Thread: 45 minutes at CENTRE LINK

Originally Posted by nat_89

Yeah i know what you mean there a fella who's just come to our mine site as a contract grader operator was working full time with a big mining company who lost their contract and they all lost their jobs, so he went to centrelink after running low on savings and they said no you can't get any money because you have a house and he's like well i won't have a house for much longer if i don't get some help.

I just ****es me someone who works hard pays quite a lot in tax each year and just for a short amount of time needs help to get by until he finds a job and nope can't help but they can bloody happily helped someone who's never worked a day in their life bloody load of crap!!

That's a crock of ordure. Home ownership does not preclude one from receiving payments. In fact the principal residence is exempt from the assets test. Or do you mean he has an investment property whose value exceeds the assets test?

By the way, the official purpose of Newstart Allowance or unemployment benefit is to allow the recipient to look for work not to pay their day to day living expenses. This is made clear to new public servants at the initial training courses. True!

Originally Posted by trog

where do you classify those how do not qualify for a thing due to their living arrangements ? are they still oxygen thieves if they havent a job , prospect of one and not on benefits ? this is not to be thought of as a smat ass comment , because i am not sure where i stand in society. in the last few months i have met several other older unemployed in the same situation. not being on benefits there is no cash incentives to possible employers. it is also generally said that the longer out to pasture the prospects diminish. from personal experience of bouncing between short term , never more than three month stints, to day labour unloading containers , i actually look with a degree of envy to those collecting. at least they are recognised as a part of society, though demonised.
i can if money can be diverted from the mortgage and daily living expenses take courses but the average vacancy position requires "x" amount of experience. therefore no experience no start. even basic positions of which i easily qualify have not come to fruition. i must be md i think to continually bang my head against the wall. do i accept just anything , anywhere , or do i follow the goals of what i consider my workplace path ?

Living arrangements? Do you mean you are married to or living de facto with someone who is earning and whose earnings are sufficient to preclude payments? If so, you are in no worse a situation than any other single income couple. You can still register with a Job Service Provider for assistance in obtaining work without receiving payments from Centrelink.

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

That's a crock of ordure. Home ownership does not preclude one from receiving payments. In fact the principal residence is exempt from the assets test. Or do you mean he has an investment property whose value exceeds the assets test?

By the way, the official purpose of Newstart Allowance or unemployment benefit is to allow the recipient to look for work not to pay their day to day living expenses. This is made clear to new public servants at the initial training courses. True!

I believe its just his own house but i can't remember the whole story but he said it was just too much paperwork and they weren't really interested in helping him i mean i know it should not be easy because then its open to scammers but heres someone who's been in full time work for years and pays about $40k a year in tax and the one time you need some help looking for work they can't help you, now i know yeah if he pays big in tax he should have heaps of spare $$ laying around but sometimes its not that easy i guess.

I can't remember the full story but i mean for people who have been in full time work and need some help whilst finding another job i think it should be a bit easier for them to get assistance whilst looking!

Originally Posted by nat_89

Yeah i know what you mean there a fella who's just come to our mine site as a contract grader operator was working full time with a big mining company who lost their contract and they all lost their jobs, so he went to centrelink after running low on savings and they said no you can't get any money because you have a house and he's like well i won't have a house for much longer if i don't get some help.

I just ****es me someone who works hard pays quite a lot in tax each year and just for a short amount of time needs help to get by until he finds a job and nope can't help but they can bloody happily helped someone who's never worked a day in their life bloody load of crap!!

Personally I believe all retired people should at least get the medical discount card regardless of their income.
The problem with payouts and centrelink is they don't align. If your a shiftworker or mine employee, your paid well over your base wage, which means you get made redundant your payout is at the base rate for x weeks. This means in the eyes of centrelink you have x weeks income before you can get any benefits. The problem is you where doing overtime and shiftwork /FIFO which meant you where earning double your base and your bills job searching etc eat through your payout far faster than the weeks on the slip. Be it forced or voluntary redundancy you should be able to get some help when needed, not when your x number of weeks pay has finished.
These are people who have worked and paid tax who are being punished instead of helped to get back and pay more tax.It's another case of hurting the majority to try and stop a few scammers. As Brian said 90% do the right thing, it's the 10% who they are trying to get with stupid blanket laws.

I can share another personal perspective on Centrelink:

I've been unemployed for 4 months, after being retrenched from work. As I received a pay-out, I was not in dire need of financial support. However my commercial unemployment insurance policies on things such as my novated lease, required Centrelink endorsement, to confirm I was "registered as unemployed" and "actively seeking work".

That's where my struggle began.

It took me 3 months to convince Centrelink to endorse my insurance claim.

Now I kind of understand the attitudes of the staff I dealt with, as they seem to have experience mainly with a certain kind of long term client. My mantra to them at every point of contact was: "It's not about the money. Please READ the document I am asking you to sign, before you start shaking your head and referring me to some other agency/ online service/ call centre phone number."

Eventually after obediently jumping through the hoops and biting my tongue on my opinion of their customer service standards, I finally dealt with someone who actually LISTENED to my request, instead of heaping more forms on me and asking why I haven't done X, Y, or Z ("Because no one has asked me to do that before now" ).

Anyway, it was a surprising learning experience for me also. And I am most grateful to the Centrelink employee who finally took 5 minutes to listen and understand my situation, then took another 60 seconds to complete the required actions.

Now I know who to ask for when I attend the local office, they have become an ally in my job searching, rather than a hindrance.

Originally Posted by nat_89

I believe its just his own house but i can't remember the whole story but he said it was just too much paperwork and they weren't really interested helping him

He obviously was not too interested in getting benefits. Regardless of the paperwork, he is/was unemployed so has/had plenty of time to deal with the paperwork.

Originally Posted by frantic

Personally I believe all retired people should at least get the medical discount card regardless of their income.
The problem with payouts and centrelink is they don't align. If your a shiftworker or mine employee, your paid well over your base wage, which means you get made redundant your payout is at the base rate for x weeks. This means in the eyes of centrelink you have x weeks income before you can get any benefits. The problem is you where doing overtime and shiftwork /FIFO which meant you where earning double your base and your bills job searching etc eat through your payout far faster than the weeks on the slip. Be it forced or voluntary redundancy you should be able to get some help when needed, not when your x number of weeks pay has finished.
These are people who have worked and paid tax who are being punished instead of helped to get back and pay more tax.It's another case of hurting the majority to try and stop a few scammers. As Brian said 90% do the right thing, it's the 10% who they are trying to get with stupid blanket laws.

Yep and as said in another comment up there you need to get it all sorted to get your pay outs on lease cars and income protection and all that they just make it so hard to sort it out and just crap that you've been working in a mine job for a while never been on centre link ever and you have to go through all of the paperwork and rubbish just to prove your unemployed and get the paperwork to send off to income companies.

Exactly right there with the pay outs for mines wages most companies pay a base salary plus this much commute allowance this much shift work allowance this much away from home allowance and all of that so when you get your pay out its only calculated on your base wage in some cases not all your allowances which can loose heaps in wages there!!

I'm sure the Centrelink staff get sick of people trying to scam them and then abusing them if they don't get what they want.