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Post by bear on Aug 7, 2020 14:05:19 GMT 7
You can check whether you are eligible for a refund if you haven't gotten a letter saying you will get a refund. By logging in to mygov then go to centrelink Select payments and claims then manage payments then income compliance refund query A lot of people like myself have logged in and it said we are not eligible. Really another kick in the guts So pissed off Scroll down: If you don't get a payment from us. www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/news/income-compliance-refunds Robo-debt refunds are now available: What do I need to do?
Refunds from the government’s illegal robo-debt scheme are now being rolled out to affected customers – so what do you need to do to receive your refund?
nestegg has previously explained that there will be two separate processes for refunds, depending on whether or not you currently receive payments from the government. If you currently receive payments from Services Australia, you should receive your refund automatically – there is nothing further you need to do. If you are a past customer but you are eligible for an income compliance refund, it’s important that you update your details online through myGov. “If you don’t, we can’t process your refund,” Services Australia advised. To update your details: Sign into myGov and go to your Centrelink online account – if you do not have one of these, you can register for one.Select the “refund pending” task.Click “start task” and follow the prompts to complete and submit your updated details. Once your details are updated, you can expect to receive your refund within five business days, according to Services Australia. It’s expected that the majority of robo-debt refunds will be provided to victims by the end of November 2020. Refunds will include repayments of any recovery fees and interest charges that were applied to the debt, while larger refunds will be paid out in instalments. www.nestegg.com.au/save-money/debt-consolidation/robo-debt-refunds-are-now-available-what-do-i-need-to-do
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Post by bear on Aug 13, 2020 16:56:32 GMT 7
Robodebt: changes to Criminal Code pave way for action against lawyers who vigorously defend clients
The Commonwealth has been extremely cruel to Centrelink recipients but there’s no suggestion that those who designed and implemented Robodebt will face any punishment. Yet lawyers who unwittingly cause distress to public officials when defending clients could face criminal charges. Ian Cunliffe investigates. Traps for lawyers defending clients I defend people who have been accused of having Robodebts. But until I started researching the Commonwealth Criminal Code recently in relation to so-called national security offences, I had no idea of the existence, or scope, of traps awaiting lawyers like me who vigorously defend their clients. Those traps exist because of substantial amendments made two years ago to the Code, making it much more authoritarian. That Code now makes it a very serious offence, with up to 13 years’ imprisonment, for causing harm to a Commonwealth public official. So while the Commonwealth has been extremely cruel and reckless at best to members of the public with its Robodebt scheme, there has been no suggestion that those who designed and implemented Robodebt will be criminally or even civilly punished. ‘Harm’ is defined to include harm to a person’s mental health (whether temporary or permanent). It is also an offence to threaten to cause serious harm to a Commonwealth public official if the accused person is reckless as to the threat causing serious harm. Even if no harm actually results, the offence would be proven. The maximum penalty is nine years. Punishment for causing mental distress The accused is regarded as having the intention to cause harm to an official’s mental health if the person is aware that it will occur in the ordinary course of events. Recently, I was defending a refugee who was clearly seriously mentally affected by a Robodebt letter saying that she owed more than $135,000 – to be repaid from the earnings of her taxi-driver husband while they support seven young children. She received the news of the debt while in bed having just delivered her last born – twins. The alleged debt had two components. I succeeded in getting the Commonwealth to waive about $95,000. But then I was phoned by a Centrelink lawyer who seemed to be reneging on that