I was always wondering how
this government managed to issue deceiving statistics that our economy is
growing steadily and the number of unemployed people is decreasing. All this
during this volatile atmosphere of global financial meltdown and declared
per-capita recession (both in Australia and China – our largest trade partner).
Until I started to deal with Centrelink’s customers whose benefits were
cancelled or not approved.
Centrelink unethical and at
different occasions illegal tactics of denying people welfare payments helped
this government in cheating public about the real unemployment figures.
Ruba Q. migrated from Syria
April 2013 after she married an Australian guy, Mohamed. According to
legislation, she is not eligible to receive any Centrelink payment for 104
weeks from the date of her arrival.
On April 2015, she became
eligible to receive “special benefits” as per legislation. She received this
payment for few months, until she received a letter on 7 December 2015 advising
her that the payment was “cancelled” for “not completing special benefit
review”. The reason was so mysterious, especially for non-English speaking
migrant. She went with her husband to local Centrelink office in Liverpool and
asked about the reason. They were told that the payment was cancelled because
she did not complete and return the form of “special benefits review”. How
could she complete this form if she never received it?
Ruba did not fill the review
forms, because she simply did not receive them. Once she was given the forms in
person when she (and her husband) visited Centrelink offices on 15 January
2016, they filled the review on the spot without hesitation. And there is
nothing in the form that constitutes ground to cancel the payment.
But the payments were never
restored after it was cancelled on 7 Dec 2015. This time the reason is that the
family did not provide bank statements.
Ruba provided bank statements
for her bank account (as requested by the review form), and she did not know
that she needs to provide statement for her husband’s account.
When she was asked to provide
bank statement for husband’s account, the family acted promptly without
hesitation on 18 Feb 2016. A clear indication that the family has nothing to
hide.
Still the payment was not
restored. This time, because the family did not provide written statement to
explain why there was one-off deposit in the husband account of $1730 on 8 Feb
2016. Despite the fact that the request for explanation was made by Centrelink
officers verbally and the explanation was made instantly in the same verbal
manner.
For the next 3 years, Centrelink
used the one-off deposit in the husband’s bank account of $1730 as the only
reason for cancellation of payments and the refusal to restore the payments for
3 years despite the many requests for review and many intervention by advocates
(including intervention by local MP).
This is clear contempt to our
welfare system and related legislations. It is also contempt to our
intelligence. For many reasons:
1- Centrelink claimed in the letter dated 3 March 2016 that the
husband is “earning money from his work in plumbing”: but has no evidence of
this.
At the AAT hearing last
Monday, the member was asking me to prove that the husband never worked during
the last 3 years, despite the Centrelink’s lack of any evidence to indicate the
opposite. This is serious departure of legal principle that any person is
innocent, until proven guilty. Centrelink treats Ruba as guilty until she and
her husband prove her innocence.
2- If Centrelink has enough evidence that the husband was working
and earning enough money during the last 3 years to support his family, why he
was not investigated and his Centrelink payments cut or cancelled?
Why Centrelink cancelled
Ruba’s payment for claims that her husband is earning enough money to justify
cancelling her payment?
Does this has anything to do
with targeting new migrants as they are more vulnerable as they have very
limited options to access Centrelink help?
3- And the most important issues here is: does the legislation
consider one-off deposit of $1730 (regardless of the explanation) enough ground
to cancel special benefit payments?
This will be departure of
another principle in the Social Security Act namely section 729(2)(e) which states that person
continues to be eligible to receive special benefits if he/she cannot earn
“SUFFICIENT livelihood” to support themselves and their dependents, not a mere
one-off deposit.
Centrelink staff know very
well that Ruba is soft target because of her new arrival and hence her very
limited access to Centrelink help. Centrelink manipulated the system by
disregarding principles of natural justice and procedural fairness when
Centrelink did not insure proper notification and hit this family with
unreasonable requests. Then Centrelink cancelled payment based on unreasonable
assumption that husband is working, despite the lack of evidence of this.
Later on and after the family
sought help from the local MP, Centrelink changed its story of the reason for
cancelling the payments.
When Centrelink was contacted
by office of local MP for Werriwa, Ms Ann Stanley, to explain why Ruba’s
special benefits were cancelled and she is not getting any other payment,
Centrelink replied that “Ruba is not eligible for special benefits after receiving
her permanent subclass 801 visa, and this visa holders need to wait for 2 years
after becoming permanent residence before getting any benefits from Centrelink”
in a letter from Ms Stanley to the Ruba dated 7 July 2016.
The local MP should have known,
as a legislator, that this advice is wrong and contravene the legislation,
namely Section 739A of the Social Security Act which states that the new
migrants on partner visa is eligible for Special Benefits after 104 weeks of
their initial entry to the country. They will continue to be eligible to receive
this benefits until they either find job or become eligible for other payments
after they spend another 104 weeks after receiving permanent residence.
Labor party should discipline
this MP for not understanding the legislation she helped passing in 2017.
The one-off deposit was just
an excuse for Centrelink to cancel Ruba’s special benefits, while the real
reason was the direction in Centrelink by minister to target new migrants with
different kind of excuses and tactics to justify cancelling their benefits.
Such tactics that include hiding information, not delivering notices and use
lack of response (which is expected in the event of not delivering requests) as
pretext to cancel payments.
All this to achieve saving for
the budget and improving the numbers of employment.
My experience with Centrelink
dealing with its staff on this case proves this beyond any doubt. Centrelink
just ignored my rights as advocate and representative to access information on timely
manner. Since mid June 2018 until now, Centrelink failed to provide me with
single document about the reasons for this long dispute with this family. They
gave me different reasons of the cancellation, with no written response until
now. And they changed point of contact with me to make me going into circles
not understanding what is happening as a tactic to confuse me and then accept
their arguments and hence accept the injustice against this family.
Now, we know that the husband
was not working. There was one-off deposit and the husband cannot provide
written response because the third party is refusing to come near Centrelink.
The husband cannot enforce the other party to comply with Centrelink’s request
to provide copy of his bank statement and why he deposited the money. We do not
know if this third party had experienced draconian mistreatment by Centrelink
and this is the reason why he does not want to come near Centrelink in any way.
But it is very clear that a one-off deposit of $1730 within 3 years does not
itself constitute enough ground to cancel the special benefits of the wife. And
if it does constitute ground, Centrelink should have initiated official
investigation of this payment. But the bank statements of both Ruba and her
husband show no signs of regular work that will earn the family “SUFFICIENT
LIVILEHOOD TO SUPPORT THE PAIR AND THEIR DEPENDANT”.
Mrs Ruba did follow normal
procedure of seeking review, time after time. But the Centrelink was deadly
slow in dealing with these reviews to the point that simple application for
review by Authorised Review officer submitted mid September 2018 was not completed
until AAT ordered the review to be completed. It was completed on 23 January
2019. My request to Centrelink to give me reason for the cancellation was
dragged from mid June 2018 until today. This is why the case was dragged to
this length.
The family is going through
very difficult financial hardship because of this unethical “tactics” from
Centrelink.
And here is this government's
unethical trick: For the last 3 years, the official record states that Ruba is
an employed person because she is not receiving any Centrelink payment. When in
fact, she is unemployed, and not required to work as she is looking after her
young daughter and never worked since 2015.
And we are aware of tens of
thousands of Rubas in the community.
That is how this government managed
to convince us that unemployment is staying at 5% (and under). We are sure that
the real figure is much higher than this.
Ruba will continue her fight
for justice. And we will continue supporting her.
