How did government manage to cheat us about low unemployment figures: Ruba’s case as example?

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.