Taxpayers will recoup more than $110,000 after four Geelong people were prosecuted for welfare rorting on Monday. The Commonwealth took each of the defendants to court for obtaining financial advantage by deception after they each failed to report and/or under-reported their income to Centrelink while also claiming pensions. Magistrate Peter Mellas heard Belmont man Christopher Hamilton, 32, had been a carer to his ill mother while living in Tasmania, but continued claiming money as her carer even after August 2015, when he moved to the mainland to live in Geelong.
