passed on my knowledge

[zorro1]

Small world , where im staying there is a fellow who is 35 and on newstart and we got talking.

turns out he has 3 crushed vertebrae and 2 back operations and get this, c/link denied him the Dsp a few years back and he is in lots of pain and has to attend job interviews that his doctor says he can not proceed with.

he didn't know he could appeal! we are putting together a new DSP application now

[Banker]

Great work Zorro,

We must get the message out. There are far to many people that do not know their rights.

Remember the old couple I help in Brisbane?

[Banker]

Feb 18, 2013 5:39:16 GMT 7 Banker said:

Great work Zorro,

We must get the message out. There are far to many people that do not know their rights.

Remember the old couple I help in Brisbane?

Here is the link for the story about the old couple in Brisbane. I put it here for any new members that may have missed it before.

dspoverseas.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=experiences&action=display&thread=1056

[Deleted]

well done zorro1,i rember my mother years ago,she was widowd at age 43 with 4 kids,went back to work and was not paying anough tax,but she dident no that when tax office found out she had to pay back so much a week,did so for en years and years,when i got old enough to take an interest i said ring tax office and find out how much you owe now,and she did,the tax man said what a coincedance you payed last payment last week,what a wanker. and also 4 years she was on a widows pension,should have been a WAR widows pension ,its a bit more but no one told her,pack of ass holes.

[latindancer]

From your link :

Mar 25, 2012 18:58:23 GMT 7 Banker said:

......they contacted Welfare Rights.
Once WR had contacted C/L the couple were called into the C/L office and told by the interview officer that if they continued with the complaint to WR, that the husband would be deported, the husband had come to Australia with his mother at the age of one year old and had been called up to the army during the Vietnam war and here was this C/L jerk making threats about getting him deported, then he turned to the wife and threatened her if she continued that he would have her sent to jail for the rest of her life.

Fearing for their future they decided not to continue with the complaint....

I'd almost forgotten about that, Banker. Thanks for the reminder, even though it is rather upsetting. It illustrates exactly what I have been ruminating on recently: that the actions of the government (through Centrelink) actually amount to a kind of terrorism. Amongst other definitions, it is:

ter·ror·ism

The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
The state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

Or at least a form of violence, which includes :

vi·o·lence (v-lns)
... Abusive or unjust exercise of power.
.... Abuse or injury to meaning, content, or intent: do violence to a text.

That is what many of us are being subjected to; particularly those who were living overseas and then forced to return (by the threat of having previouly approved payments stopped), and having to leave spouses and sometimes children overseas.
My wife will FINALLY be here in Oz in a couple of months, but I have been and continue to get stressed out by our separation. As does she.

[zorro1]

good to see your nightmare will be over soon LD

make sure you milk the system for all its worth in the meantime why not start an online course with them, I believe its an extra $80 a fortnight?

[latindancer]

Great idea ! But I'm not sure if they have a course named "How To Defend Yourself Against Sociopathic Bureaucratss".

Mostly I worry about the other people in the same situation...especially the aged.

You know, the similarity to terrorism is appropriate. Because at the end of the day it seems so senseless. As we all know, the government is not actually saving money by denying payment to DSPers overseas. To the contrary, we cost them more by being here. They just gain credibility by being seen to crack down on us "international jetsetters". And they cause so much suffering by doing so.

[Banjo]

Part of the problem is that people don't read the letters they get.

They see the bad news and throw it in the bin, but over the page is the form information part, that by law has to be included, telling them their rights of review.

Like all government messages it's barely decipherable as English but none the less, it's there.

I'd like to see Centrelink obliged to follow up every decision with a phone call telling the person what their rights are.