In 1984, I received a debt from Centrelink for overpayment. Between 1984, and 1998, I paid the debt. In June, 1998, I received a letter from Centrelink, telling me that the debt had been fully recovered. Almost 2 years later, May, 2000, I received another letter from Centrelink, advising me that I still owed $ 8,500.oo on that debt. I protested that debt at every opportunity. Twice I was threatened with arrest for attending Offices and refusing to leave until they had someone look at my proof. They continued to withold over $ 1,500 a year from my Pension, which forced us to sell assets, and withdraw money from our Super. Finally, in 2004, I managed to get the debt looked at properly, and the conclusion reached was that Centrelink COULD NOT, in fact, PROVE the debt existed. They then refunded me over $ 5,600.oo, with NO apology.

I have the following documentation :

1. A letter from Mr. Joe Hockey, stating that .." the debt was re-raised due to Administrative Error...and you were incorrectly advised on a number of occasions.."

2. A Centrelink Internal Memo, where a Debt Research Officer states " ...we are saying that he paid $ 40.oo in a 4 year period. This I find hard to believe....I recommend that we refund the witholdings.."

3. Letters from Centrelink, stating that on various occasions they have " thoroughly and conclusively researched this debt, yet find no error"

4. Letter from Centrelink's CDDA investigator, claiming that "...although the debt should not have been re-raised, what Centrelink did was in fact, proper in law..".
My question is this : How can a debt raised by Administrative Error be " proper in law " ??
I have just accessed my Centrelink file under FOI....what a disaster ! I am on a disability pension for a fall suffered years ago, and while that is recognised on my file, so is the entry made that I have Coronary Heart Disease. Is Centrelink clairvoyant now ?

This has GOT to be stopped: and Joe Hockey seems unable or unwilling to do so.

watchdoggie1951. What a nightmare. It seems like the system has set up the Law so that no matter what they do they are not responsible and they dont have to answer or admit thier mistakes. You must remember that the Governments main aim is to protect the reputation and position of the Government and to protect them from being sued. So if they dont admit anything and they dont address the issues and the paper work is set up to cover up, then you will go around and around in circles until you either give up or go mad.

That is where all the money is going - to cover up - instead of fixing up.

Funny how the general public doesn't get the level of "protection" that public servants get. Far out, so much is expected from us, yet so little from them. As for Ministers, they are just spokespeople, they are not worth the money that we pay them. A total waste of resources and funding.

My friend's 80 year old mother has recently become victim to Centrelink/government habit of changing the rules. She is the widow of a veteran, who when alive built their home and also built a small holiday house to which his widow likes to move in the heat of a Qld summer. The house is nothing special and would need a ;ot of work done before it would be saleable. Once upon a time pensions were assessed on income but now the income test is replaced by the assets test. the asset test inolves the valuation of property by a tame Centrelink assessor. In C's case this assessor valued the holiday home as if it was a brand new house in A1 condition in a new Sunshine Coast estate, instead of and old fibro home in a back street, several blocks from the beach. This valuation would have resulted in the total loss of C's pension. She was told that if she sold the house she would lose the pension as well. She cannot gift it to her 4 sons. To sell it she would need to have $1000's of work done to realise about two thirds of the Centrelink valuation at best given the market value of similar houses in the area. Fortunately she was able to appeal and produce an alternative, more realistic valuation but next year she will have to undergo the same thing.

It seems to me that Centrelink is only interested in cutting as many people (mainly those who are NOT bludgers) off from the benefits they have paid taxes for all their lives.

Since Centrelink was created to replace the old DSS they have an unwritten policy of not replying to or acknowledging corresspondce sent to them. My policy is to send everything by Registered Mail, and this has paid off. Some five years ago Centrelink's Swan Hill office claimed that they had not received a copy of my annual income tax return. Ten minutes after phoning Aust Post, Centrelink phoned back saying it had just been delivered - three months late! (By the way, they'd signed for it the day after it was posted.) The situation got that bad that four years ago the federal member Sarman Stone (a Lib, by the way) sent out a flyer with the direct phone numbers to all the Centrelink office's in her electorate. I've since moved to the big smoke - wonder if Andrew Robb will do the same? Not holding my breath!

Centerlink likes to do things by phone and not in writing. I had trouble getting Centerlink to deal with an issue in writing, they didn't want to do it that way. Even when they did write to me they about the matter they just photocopied something out of a book and sent it with a with compliements slip. I had to formerly request that the matter be dealt with properly by correspondence, in the end they did but they didn't want to as it wasnt' the way things were done.

The way that they operate, they can write their version of what happened on the file, who can argue with them when it is your word against them, and the papers will present the story that they want to present when and if questions are ever asked.

Just with sending Registered Mail items. Pretty much all mail that is Registered is collected first and it is checked to see what it's about before it is processed, prepared and sent on to the relevant persons at the Departments.

The whole system is set up to cover up incompetence and misconduct in order to protect the reputation of the Government.

Rules for dealing with Centrelink
1. Always have documents photocopied by them after they have stamped the receipt date
2. Don't be afraid to go higher up the food chain to get satisfaction
3. Refferring a matter to your local federal member often results in an about face by Centrelink
4. writing to the minister gets things done 500% faster. (email addresses of ministers are in the public domain)

I was recently informed in a phone call to Centrelink that i could do something about the constant duplication of information being requested about me and for my 2 adult children who live at home. I had been asked yet again to fill in a family means test form and had only just done this for one child when it was requested for the other. Attendance at the office did not help. they refused to let me see the form I had submitted for my daughter and stated they could not use that information for her brother! The officer we had spoken to by phone had told us that this information could be used if I gave my consent but the branch denied this was the case. I promptly walked over the road to my local member's office, told them the story and within 5 minutes was informed that all I needed was a note giving permission and voila!

Thankfully now that I am no longer self-employed I won't have to go through this palava again (incidentally this incident occured 6 months AFTER I had closed my business down! Of course that does depend on whether they have updated my and my children's files to that effect!