A litany of lies and deceit..

This is a true story. I know, even as I begin to put the words together to describe the events that occurred over the past four years, that the “ average “ citizen out there is going to find themselves questioning whether what I say is at all possible. Is this a true story, or is it just fertile imagination at work ?? As you read further, you will begin to question the truthfulness of what you read ; I can only assure you that it is, indeed , the truth.

Ask yourself this : Do you believe that it is possible for a Government Department to make mistakes ? Do you believe that it is possible for a Government Department to not only make mistakes, but to lie, cheat and intimidate the victim once it realises that it has been discovered? If you answer No to these questions, then you are in real need to finish this to its end. During the course of these pages, I will take you into an area that you have never been before, that you never even dreamed existed! I will prove to you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that what I claim did happen, is happening, and will continue to happen until someone can make these people accountable for the suffering they cause to innocent people.

So…just who am I talking about ? CENTRELINK , of course. That Govt. Dept. responsible for controlling over 6 billion dollars a year in welfare payments, and all types of benefit payments to over 6 million customers a year. The very same Centrelink who took control of my and my wife’s lives for over four years, and repeatedly lied and cheated us out of thousands of dollars a year. Centrelink , who , despite repeated claims by us that the “ debt “ with which they had saddled us was , in fact, a false one. Centrelink , who twice threatened me with Police arrest if I did not vacate their Offices after having attended there to try yet again to have the “ debt “ sorted out. Centrelink, who sent me sarcastic letters challenging my intelligence as to the legality of them withholding money from me that they COULD NOT PROVE was owed them. Centrelink , who, after being finally “ caught with their hand in the cookie jar “ refused to apologise nor compensate us for the four years of hardship and deprivation that their illegal withholdings had cost us.

This starts back in 1984. In 1984, a debt was raised in their system that showed that I owed them a substantial amount of money, over $ 11,000.oo in fact, due to them overpaying me. I make no bones about it : it was a legitimate debt, and I have never tried to hide from that fact. The actual circumstances of that debt will remain undisclosed by this author, as there are innocent parties involved who would be devastated should I disclose the facts. Suffice it to say that it was a legitimate debt, and they ( Centrelink ) had every right to pursue the recovery of their money. After appearing in a Magistrates Court charged with fraud, I was fined and ordered to repay the specified amount. I accepted the verdict, and got on with my life. Between April,1984, and June, 1998, repayments were made either by withholding from my benefits when I was unemployed, or by personal payments over the counter during my employed periods. Contributions were also made from yearly Taxation refunds, of an amount to make refunds almost non-existant. I accepted all this, knowing that the sooner the debt was paid off, the sooner the yolk was gone from around my neck.

Finally, after 14 years of payments, I received, on official Centrelink letterhead, the news I had waited so long for. It read as follows .. “ Dear Sir… …there will be no further withholdings from your benefits as your DEBT HAS BEEN PAID IN FULL. No further payments are required.” Imagine for a moment, my absolute joy when the words contained in that letter finally sunk in. I was almost in tears. It was while in this exuberant mood , however, that I made the biggest mistake of my life - taking a Government Dept. on its word ; because I then went and pulled out the 14 years of letters, accounts, receipts and correspondence of that 14 years, that I had had to drag around with me wherever I went, and ceremoniously burnt the lot in my backyard incinerator!! In fact, the ONLY thing I kept was the actual letter telling me that it was all over. I am so glad I did that one little thing ; had I destroyed it along with the other paperwork, I would not be here telling this story. I would , in fact, STILL be paying off the “ debt “ that was finalised in June, 1998 !! But, I get ahead of myself.

For 23 months after the receipt of that letter, I was employed, and unemployed. During that whole time, when I was on benefits, NO withholdings occurred. Why would they ? The debt had been “ fully recovered “ in June, 1998, right ?

In May , 2000, I received another letter from Centrelink. This one , however, was in a far more serious tone than the last I had received : this one demanded the payment of $ 8, 500.oo in 14 days or I would be taken to Court to recover it. I frantically contacted my nearest Centrelink office, armed with my “ Letter of Discharge of Debt “ and asked to be informed what this latest letter was about. I was told , in brusque terms, that my “ Letter “ was, in fact, a clerical error, and that I still owed $ 8,500.oo on the original debt ! I argued , I pleaded , I yelled. I was asked to leave , and return at a later time when I had calmed down.

Now, put plainly…………….If a debt starts at $ 11, 500.oo, and Centrelink claim that I had paid off only $ 3,000.oo in 14 years, that means that, according to them, I had only repaid in the order of $ 214.oo per year, which breaks down further into weekly payments of only $ 4.10 per week !! In all my subsequent questioning of this Dept. , their own Debt Recovery Officers have admitted that this would NEVER have been allowed to happen. According to them, I would have been recalled into a Court to make alternative repayment arrangements at a much higher rate. This being so, how could Centrelink now claim that these figures were true, and that they had based their estimation of what I owed upon them ??

