The enthusiasm with which the minister embraced the proposal, when it was floated with him by Ben Fordham on Sydney radio last week, begs the question as to whether or not he sees his brief as helping the disadvantaged or just cutting the welfare spend.

During the interview Mr Tudge spoke disparagingly of the checks and balances put in place by his own department and confirmed he was actively considering moves to allow a benefit recipient to be immediately docked a day's pay if they failed to turn up on time for a work program.

"At the moment if somebody doesn't turn up [the work for the dole provider] would have to inform the job service provider [who] would have a bit of discretion as to whether action should be taken," he said. "If they decide it should, they have to refer it to Centrelink [which] has further discretion and has to assess whether there's any reasonable excuse."

The sad fact, and one Mr Tudge should be well aware of given he is the head of the department, is Human Services' checks and balances are imperfect and when they fail the impacts on the recipient and their family are severe.

David Evers, 33, a Centrelink recipient from Melton, knows all about this. When he failed to turn up to work on time his employer contacted Centrelink immediately.

Centrelink, apparently without making any concerted effort to find out the circumstances behind Mr Evers's failure to appear, suspended his payments for eight weeks.

Mr Evers says the whole thing was a misunderstanding; he had been given the wrong start time and the place he was meant to go to was also changed at short notice.

It is hard to disagree with Labor's employment spokesman Ed Husic, who said the government should make sure the existing system was working before giving private operators, who are well remunerated out of the public purse, arbitrary powers to punish job seekers.

Given the hoops would-be Centrelink recipients have to jump through thanks to more than a decade of tightening up the system by Labor and Coalition governments, it is unlikely there are many secret millionaires on work ready and work-for-the-dole schemes.

The arbitrary denial of payments can, as Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Cassandra Goldie notes, "quickly lead to homelessness or people going hungry".

Knee-jerk populism such as that displayed by Mr Tudge can have dramatic and lasting consequences on people who, having lost their place in the workforce, are striving to return to employment.

It could also have the unintended consequence of persuading others that work programs are more likely to lead to the loss of benefits than work.