<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/04/centrelink-payments-suspension-jobseeker-brain-tumour-patient-service-victoria>
"A jobseeker is calling for an overhaul to the way suspensions are handled
after his Centrelink payments were suspended while he was in hospital
recovering from brain surgery.
The Albanese government is mulling an overhaul of the employment services
system following a damning parliamentary review that criticised the mutual
obligations system, which can suspend jobseekers’ welfare payments if they do
not fulfil tasks such as attending meetings and submitting job applications.
Under the current regime, hundreds of thousands of people have their payments
suspended each year due to what the Australian Council of Social Service
(Acoss) has described as an “oppressive automated systems” that advocates argue
cause stress, exacerbate poverty and can make it harder for people to find
work.
Mark*, a Victoria-based welfare recipient, had his payments suspended by his
job agency in April last year. At the time he was also homeless.
A letter from Services Australia, seen by
Guardian Australia, says Mark’s
jobseeker payment was “stopped from 14 April 2023 because you did not go to, or
were late for an appointment arranged by your provider on 13 April 2023”. There
is no regulation requiring employment agencies to speak to people before
suspending their payments.
The payments were suspended despite Mark lodging a medical certificate with
Services Australia, saying he had been unable to fulfil his obligations due to
surgery to remove a brain tumour at a Melbourne hospital on 10 April.
“I ended up in hospital after the operation and then got a text message from
[the job provider] saying they’ve cancelled my payments, which was really
frustrating,” Mark said.
He says because the medical certificate took several weeks to process, he was
cut off before it could be approved. It took him six weeks to get his payment
reinstated, as he was recovering from brain surgery and experiencing a high
degree of confusion, he said."
The “mutual obligations” introduced by neoliberals are cruel and stupid.
Jobseeker payments are not a useful area to find savings in government
expenditures - every dollar provided has a direct benefit both to the recipient
and, since they don’t have savings and immediately spend that money, to the
economy as a whole. Better still, just replace the whole system with a UBI.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