hard-won agreement. I threatened to make a big fuss and accused the lawyer of acting inappropriately and callously. Perhaps I put her into a depressive funk. That was not my aim, but I did want to make a passionately stinging point that she would long remember. However, it could also be argued I was reckless because my comments could have caused serious harm – even if they didn’t. The offence seems to be established even if no harm actually resulted – just that it could have. That is very unusual: you don’t get convicted for manslaughter just for being reckless – your recklessness has to actually cause death. The law in Australia, as in comparable countries, has shied away from punishing people – even civilly – for saying things that inflict mental distress. I regard myself as quite justified in taking a robust line with officials in such an extreme case. But would that save me if I were charged? Under the Criminal Code it is largely irrelevant whether the accused person was justified in what they did. Public officials protected species Should public officials really be a protected species in this regard? My conduct might also have exposed me to two years imprisonment for ‘Obstruction of Commonwealth public officials’. That would apply if I ‘obstructed, hindered or intimidated’ Centrelink’s in-house lawyer. Those expressions are not defined but the interpretation will be what they mean in ordinary parlance. They are very broad terms and could well be interpreted to cover my attempt to shame the lawyer into what I saw as a more compassionate, fairer approach of not putting on my client’s record that a large whack of the money had been written off. These are bad provisions. Like much of the Criminal Code they go much too far. I have removed a rather lengthy essay on the hows whens wheres and whys of Robotdebt to concentrate on this latest little bit of bastardry. Personally I find it find it quite scary. For the full story see below:www.michaelwest.com.au/robodebt-changes-to-criminal-code-pave-way-for-action-against-lawyers-who-vigorously-defend-clients/?fbclid=IwAR1-TLvIi50XtZD84CP9a9QHXHYqfIp-5gSqFQ1A50LIpPhSZKYTB9aldeI
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Post by nomadic on Aug 13, 2020 19:46:48 GMT 7
This again proves just how corrupt this government is. They are the worst in 200 years. GGGGRRRROOOWWWLLL.
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Post by latindancer on Aug 14, 2020 15:00:59 GMT 7
Ludicrous.
We need to find something to counteract this before it gets out of hand.
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Post by latindancer on Aug 18, 2020 17:22:11 GMT 7
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Post by bear on Aug 18, 2020 19:52:32 GMT 7
I hope the mums have got strong constitutions and good lawyers with bull terrier attitudes.
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Post by latindancer on Aug 19, 2020 5:38:38 GMT 7
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Post by ghostbuster on Aug 19, 2020 11:32:18 GMT 7
Ludicrous. We need to find something to counteract this before it gets out of hand. .45 will do it!!!!
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Post by nomadic on Aug 20, 2020 7:30:28 GMT 7
Ludicrous. We need to find something to counteract this before it gets out of hand. .45 will do it!!!! YES PLEASE; make my day.
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Post by bear on Aug 20, 2020 8:23:01 GMT 7
Ludicrous. We need to find something to counteract this before it gets out of hand. The whole democratic myth is well out of hand imo latindancer, and has been for quite some time..... unfortunately I can't see it all ending well!! The tone of previous comments here; and on other social media seem to bear that out.
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Post by latindancer on Aug 21, 2020 15:40:09 GMT 7
I have seen this trend too. But how will it end, I wonder ?
If they are not already disempowered by the system, people are often feeling disempowered from all the crap in their modern lives...just the sheer extra number of things we all have to attend to these days. Not to mention information overload.
I'm tipping it will end with a whimper rather than a bang. But that will lead to just as much an eventual degraded life as with a bang.
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Post by bear on Aug 21, 2020 16:03:06 GMT 7
Take a second to let this sink in.....then if it ends with a whimper we are already lost!!
