduced by the disputes that were raised and required to be resolved by this Court. I accept there is some, albeit muted, utilitarian value associated with the pleas as it has avoided the need for a potentially complex trial. The interview conducted with you about this offending occurred over eight years ago. There has been a long delay in resolving this matter, but you have contributed to that delay. I am satisfied on the information before me that you actively avoided service of the complaint, and that it was ultimately necessary to extradite you. The delay since you were committed to this Court principally flows from your initial plea of not guilty and the need to conduct a disputed facts hearing.
General deterrence is the most important sentencing factor in offences against the social security system. Such offences are widespread, relatively easy to commit and can be difficult to detect. The proper functioning of the social security system relies on the honesty of claimants and recipients of benefits. A significant proportion of the Commonwealth’s revenue is expended in providing these important benefits to those with genuine need. Compliance costs place a burden on the system and ultimately reduces the revenue available for the funding of other programs.
I am required to impose a sentence that is of a severity appropriate in all of the circumstances of the offences and have regard to such of the matters set out in s 16A(2) of the Crimes Act as are relevant and known to the Court. I have already referred to those matters. The crimes on the indictment are, as I have already observed, serious examples of their kind. They have their analogy with frauds on the social security system effected by use of false identities. The offence of dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception was, in particular, prolonged, brazen and sophisticated. That offence alone attracts a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment. The maximum penalty for an offence against s 129(2) of the Health Insurance Act is $10,000 or five years’ imprisonment. The offences of making a false statement in an application contrary to s 136.1(1) of the Criminal Code attract a maximum penalty of 12 months imprisonment. I am satisfied that a sentence of imprisonment is the only appropriate sentence in all of the circumstances of the case. The two summary offences you have pleaded guilty to are in a different category but also demonstrate the extent of your dishonest dealings with Centrelink. I take into account your personal circumstances, however, there is no suggestion that they had any causative role in your offending or operate to reduce your moral culpability. General and specific deterrence, as I have already mentioned, are relevant and important considerations.
Athena Murray, you are convicted of both charges on the indictment and counts 4 and 6 on complaint 90990/2022.
On the charge of dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception, you are sentence to two years imprisonment from today. On the charge of furnishing misleading information, I impose a sentence of six months’ imprisonment to commence on 5 August 2028. On the two charges of making a false statement on an application, I impose a single sentence of one month imprisonment to commence on 5 February 2029, that is cumulative to the other two sentences. The total effective sentence I impose is one of two years and four months’ imprisonment. I order that you be released after serving 12 months of that sentence upon entering into your own recognizance in the sum of $5,000 without surety on condition that you will be of good behaviour for a period of three years following your release from prison. I order, pursuant to s 21B of the Crimes Act, that you make reparation to the Commonwealth of Australia in the sum of $33,342.30.