On returning from overseas on 3/12, the Centrelink website would not let me report employment income. I went in to the Centrelink office on 19/12 and reported income. On 1/1/17 I reported online but the website said it accepted, but could not process my report. On 5/12 my wife's pensioner concession card "bounced" when she tried to obtain some quite expensive medication. On going to the Centrelink office, I was informed our pensions had been cancelled. The staff found within seconds that reporting had occurred. Three weeks on, it looks like my wife and I will finally receive our first pension payments since December 7. To date, I have not received one word in writing to explain how this debacle occurred. To be fair I did receive a half-hearted apology from their complaints resolution section.
Luckily, we have a few dollars in the bank and an overdraft available to cover emergencies. However, there was still some anxiety.
But my main feeling is anger that the Minister refuses to acknowledge that an organisation that is supposed to be serving us, has deep seated systemic failings. Making it incompetent to carry out its function effectively.
Worse than this, the government seeks at every turn to downplay the effect this incompetence is having on recipients.
It also seeks to politicise the problem by blaming the previous government.
And if this is not enough, the government drops confidential (customer) information to its willing barrackers at the Murdoch press; who quite predictably use that information to score political points (and favours) by seeking to blacken the reputations of anyone who complains that they have been unfairly treated. Judging by reader comments, I'm tempted to describe the press's role as incitement of hatred toward the victims. And I fail to see how the Government is not a key player in this incitement.