Centrelink debt - An open letter

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: xxxxxxxccc <xxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, January 5, 2017
Subject: Centrelink debt - An open letter
To: hank@humanservices.gov.au, Malcolm.Turnbull.MP@aph.gov.au, Christian.porter.mp@aph.gov.au, Alan.tudge.mp@aph.gov.au
Cc: peter.martin@theage.com.au, anderson.steph@abc.net.au, kkachor@nine.com.au


I have been encouraged to write to you directly with my story, since you all claim nothing is wrong with the Centrelink debt collection system.

I apparently owe $5000 from 2011-2012. I have no records from this time and would have great difficulty in tracking down the records that Centrelink is asking for so I have been forced to enter into a repayment plan at $221 a month for several years. I may have been overpaid. I honestly can't remember.

What I can remember is not living a life of luxury. I was struggling to pay my rent and feed myself. I was often taking on short contract labour jobs under dangerous conditions that no work cover authority would permit. Forced to operate under an ABN for $20hr, far less than minimum pay. Which in turn forced me to not declare my income accurately as I couldn't afford to survive if I paid company taxes or had my Newstart allowance reduced etc. I was stuck in this hell hole because successive governments on both sides have wittled away at employees rights for decades.

You hand out ABNs like discount vouchers with no training or adequate background checks to ensure that people operating businesses are aware of  their legal requirements.

Getting Newstart (or any government benefit) can often take 8 or more weeks before your first payment arrives. The current systems forces you to seek out any work you can find. Your only choice is to spend weeks going through job interviews for a stable job through a legitimate employer ( which you can't afford to attend) whilst also going through the Centrelink process as a back up plan. OR take on any work you can find, no matter how underpaid or how dangerous it is.

The jobseeker network is nothing but a fraudulent drain on our economy. Centrelink force you to sign up and attend an "interview" which is nothing more than filling in more paperwork and being shown where the 20yr old computers you can use for free to search for a job are. They tell you to come back in 3 months. They actually won't help you for your first 3 months, the first 2 of which you have no money.

I know I was suicidal at the time and remained so for several years but kept myself alive by thinking of a nicer future and slowly changing my life around and working towards my dream job.

I'm not there yet but I'm on the cusp and things have improved dramatically for me even though as we speak I have less than $5 to my name, I now have a great support network around me that can lend me money and I have a reliable job that pays minimum wage but allows me to pay them back quickly.


You want to know why you, the opposition, independents or the media have only received hundreds and not tens of thousands of complaints?

It's because people like me are terrified of possible repercussions.

Asking Centrelink to look further into your false debt is in my eyes asking to be audited and that terrifies me. I know I wouldn't owe much hell I might even have an audit come out in my favour but I can't risk jeopardising the positive place my life currently sits in. I can't go back to the dark place my life used to be. I have to focus on the future.

As a result of the work I had to do to survive I now have chronic back pain which I will most likely have for the rest of my life. I will never be able to claim workers comp and I have no intention to do so anyway. I do ask that you consider legalising medical marijuana for people like me so we can be active members of society.

I also ask that you cease the damaging Centrelink debt collection you are undertaking. I understand $5000 does not seem like much to you, but to the rest of us it is a massive amount of money. For me it could be a new hearing aid allowing me to find better employment. Instead I'm having to continue using the pair I've had for 8 years which are malfunctioning and cannot be serviced or repaired. I don't qualify for subsidised hearing aids.

You want us to be active members of society and to get off welfare asap but you find new ways to make our lives a miserable experience while you are paid more money each night you spend in Canberra than I received in a week of Newstart.

If you have a heart, if you claim to be a person of faith, then fix this system.


Thomas Jefferson (may) have said that when governments fear their people there is liberty, and when people fear their governments, there is tyranny.

Don't be the latter and you won't experience the former.