David's work complicates his Centrelink claim

Why am I not surprised. Of course it would be too much to ask wouldn't it, after a month and a half of dramas without money, for Centrelink to process the claim unheeded by red tape. Not on your life baby.

So earlier I'm coming home from getting my HIV meds; a trip into the city and Albion St. Centre. I was nearly home and David rings in tears as he doesn't get how many hoops you have to jump through. It's a minor thing but to him with his present state of mind it appears mountainous and a Centrelink bridge too far.

All it is is that Centrelink rang his work, to confirm he had a job to go back to (one of the requirements of getting the Sickness Allowance). They talked to the pay office, who for some reason thought that David had resigned from the place, which they told Centrelink. So in effect the whole claim fell over at the goalposts because he had no job to go back to, according to the pay office. So Centrelink is going to switch him to Newstarve (which is the exact same rate as the Sickness Allowance anyway). I just thought Meh, whatever..... same thing, bla. Doctors certificate means he doesn't have to look for work and that. But David was in a fuckin state darlings.

I walk in the door home, and he's like I am in the heat of anxiety, showing me this bla about bla that had to be bla online and he doesn't understand bla......  I look at it and go "Oh, that's fine. They want you to register online a gov.au account linked to Centrelink, not a problem I'll do that. Oh so you have to claim a Newstarve payment online? Yeah sounds easy".  Centrelink had told him (it's just paperwork hoops to jump through) to make a Newstarve claim online and it will all be sorted quickly after such a long delay.

Yeah whatever, typical Centrelink stuff. No worries. So I fire up the plastic brain and go about registering David online, shortly congratulating him on his ownership of a brand spanking new Australian gov online account. The next step was to link Centrelink into that account, time consuming but easy. After that it was to go to his Centrelink home page and make an online claim for Newstarve. Unfortunately that's where we ran into problems:

Anyway, so that's where we are with it at the moment. Waiting for the Centrelink site to get it's shit together. A minor drama but still annoying.