Was a very big shock to receive letter notifying debt owed just 3 days before Christmas. With a young daughter this added heaps of unnecessary financial stress and I questioned whether we could even afford to celebrate Christmas at all.
The government has handled this problem awfully, from the notifying letter which was extremely unclear, making me believe that the whole debt had to be payed on/before January 12th, 2017, giving me 3 weeks to come up with $700 or the "authorities" would be after me. The letter came across as very threatening, I called Centrelink immediately and the people I spoke to we're very helpful, but believe that the efforts I would have to go to to dig up payslips from 2012 wouldn't be worth the small amount (compared to most) I owed.