Well, that fact that it was over Christmas while everything was closed and I found the letter on my last hour of work for the year - I was hysterical.
I was stressed, did not sleep, and felt sick over the whole Christmas break. I had not taken any annual leave all year and was planning on taking a 2 week holiday, that I very much needed after a full year of highly stressful work in a fast growing business, and 2 deaths in the family. I cancelled my holiday in case I needed to pay the debt. I sat at home stressing out of my mind and reading anything I could on the Centrelink disaster to try and convince myself it was going to be OK. I guess since it has finally been cleared at least I still have the holiday money, but now I have no annual leave and I am back at work. I also had to take the morning off on my 2nd day back to talk to Centrelink and make sure it was all final and dealt with.
DON'T GIVE UP.
The notification process was wrong: I was notified by text message on the 20th Dec that I had a message in my MyGov inbox. Strange... tried to log on... site down. Tried to log on later... no messages in my inbox. Must have been a mistake, decided not to worry.
On the 23rd Dec it was my last day at work and I had finished all my work, but was waiting for an email to come through, so I thought I might try MyGov again. So I HAPPENED to finally see the letter telling me I owed $5,308.17 by the 18th of Jan. Checked the other letters that I had received NO TEXT about (and why would I check my MyGov when I have done my tax return already!) that told me to review my earnings for the year and confirm that it was right. Well technically it was right, as a yearly lump sum, so I was very confused and didn't know what had happened. All I knew was I had less than 4 weeks over the Christmas/New Years break to find out why I owed this money, as the letter had barely any information. No breakdown, no explanation, just an amount and the period I was on Centrelink.
The appeals process was wrong: It was difficult to get on to the right people at Centrelink to appeal, and I needed very old, very specific information, that I had ALREADY provided to Centrelink correctly. Luckily I still had all the emails that I had sent my payslips to my to my employment supervisor, so i was able to find them fairly easily, but it was a very long process to go through EVERY SINGLE WEEK's payslip individually and tell them to the Centrelink rep. I stayed at my workplace late into the night trying to sort this over the phone, because I don't have internet at home at the moment, and I wanted to get it resolved before Christmas break. Then I was told that it sounded very much like the debt was incorrect, but I still might have to pay it anyway, if the appeal didn't go through before the payment date. Not OK.
The system was wrong: Obviously.
The reaction from the Government was wrong: How dare they treat people was such disrespect and never admit to any fault, while torturing some of the most underprivileged in the country on false information. Anyone can see that this system is unfair, and if they cannot, they are unfit for their jobs.