The establishing of this debt has been extremely anxiety-provoking and very depressing for me.
I have been "randomly audited" and interviewed for an hour, then asked to provide every voluminous financial detail they requested (in hard copy) - and I did.
My fortnightly timesheet reporting process is very complex and Centrelink arbitrarily withheld their automatic timesheets 3 times during the 'overpayment' period, but will take absolutely zero responsibility for that.
The review officer said they're going to uphold the debt no matter what.
Meanwhile I have tried to organize a repayment schedule but they refused to accept the amount i offered.
I am an age pensioner, particularly poor, a single woman who rents and lives alone but as far as Centrelink is concerned, they're going to get this money back at any social cost whatsoever.
The stress I've felt so far is enormous and I will now need to pursue Employment Assisted counselling just to keep attending my part-time job.
They are a callous and cruel organization who only show occasional humanity and these instances are from staff who care but cannot effect organizational changes, I suspect.
It is utterly and completely appalling ... and I'm an age pensioner. God help other age pensioners who come next!
I called my story here Kafkaesque Nightmare because it reminds me only too clearly what Franz Kafka wrote about in his book, "The Castle". I quote here from Wikipedia: "The Castle is often understood to be about alienation, unresponsive bureaucracy, the frustration of trying to conduct business with non-transparent, seemingly arbitrary controlling systems, and the futile pursuit of an unobtainable goal."
Here is the Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_(novel)