Grateful dead get cheques in Australia

May 28, 2009, 1:44 GMT

Sydney - Dead people, prisoners and 27,000 Australians living abroad got a share of a 10-billion-Australian-dollar (7- billion-US-dollar) stimulus package that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said would create jobs, keep cash registers ringing and stave off recession.

The cheques mailed to the deceased, the incarcerated and the resident abroad amounted to 40 million Australian dollars, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) said Thursday.

The payments to 16,000 deceased estates alone could sting taxpayers for 14 million Australian dollars.

'It is the role of the executor in administering the proceeds of the deceased estate to determine how the tax bonus payment will be distributed to beneficiaries,' the ATO said in response to queries about where the money would go.

The ATO didn't say how many prisoners had received windfalls, but said 25 million Australian dollars had been deposited in the bank accounts of around 25,000 expatriates.

'Around 99.5 per cent of the stimulus money went exactly where we intended it to go,' Small Business Minister Craig Emerson said. 'Do you sit and wait and try and get that up to 100 per cent and have no stimulus?'

Labor Member of Parliament Janelle Saffin said that mortality was unavoidable - as were payments to the dead.

'Yes, it's unfortunate and sad that sometimes people die, and that money goes to their estates,' she said.

Opposition Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull identified the grateful dead as evidence of a spendthrift government.

'It just demonstrates the absurdity of this cash-splash,' Turnbull said. 'Just shrugging your shoulders and saying it was unavoidable when you're wasting billions of dollars of reckless spending is not good enough.'