This post started to hatch in my head yesterday and has continued to grow since then. It began when I was reading yet another article about terrible treatment dished out to a man in hospital who was cut off his Newstart payments for failing to report to Centrelink at the correct time because he was really fucked up in hospital and couldn't.
Outrageous and a direct reflection of this gov's cruelty to vulnerable Australians on their ass; in this case having a terrible time of it in hospital. I mean the last big stay I had in hospital I nearly fainted when the hospital didn't have WiFi, or even an internet cafe. Newstart reporting is normally done online now (if the Centrelink site is up). I didn't need to "report" though as I was on the Sickness Allowance (same as Newstart payments). But at the time I was paying the rent manually online and so I couldn't even pay the bloody rent from hospital. FFS Australia invented WiFi!
Prince of Wales is one of the biggest hospitals in Australia. You have to pay to set up a phone service to your bed that you can use (run by a private company). Was the guy supposed to do this, or use a mobile, when he was unconscious, whilst waiting on hold for over an hour, just to tell them that he was reporting as ordered? Just another way that the gov is making it so hard to get benefits off Centrelink for the sake of the mighty fuckin dollar.
However as much as I was in agreement that Centrelink was really wrong, that it was the gov that gave it the legislation that Centrelink has to follow, my heart sank at one small paragraph from the sister of the ill man:
This is an injustice to those many who are in the same position, whilst we continue to pay a disability pension to many who do not need or deserve. Nine NewsSo even though the sister is battling the gov legislation handed to Centrelink that makes a situation like this happen, the gov has won the war of demonising those of us on the DSP already.
Just who the fuck are these "many" people who "do not need or deserve" the Disability Support Pension? This is nothing more than gov propaganda that's even been swallowed by someone who considered their family member deserves to be on the DSP. A family member I would add who's just starting to find out how very hard it is to actually qualify for the DSP.
In short for years it's been near impossible to actually qualify to get the DSP with a number of processes legislated by both Labor and the present gov, to make it very very hard to qualify. See the latest Centrelink video below BTW of what it presently takes to qualify for the DSP.
I'd still qualify with all that of course, but I started laughing half way through the video. It's all just so absurd and mean. Way over the top. Change the bloody rules or something! *sheesh*
Keep in mind watching this the ease of Canberra politicians in claiming their entitlements off the taxpayers. Imagine if they had to go through all of this to qualify for a pittance like us mere citizens have to (Yes I'm talking about you Barnaby).
Today I came across an article online about all this. And yes, if you think the header cartoon above is an exaggeration, you're soooo wrong. The gov has people believing that you can just walk through the doors at Centrelink and they throw money at you. When you don't even "need or deserve it". It couldn't be further from the truth.
After two years of failed applications for the Disability Support Pension — as well as numerous appeals — Quang Huynh, a 30-year-old Dandenong man, decided he’d had enough.Strange when Centrelink has even been denying the DSP to those in wheelchairs.....
Rather than deal with the DHS’ confusing and overly bureaucratic appeals process one more time, he instead turned up at his local Centrelink office, hoping to finally prove once and for all he was indeed “disabled enough” to receive the benefit.
“It was a pretty farcical scene,” Huynh tells Crikey. “I stumbled and shuffled around the office, waving my medical certificates at their officers.”
This was no mean feat. Huynh, who is blind in his left eye from severe diabetic retinopathy, also has serious heart, liver and kidney conditions that routinely land him in hospital. According to his doctor’s notes, he finds it difficult to walk more than 50 metres safely.
“But, they [Centrelink] didn’t even look at my doctor’s statements. One lady said, ‘I can see you walking — if you can walk, you can find work.’” Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia
It's sad that people have to find out this way just how demonised sick people have been made under this gov's propaganda about us. A bloke ends up really fucked up on their ass in hospital and the family thinks Centrelink will just automatically throw money at them because it's genuinely needed and deserved.
Many of these people who find themselves in this situation are aghast at the system thrust upon them in such difficult times. Yet many of them, before anyone got sick in their family, would have likely voted for just such a system. Believing the gov BS that welfare recipients are all bludgers and "leaners", who all deserve a big kick up the ass and get back to work.
As always, it's a very different story when it happens to their family.
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