Bloody Centerlink
24 April 2002 12:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
denI've been unempolyed for over 12 months, living on a Government handout called Newstart, whic comes to $360 per fortnight. You are obliged to fill in a form every second week. So when I started uni I applied for Austudy, which is like Newstart for students, except that it is $301 per fortnight and lets me derfer the uni fees. I applied for it on 15th Feb.
The Newstart forms kept arriving, so I filled them out stating that I hadn't looked for work during that period due to being a full time student.
Today I get a bill in the mail. I owe the government $1670.00 for Newstart payments from 18/2 to 3/4. It's what I was paid on Newstart instead of being paid Austudy.
They wanted me to pay back what they had paid me, but they weren't going to pay me any missed Austudy payments.
So I rang them. My question of "If I have to bay this, will I recieve the missed entitlments?" was greeted with a long silence.
"That's a really good question," sha said.
Later on Allan rang and said he'd get back to me on Monday. It looks like I'll only have to pay back the $30/week difference and I can organise a periodic payment for that.
Bloody Centerlink.
The Newstart forms kept arriving, so I filled them out stating that I hadn't looked for work during that period due to being a full time student.
Today I get a bill in the mail. I owe the government $1670.00 for Newstart payments from 18/2 to 3/4. It's what I was paid on Newstart instead of being paid Austudy.
They wanted me to pay back what they had paid me, but they weren't going to pay me any missed Austudy payments.
So I rang them. My question of "If I have to bay this, will I recieve the missed entitlments?" was greeted with a long silence.
"That's a really good question," sha said.
Later on Allan rang and said he'd get back to me on Monday. It looks like I'll only have to pay back the $30/week difference and I can organise a periodic payment for that.
Bloody Centerlink.
