"Go to charity for help" - Centrelink

Like I said, I've had enough of this shit. Have worked full time for 30 fuckin years, hard physical work involving much lifting in the printing industry. Paying $200 a week in tax. Thirty years and this is what it's come to. What an insult. What a slap in the face. What an in-appreciation of all those years of effort and taxes paid.

As I said, yesterday I was manning the Centrelink visits as David manned his appt's, including the phone appt made for him to receive on the home phone. As a couple we are Centrelinked linked, and have signed the form to act on behalf of each other there.

The first appt yesterday went deceptively well. Little did we know that it would all come to naught. 

So after the phone appt was made for David yesterday for him to get at 2pm, we're sitting at home at that time with the telly down for David to get this call. 2pm passed. 2:30pm passed. Nothing. We go WTF? I go down the road to Centrelink for the second time and tell David to send me a little text if the phone call actually comes. We're fuckin desperate and trying to sort this shit out. I get the familiar lady seeing me in the line, quickly explain why I'm there, being that nobody has rung at the appointed time. I get sent to wait in the familiar chairs. About half an hour later David sends a text saying he's been rung. I go tell the familiar line lady that it's OK now as he's got the call and to take him off the list to be seen. She was very appreciative that I did that, and I left for home.

I get home and ask David "All OK?". He says no. They want another fuckin form filled out as the day before ACON had agreed to take on the discrimination case against David's work. That opened another can of worms. Now they wanted to know WTF was happening with that, and was David going to get any money out of it. Oh FFS! It was only yesterday ACON started the thing. This case isn't even in it's infancy, it's a bloody fetus! And now Centrelink wants to know all about it as part of David's Newstarve application. He tells me the name of the form and I print it out. To us it looks entirely irrelevant to anything, and we both go "WTF?". I then take the form down to Centrelink to say WTF? David goes off to his stress group that his psychologist insisted he goes to.

I arrive at Centrelink for the third time in the day. After a short wait (it was after 4pm and not many people there) I see this really helpful bloke who hears me. He calls the actual dept head of the dept that rang David earlier and told him to do this new form. I explain it's not even relevant and we don't have any idea how to fill it out. The dept head however disagrees, and I'm told they absolutely have to have it. I ask then how to fill it out. He directs me from what the dept head has told him, saying all they really need is the phone number of the solicitor at ACON who decided the day before to take on the case. Unfortunately it was late and David had gone.  The form needed signing by him. 

Three Centrelink visits for the day and it ended in total failure. I was crying as I told this bloke about our desperate situation. He was hugely understanding, could see in plain sight I was genuine. But his hands were tied, they wanted this form and there was nothing he could change with that, despite his earnest trying. He commented that David's work was really doing a number on him. I thanked him and left.

Got back home and David was gone to the group. I can't remember if I rang him or he rang me, but I ended up suicidal crying over the phone to him. I'd had enough. This was supposed to be Australia where we look after the unfortunate, yet we'd been abandoned. David really really had to go to this meeting as he was completely stressed out himself over it all. So he called the neighbour and asked him to come visit me whilst he was out, which he did. It had been the worst of days.

So this morning we both go down to Centrelink early, hoping that we can sort all this out and get to the Housing ACON meeting at 11am in the city. Needless to say I was in no mood to be there. We watched as various Centrelink staff went through the line list, choosing who they would see next. The time went on and on, and we started noticing people that'd come in long after us being called before us. By the time we were called we were both already pretty bloody pissed off. 

We get this little lady who looks confused after about a minute after we sit down. There's a slight language barrier as she's from another country and doesn't quite have the lingo down however long she'd been here. This was looking bad from the start.

We end up frustrated with her as she just didn't seem to have much of a clue about our case, and kept giving really confused looks at the PC and us. So we have to go through the whole thing from the begining, telling again the whole fuckin story. Obviously both of us were getting really frustrated, and our voices go a bit louder. This goes on for a bit.

Presently a bloke gets up from another work station and comes over to us all. He asks who was the claim for? We say David. He tells me then to lower my voice and calm down, as it's not my claim and he will send me out if I keep going on like this. The little lady dealing with us got it, and was concerned about our situation, and not concerned about our loud voices. Yet he took it upon himself to come over and interfere. A bloke who looked all of 25 years old :s

I'm like "OK , that's fine". He asserts that this claim doesn't affect me. I say yes it does as we're a couple and the rent assistance had been stopped until David's claim was finalised. He craps on that the rent assistance has stopped as we're a couple. I say no, the lady yesterday told me that the rent assistance was only paused and when David's claim was finalised it would automatically go back to like it was before, and to come in and see them if it wasn't done like that.

By this time our situation is finally starting to crystallise in both their minds. The little lady becomes extremely sympathetic. He does not. We approach the end of the whole meeting. It becomes clear that it may very well take another two weeks for all this shit to be sorted out, but don't worry you'll be back paid for the amount of time owing on payments. I ask if I can tell that to my landlord? He didn't like that comment at all.

Again, I'm defeated. I ask if there's any financial hardship thing here that may be available. He says no. I ask WTF are we supposed to do then in the meantime whilst the Centrelink dots and crosses get done?

He tells us to go and get help from charity. An instruction that will resonate in my head forever. It has now been 6 weeks since the initial claim was started for money, none of it our fault.

I look at David and say "After 30 years of work darling, this is our reward".

The little lady looks about ready to burst into tears for us.

We leave. Shattered. Our next appt was the Housing application thing....
So this is the new Australia then?