#Centrelink

[squidbian-ink]

very frustrating issue I keep encountering as an undiagnosed sick/disabled person.

$1 kofi doodles <- help me get a laptop and pay for medical bills. might actually help me get a diagnosis that way lol

downloadable stickers on my Etsy

[nando161mando]

Living Paycheck to Paycheck

[letsdrinkcoffeeinhell]

All those ominous unspeaking hooded guys who did all the torturing in castle dungeons? They got tired of being defeated by escaping protagonists. They all work for centrelink now, and they've never been more productive.

[cy-cyborg]

Hey just a heads up for my Aussie disabled people (or anyone on centrelink) I just got a fake notification from someone claiming to be MyGov saying there was an issue with my dsp. Be careful and check the app if you get a text, don't click the links they send you.

This one was pretty obviously fake, the sender was "MyOv" instead of MyGov and called my DSP an allowance - also it wasnt that definitive MyGov brand of ominously vague lol, but I get the scam messages a lot anyway and they usually get better with time. Be cautious and make sure your less tech-savy relatives/friends know about it!

[shortace]

Trying to call the Australian government agency that handles all of our welfare and support. Multiple times between 4.30pm and 5.30pm on a Monday, and this isn't the first time I (and many friends) have had similar experiences. They literally just tell you they're too busy and hang up on you. I'm not even trying to get money out of them; I'm trying to CANCEL the payment they've been giving me that I'm no longer entitled to. I sent the form in to them a month ago, and they haven't acknowledged it, and they keep paying me, which means I have to be careful not to spend that money because they'll demand it paid back at some point regardless whose fault it was. It must be incredibly more frustrating for somebody who is trying to get the support they need. This is fucked.

[wild-neko]

I decided to post something scary for halloween

[justmaghookit]

Hey Aussies!!! If you are on a centrelink payment of any kind please check your account! I just found out today that there have been multiple cases of people having their accounts hacked and their payments defrauded. Both my brother and the lovely disabled woman my mum takes shopping have had their payments stolen.

I'm not sure about the exact mechanics but please check your accounts, make sure your bank details are correct and consider changing your password and opting in to two factor authentication if you can. Shit is hard enough as it is without having your pension swiped.

If your payment has been stolen go to the scam and identity theft service in Services Australia. You can try centrelink but they are likely not going to be helpful and many of their workers do not actually know what to do in this situation

[laapplepie]

Reblog to scare an Australian

inspiration: https://x.com/AisuAsai/status/1780118754590179702

[gayemoji]

LOL scammers think centrelink would bother contacting people about their payments 😃

[nando161mando]

Yup, eat the rich

[vamp-orwave]

Jumpscare

[insanity-keeps-things-fun]

I'm very stressed out at the moment.

I living in a granny flat on my parent's property; I have done for the last 5 years, when it was meant to be transitional. And I'm having trouble actually moving because even at the age of 24 I've never been employed. And struggling to apply for jobs, because I'm autistic, I'm dyspraxic, I've got inattentive ADHD; and the employment agencies I've been to bounced me around to different people every few months, so I had to keep re-explaining my issues with finding work.

I've got an ESat appointment tomorrow, maybe that'll lead to something, probably not DSP, maybe linking me up with agency that's actually a disability specific employment provider? I'm not holding my breath, I went through this process once before in 2019, but maybe I'll be better at understanding what they mean when they aske if something has a "functional impact on activities"

[theshampyon]

Nearly 90% of people on income support payments say the inability to cool their homes in hot weather is making them sick, and even those who have air conditioning avoid using it because it is too expensive, a survey by Australian Council of Social Service has found.

...

Nearly two thirds of those surveyed – 72.1% of whom were renting privately or in social housing – said they were unable to cool their homes down in periods of hot weather.

Some 89.4% said they sometimes or always felt unwell in the high heat, while 29.8% said they had needed to seek medical care for heat stress, with elderly people or those living with disability worst affected.

Nearly 70% of people surveyed had air conditioning of some form in their home, though many reported it did not function well or only lowered the temperature in one part of the house. Some 94.5% of people with air conditioning said they avoided using it because it cost too much.

I experienced this first hand when I was growing up in housing commission. The place was poorly insulated, poorly ventilated, and had zero air conditioning. We didn't have the right to install air conditioning and couldn't afford it anyway. We were lucky if we had more than one functioning fan (which caused fights between us kids when one would "hog the fan" by sitting in front of it). The bills soared in summer, making more stress as Mum had to figure out how to keep us cool and still pay the bills. Job interviews back then were guaranteed failures - who's going to hire a guy who's already soaked to the bone with sweat before he even hops on the bus to get to your offices? We didn't have the higher level of vulnerability to the heat that our many elderly neighbours had, but it still hit us every December-January.

And all this is before the relative cost of electricity reached it's current height, before the daily peak temperatures and UV levels were this extreme, before the cost of living skyrocketed. We were living through the "recession we had to have" back then, times were tough, but folks living on pensions and the dole are doing it far worse now. Some of this is caused directly by the current financial situation (which, yes, is worse than the recession of my childhood), some of it is caused by a lack of foresight or care in the construction of low income housing, some of it is caused by a lack of investment in the improvement of our energy grid... So many factors, all of them out of the control of the people who are always hit the hardest.

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

I complain about this every fortnight, but the fact that I have to go to a job searching appointment so I can get government benefits just for them to be like “oh, you’re alive? k, cya next fortnight” every fortnight pisses me off far more than it probably should. It’s literally the biggest waste of time + travel money, especially when it can happen via phone call/email. And to all the cry baby workers (read: public servants because that’s who it usually is) out there that are like “Well we have to pay to go to work when we could be working from home too!” I’m a big believer in anyone who can work from home should be, but like even if I didn’t, ya’ll are going to work to do a job. I am literally going to this appointment for no reason. I’d be less pissed if they had me do stuff there.

[myrtaceaae]

Me: I cannot speak sometimes. Can be random, but stress is also a factor

Centrelink, who knows this: phone call??? Phone call queen??? Virtual appointment!??? For you??!???? Please say yes??!!!

Me: *unable to respond because I rely on fucking pen and paper.*