I am furious because i did The Right Thing and proudly went off the Parenting Payment Single benefit for a few magic weeks when i could garner enough Casual shifts to do so. All-night shifts, early morning... and now i suspect that not only have my earnings been treated as if i WAS on welfare, but probably all the time i was working before that, and assidiously reporting every cent of income and receiving just a slip of income support- i have probably been treated as a fraudster!
IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE AN INCENTIVE TO WORK?!!!!
I thought that complying with Centrelnk and following all the rules, while raising 3 children , studying for a BA and workng part/time, made me a GOOD CITIZEN! I thought i would be appreciated for going on to obtain a Teaching Degree, I n a country which sorely needs good educators.
Struggling to become qualified to deliver hghly-skilled meanngful work has never been easy for me. I relied on CL in its enlightened years for subsistence income so i could be home with my children and took part in multiple voluntary community- building initiatives. All my kids grew up stable and have full time jobs. But the attitude to parenting as meanngful work has changed in recent decades. Society is being gouged.
My situation now- dire! My Austudy cut out in Nov ; i received it while doing an Adv Dip. to finish my Grad Dip in Semester 1 i will have to make do with Newstart . All payments to me has been suspended since November. This is AS WELL as the debt fiasco- because i'm a long term NZ citizen resident of Australia. Suddenly it was demanded i supply proof of my SCV-holding status. There was only one person in the whole CL office who appeared to know what was wanted. Meanwhile, man requests for various ID whch i fulfilled, which turned out to be useless.
I've received a preliminary to an Eviction notice. I've scrambled to withdraw from a car-share scheme i had a bond in..desperate for funds held anywhere....nothing in the bank account yet. I was even paying out to send job applcations to a Nanny website that i came across at CL- that should be banned!
I HATE being driven to the point where as a woman, i actually ask myself if i could handle selling my body!!! Is that what society is all about in the end?! To devalue everything women do for others,,to the point where they must be fed off by parasites in order to live???!
I hope to have enough money to afford to move out before the Police come.
It's outrageous!! If this kind of sloppiness in policy is presented as acceptable, what the $!@ will happen to society in general???!!! These politicians are called Leaders for God's sake. Do they seriously have NO STANDARDS???!
Those resonsible for this fake debt scandal should be immediatly sacked. Those at the top saying it's perfectly ok to attack their own people must GO...they haven't shown the level of competence appropriate to be in positions of responsibility.