In May, 2000, I disputed this “ debt “ I subsequently disputed it, on average , every 3 months for the next 3 years. Many times I attempted to have the “ debt “ reviewed, through Centrelink’s own internal system : this only resulted in letters stating that “ they were right, you were wrong, get on with it “ answers. On several occasions, I was told to “ stop wasting my and their time “ with my claims that it was wrong. Such is the wall of indifference that you attempt to penetrate. On two memorable occasions , once in Carnarvon, Western Australia, and again in Mandurah, Western Australia , I attended Centrelink Offices , armed with my Letter, various correspondences I had received since that time, and a dogged determination, and quite calmly stated that I was not leaving until I had spoken to someone “ of the upper levels “ of the organisation. I then retired to a chair to wait, and within 5 minutes, on both occasions, a “ suit and tie “ came up to me, and stated that I would have to leave the office as I was “ creating a disturbance “ and the Police would be called if I did not leave. In spite of my protestations that I wanted this matter looked into, I was given 2 minutes to vacate or face the consequences. This, as I found out later, is only a MINOR intimidation threat compared to the ones I would face later on in the battle to right this wrong !

I have in my possession, a letter from a Centrelink officer in Midland, Western Australia, which states, amongst other things, the following gem of wisdom “…..we note, however, that even though you dispute the debt, you have continued to make repayments “…. Now, as anyone who has had any dealings with Centrelink knows, if they say you owe them money, they deduct it BEFORE your benefit is deposited into your bank account. You have NO choice as to whether you make the repayments or not ! This comment is very typical of the attitude you encounter when you attempt to question any decision made by them.

To explain the impact that this illegal withholding by Centrelink had on our lives over that four year span is incredibly hard to do. The shortage of over $ 1,400.oo per year may seem like an very small amount to most people : however, when your entire income for the year is but $ 8,500.oo , it assumes a much greater significance. The point is, that the amount that Centrelink were withholding was the equivalent of our yearly house and contents insurance, car registration, and property rates COMBINED. This meant, naturally, that we then had to find the funds for these items from our already depleted benefits. As well as those items, we were also expected to find the money for power bills, phone bills, food bills, and the host of other bills that each and every one of us encounter in our daily lives.

During the course of the four years, we had to sell off almost every asset we owned; from a vehicle my wife’s Father had left her in his will, to a small boat I had purchased very cheaply to perhaps supplement our diet with some fish. I sold off power tools that had taken me years to accumulate, and also electrical goods that became redundant when we needed money to pay for food, etc. I cannot begin to relate the feelings of hopelessness I experienced as I realised that I was very quickly running out of things to sell, and yet the bills kept coming.

My feelings against Centrelink grew very dark : I often fantasized about running amok with a gun in their head office. Our friends, as few as they were, eventually found excuses as to why they couldn’t come round.. it was only later that I found they thought I was on the verge of a breakdown and were actually afraid of me. My wife and I had many arguments over this “ debt “. I suffered terrible bouts of guilt and depression over what I conceived as “ my problem “ being visited on her, and watching as she too suffered from depression due to our lack of funds. My anger was compounded by the fact that she could not afford basic things, such as new underwear, and I often saw her wearing threadbare and torn underwear because we could not afford to get her new, and she would rather we ate properly than get underwear. It crushes a man’s spirit to realise that he is the cause of this suffering; it rips your heart out to watch someone you love going without the essentials because a Government Department has made a mistake, and don’t have the balls to own up to it. They would rather see people suffer than admit they have made a mistake , and this is where Centrelink are at their best. They either cannot, or will not, admit they are ever wrong. Many times I have heard their “ mouthpiece “, appear on television or radio shows lauding the success rates and infallability rates of the mighty Centrelink. He trots out the same tired , old rhetoric and , I’m sure, probably believes the lies he espouses. He claims to have had surveys conducted on Centrelink’s performance and customer approval rating : and yet, when I attended a Centrelink Office recently to conduct my own survey, I was met with entirely different results to the ones given by Mr. Jongen. In fact, of 58 people I spoke to from 9 suburbs, only two of them said they had ever been contacted for an opinion on Centrelink !! This flies in the face of the assurance by “ Hank “that Centrelink has an 84 % approval rate ??

The deprivation we suffered due to this illegal withholding goes much further than just underwear. We have always lived in areas that were not serviced by town facilities ; in other words, we had no town water supplies, no rubbish collection, etc. We relied solely on rain for our water supply; if it didn’t rain, then you had to get a truck load of water in from town. The average truckload of water cost $ 60.oo. On one occasion, we had run out of water completely, and did not have the money to afford a truck of water. So, in desperation, I siphoned, from a muddy dam uphill of our house, about 1,000 litres of the rankest, dirtiest water imaginable straight into our rain tank ! We double boiled it for every application; from cooking to washing dishes. We showered with it, but you somehow still felt dirty after the shower. We existed with this water for 6 days, until we were paid again and could get a truckload of water delivered. Even then, we had to waste several hundred litres in an attempt to flush as much of the dirty water out of the tank as we could.

These instances are only a few of the deprivations we suffered that were directly caused by this Centrelink "debt" that wasn't ! Over four years, they totalled many.

Later on, I will post here documents which will prove that what I claim here is true,and these documents will include an Internal Centrelink Memo that states that their own Investigator does NOT BELIEVE that what they are claiming is true.In spite of all this evidence, to this day, despite appeals to the Ombudsman, I have received No compensation or Justice for the atrocity visited upon us by Centrelink. I have had threats made against us by Centrelink that they would " .. drag the thing out for years and sue us for costs and make us sell our home if we ever challenged it in a Legal Court."

This story does need to mbe told : and I will attempt to tell it here.

For anyone interested in reading not just my, but a whole lot of similar stories of injustices and atrocities committed by Centrelink, try going to centreflunk.com
you will be amazed that a Govt. dept. can treat citizens of Australia so poorly and with such utter contempt !!