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Post by bear on Sept 1, 2020 7:11:39 GMT 7
Robodebt class action lawsuit is not ready and contains 'obvious errors', federal judge says
Justice Bernard Murphy has asked for more evidence of Gordon Legal’s claim the government knew Centrelink’s program was unlawful
The class action lawsuit brought on behalf of Australia’s robodebt victims “does not look ready” and contains some “obvious errors”, a federal court judge has said.In a rebuke three weeks before the trial, Justice Bernard Murphy on Monday criticised an application from Gordon Legal to add exemplary damages to its claims for unjust enrichment and damages. The firm wants to claim exemplary damages – which are intended to punish a defendant – by arguing that the commonwealth knew the botched Centrelink program was unlawful. But Murphy told a pre-trial hearing the updated case brought on behalf of about 600,000 current and past welfare recipients contained some “obvious errors”. “This pleading does not look ready,” he said. He said he was inclined to refuse the application but did not want to “lock out hundreds of thousands of claimants on the basis of inadequate pleadings”. Bernie Quinn QC, for Gordon Legal, said the firm had done its best in a short time frame. He said the firm could “elaborate” on the pleading as the discovery process continued. But Murphy noted that the trial date was only three weeks away and that the class action was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. “You’re telling me that various clauses need to be fixed up,” he said. “Come back to me with a statement of claim in its best form … Today I would dismiss it.” Murphy will consider Gordon Legal’s request to amend its statement of claim at a future hearing. The federal government committed in May to repaying $721m in unlawful debts raised over four and a half years but is resisting the class action’s claims for interest and damages. It conceded in November that the income averaging method – which used yearly Australian Taxation Office pay summaries to allege welfare recipients has misreported their income on a fortnightly basis – was unlawful.In what it hopes to be its updated claim, Gordon Legal argues the commonwealth knew the scheme was unlawful because of the “self-evident” fact that it also knew these calculations were not correct. Michael Hodge QC, for the commonwealth, said this did not mean the government also knew the “debts were unlawful”. Murphy appeared to agree, saying he was “quite unlikely” to accept the argument made by Gordon Legal. The firm’s claim would need to include “actual knowledge of unlawfulness”. “Telling me it’s obvious is not going to cut it,” Murphy said. He said Gordon Legal would also need to identify which ministers or public servants knew the debts were illegal, which it had not done it its updated pleadings. Centrelink staff forced to administer botched robodebt scheme deserve apology, union say. Quinn said the firm would see what was “available” to it as more documents were discovered and “tidy up what’s required”. Murphy also raised the prospect of a delay to the 21 September trial date, saying he did not want the trial to “run like a dog’s breakfast”. “If I have this view on a pleading, what’s the evidence going to be like?” he said. But Quinn and Hodge agreed there was no need to delay the trial. Quinn said the trial would likely last six or seven days and the bulk would be “legal argument and some document tender”. Terry Carney, a former administrative appeals tribunal member who ruled against the scheme several times in 2017, will be among the firm’s witnesses, the court heard. Figures released to a Senate inquiry on Monday showed the government had now paid out $568m in refunds to 297,859 people over 339,720 debts. Guardian Australia has revealed that the commonwealth has also identified hundreds of unlawful debts issued before the robodebt scheme and which it has declined to pay back. www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/31/robodebt-class-action-lawsuit-is-not-ready-and-contains-obvious-errors-federal-judge-says?fbclid=IwAR31d2jVLgz4qzzfrmp6x-5M-_PQAQJi0Syjpp-YmOHkS1aB9lg3GtN3p5E
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Post by bear on Sept 1, 2020 7:27:55 GMT 7
I don't understand......if the government conceded it was unlawful; why the issue? Is it all about the judiciary attempting to protect government? If so, it certainly looks like third world dictatorial stuff....
Senator Heffernam has already said though, the judiciary can at times be slippery and untrustworthy.
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Post by quantumranger on Sept 2, 2020 21:06:44 GMT 7
The judge works for the government The judge is handing down a ruling on a government mistake
Lots of people who handed bank statements in didn't get their refund Including me
But if the court case wins then we get the money
So that's what I'm doing I'm just waiting
Some people are calling up Centrelink and it can lead to more stress but maybe they really need the money. But I rather just wait
Hopefully on top of the refund we get stress as well
But I'm not hopeful Because I don't how they will calculate stress or loss of life For those people who lost a loved one
On a side note Has anyone noticed when you call Centrelink they answer within 15 minutes. It used to be 1 and a half hours plus But the stupid robot keeps asking you to do voice recognition and 8 minutes worth of questions before you get put on hold I won't do the voice recognition thing because I think the thing won't recognise my voice and then I'll get locked out
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