Welfare scammers, please tell someone

DOLE cheats and welfare scammers have my respect.

Not for their shameful lack of morals, and definitely not for their rorting of a system that is vital to those who need Government financial support.

But, I have to admit, there is one area where I have nothing but admiration for these people: the fact they can even use the impossibly complicated, unhelpful and virtually inaccessible support network that is Centrelink.

In fact, the Government should forget penalising those who cheat the welfare system and seriously consider getting them jobs with the CSIRO.

I have experience using the welfare system, having accessed Austudy benefits when I was at university but, compared with my recent experiences as a new mother trying to register my child in the system, it was a breeze back then.

Sarah Morgan

Could it have something to do with the 5000 staff the Government has got rid of in the past six years?

I’ll leave you to be the judge, but the fact of the matter is my experiences a few years ago as a teenage student and now as a universityeducated professional and new mother could not have been more different.

Along the way, I have come to the conclusion that anyone who can figure out the system and then take it a step further to rort it should be given a Nobel prize.

Clearly they are smarter than everyone I know or speak to, all of whom have their fair share of Centrelink horror stories.

In fact, forget torrid tales of childbirth itself, it seems Centrelink-caused headaches and stress are the new war stories we tell over the slippery dip at the park.

While the Government is putting together a special crack team to clamp down on the supposed 200,000 welfare cheats in Australia, I’m over here trying to figure out how to get someone to call me back to let me know if my registration for my daughter’s customer reference number, you know that thing that says she’s real, has been activated.

While I’m not professing I’m the smartest tool in the shed, I’m certainly not the bluntest. I have a degree and years of experience in working with some of the most challenging HR and corporate systems and I still can’t work out the form that I need to fill in to help me prepare to go back to work.

When I took my sevenmonth-old to childcare I was told I needed a few things through Centrelink in order to register for the childcare rebate. It sounded simple. Little did I know.

After hours of pulling my hair out while I tried to figure it out online for the page to crash on the last section, I decided to visit Centrelink in person.

At my local branch, I patiently took a number like I’m at a deli counter about to order some salami and then waited in line with a screaming baby who thought it was fun to eat a brochure.

While sitting next to some smart people who knew better and actually brought a book and a packed lunch with them, my name was finally called. A woman came over to me but it was clear she’d already had enough; she looked overworked and seemed very annoyed at people like me, who have the nerve to ask her questions.

I apologetically told her I couldn’t work out which form I needed to fill out so my daughter could start childcare the following week. She told me it was online and admonished me for not having organised it sooner as it wouldn’t be done by the time I needed. Is a week no longer long enough to file a piece of paperwork?

I asked if she had a physical copy of the form, to ensure I had the right one, which I could fill in while I was in the centre. Given it was the start of the new financial year, I was told the forms she had were old and the online versions would be more up to date.

Let’s stop here for a moment and consider this — the actual place, the mecca of social support if you like, where staff are employed to help you, aren’t even given the right and up-to-date information to pass on to those who need it. Even she has to go online to get a form as she hasn’t been equipped with the right tools to do her job. But, of course, going online to download and print the form was not something she could help me with, so my time was totally wasted and I still had no idea which form I needed.

Next I was told that to get my daughter in to childcare I would have to fill in this mystery form, apply for a CRN and then wait possibly up to 38