Venting
Monday, 10 April, 2006
With all my Centrelink issues and their red tape which is thicker than the Great Wall of China, you'd think that at least their call operators could be a just a little bit more sympathetic and supportive instead of getting defensive about an organisation which is not worth defending. Why can't they just apologise? Why can't they say, “We know it's a pain and we're sorry about it but you know how things are”? I've had this form which has taken me a month—a month—to fill in because it's so vile and it asks for information that they already have about us. I thought last night (in the midst of being sick and skipping church again and trying to cook some sort of hodge-podge dinner for my poor depressed and also sick husband), “I'll see if I can finish it and get it out of my hair so I don't have to worry about it any more.” And then it took another three hours because I kept having to go and scan and print another document and interrupt Ben in what he was doing.
If it truly is a case of “support the system that supports you”, it would be fine. But I don't feel like Centrelink supports me. I feel like Centrelink makes life so much more stressful for me that at times I wish I could stop filling in forms and instead curl up and die. (Okay, I'm exaggerating ...) I feel like Centrelink has no real understanding of our situation. Their bureaucracy is inhumane. They're too large and unwieldy to be useful. They can't even estimate how much Ben's Austudy will be cut in relation to my income which makes budgeting practically impossible. Friends of ours are being really nice to us in giving us money to help out with Ben's counselling costs but of course that's going to affect Ben's Austudy as well so do we really benefit in the long run?
It makes me cringe that I can get so worked up about some stupid government department but unfortunately they're not the sort of thing I can just ignore.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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Centrelink are indeed vile. It took us nearly two months to complete an application for NewStart when I finished uni, and at the end of two very long face-to-face interviews with a member of staff who didn’t seem to understand what we were saying (and who insisted we had a bank account with several thousand dollars in it, which didn’t exist!), we were told that I wasn’t eligible because my wife had been offered a job which wasn’t to commence for another month.
However, I have found that some of the call centre operators are somewhat understanding when I’ve expressed my frustration with the system.
That sounds awfully frustrating! Centrelink should be able to tell you how much your income will affect your husband’s payments! Although, I did have trouble finding that out from them when I was working and Nick was on Youth Allowance. I did eventually manage to find out that his payment would be cut by 70 cents to the dollar for every dollar I earned over $536 a fortnight. That was about 4 years ago and with youth allowance so I guess it’s a bit different…
Also, money that people give you should count as a gift and therefore not affect Austudy.
but GRRRRRRRRR I can totally sympathise - I’ve had so many hassles with them over the years. Now, every dealing with them I get a reciept number and write down who I spoke to and what they said. I’ve been burned too many times. It’s hard to remember God’s providence when the hand that feeds us is also that hand that is slapping us around!
So true, I have had some of the most surreal experiences ever applying for Newstart, filling out and handing in the forms and now I’ve got a job I can’t convince them to take me off the books!
Forgive me, but isn’t the welfare state worth defending? Centrelink is large because the need is large, and unfortunately procedures must necessarily have a degree of complexity because it is public money that is being spent. What seems like annoying and unnecessary duplication and endless paperwork from the customer’s end is often because of the stringent reporting requirements at the organisation’s end. Bureaucracy isn’t inhumane; government could not be accountable without it. But I can understand how it might be maddening, given your personal circumstances at present.
Hey Deb, I agree that it’s great that we have welfare in this country but I disagree that our tax dollars are being well-spent. Their computer system is antiquated, their procedures are sloppy and their website is a complete disaster. I know I only worked in administration for around about three years but I reckon that the way they’re doing some of the stuff they’re doing could be improved ten-fold.
For example, transition from Austudy to Newstart: I don’t see why I had to go through two separate phone and face-to-face interviews just because their computers could not register me for Newstart until my Austudy payments had stopped. Why couldn’t I start the process of the application earlier and then have them change me over? Why is it that they were so hampered by a program that they couldn’t do anything for me until ages down the track, causing me a lot of inconvenience and wasting their employees’ time? Furthermore, why is it that their employees have so little understanding of the system that they couldn’t have told me the first time I rang their call centre about it? I would have been happy with a “Call us again in two weeks.”
And reporting income. I realise that they need to know how much I earn because that is going to affect what Ben earns. And maybe it’s asking too much for them to actually get the information directly from my employer(s). But why can’t I just report online? It’s income—I’m not going to lie about having too much because it’s in my best interests to say I have less so that Ben’s Austudy doesn’t get docked as much. So why not let me report online and I’ll happily tell them, “Yes, I earnt $1,000 last month and I was given a $50 cheque by an old aunt—she’s such a sweetie” instead of having to fill out forms, forms and more forms, and always having to buy stamps and envelopes and all the rest of it. Furthermore, if they want proof of my earnings, why can’t I just submit through my paperwork electronically? I can scan in my payslips and any cheques I receive. They could be submitted over a secure server. But no, paper it is and I have to make sure I don’t confuse them with what I put in the envelope—they can’t handle more than one type of thing at once, otherwise things just get lost into the administrative ether.
Recently I got a letter from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations inviting me to take part in a survey about my experience with Centrelink (it’s called Pathways). I certainly have a lot to say to them, yessiree ...
I was very careful not to criticise Centrelink when I was on it. I figured the Government was paying for 6 and a half years of my life (and I couldn’t complain, anyway, because my friends were having a much worse time of it with them). But now that I am out of the system, I can freely confess that I am very, very glad that I do not have to deal with Centrelink any more. And having to pay for medicine and doctor’s appointments does not go anywhere near making me sorry I am out of the system.
If you were coming up for Conjure, I would buy you commiserative chocolate.
“Vent, vent, vent on the cold grey net your spleen,
For the tender grace of Centrelink is never bestowed on thee…n.”
I may have to work on that.
Okay, I had half started typing a detailed response to those points from an APS perspective, touching on the equity, probity and financial issues associated with the suggestions you make, but I get the impression that everyone just wants to vent about how awful it is to deal with them and how easy it would be to fix it I wonder why no one has thought of it before me? *one public servant smacks her head against the keyboard* Fair enough. It’s our democratic right to bitch about what the people we elected do with our money.
Centrelink was transferred to the administration of another department last year, and it has been getting an organisational overhaul. Perhaps that gives you some hope. And their staff aren’t treated very well, either.
Why not paste the gripes and suggestions in your comment above into an email to Minister Hockey? His email address is on this page. All ministerial correspondence is supposed to get a reply.
Thanks for giving me some direction for my venting. It’s nice to know there’s someone I can vent to that can actually do something! (Well, theoretically he could do something ...)