Win for Corey in cash battle
A GEELONG family has had a win this week after battling with Centrelink for almost a year to get the disability support pension to which they are entitled.
Grovedale resident Linda Mathews has been trying to get her intellectually disabled son, Corey, on the disability support pension for more than 10 months but was continuously denied the entitlement because of a series of system bungles.
After the Geelong Advertiser contacted Centrelink on Tuesday about the issue and a petition was started by a concerned friend, Ms Mathews was contacted by Centrelink and told Cory’s pension had been approved and they would be back paid from January.
Family friend Julie Lee said she started the petition, which now has more than 1000 signatures, because she wanted Centrelink to take notice.
“Corey is 18 and when he leaves school they have to go on their own benefits,” she said. “Nobody seems to have any angst about the quandary that Linda is stuck in and has got no way out of. We thought we’ll get this petition going and get some people power behind it.”
Ms Mathews said she has been battling the system since November but kept being denied because of issues with Corey’s identification.
“Corey needs 24-hour care and he can’t speak,” Ms Mathews said.
“I decided to get the process of getting the pension on the go because we knew it could take a while, but it shouldn’t have been this hard.”
She said Centrelink required a specific ID for Corey but she could not get it because he was unable to sign for it and they would not allow her to sign on his behalf.
“We kept going in there to Centrelink and saying we can’t get this ID, they kept saying it was all right and they would fix it, but in the end it was always refused.”
After being contacted by the Geelong Advertiser, Department of Human Services general manager Hank Jongen said they would not comment on the specifics of a case that was under review.
Ms Mathews said she was so relieved when she received the call saying that it would be approved.