phonecall - FaHCSIA admits their policy sucks

[roxane]

I talked to someone from portability yesterday and asked how the 63 days respite days
(the carer can have up to 63 days of break while the person he/she's caring for is outside of his/her care)
match up with the 6 weeks portability. On their website it clearly states:
"The carer may engage in any activity during the 63 days cessation of care."
ref:
guidesacts.fahcsia.gov.au/guides_acts/ssg/ssguide-3/ssguide-3.6/ssguide-3.6.7/ssguide-3.6.7.50.html

So "ANY" in my vocabulary means anything, meaning travelling overseas, right? Or am I missing something?

But guess what, the lady from portability admitted it doesn't make sense because it's two different piece of legislation, they just don't line up. Whether the gov. is looking to fix this up or not, she was unwilling to answer.
I wonder if that could stand up in court. Maybe the gov. has the right to pull out whatever policy they want regardless of how they match or don't match with each other.

[fedup]

As I have stated before ,laws contradicting laws, rules OVERIDING laws,different answers from different people,they are all on different pages and different books,make Monty pythons circus look like a drama


Basically no one knows what the hell they are doing ,don't know the current laws and legislation or how to interpret them, or don't give a rats.or all the aforementioned combined.

Still waiting for an ARO report review, whatever, still waiting for FOI files said would get them last week,seeing a social worker next week, had a ph convo today,face to face next week to go over my files.

What a circus

[roxane]

I just wrote an email to warren entch's to have a look at this issue. Probably they will come back with the usual bullshit, but worth to try, u never know.

My point is, that this is not really about the carer payment, but to find something where the gov can be attacked and hold responsible for their mistakes. Obviously the human rights strategy doesn't work. But if they can admit to one stuff up, the rest will be a piece of cake.

So come on guys try to find some new strategies! Lashing out on the gov. is unhelpful and unproductive. Put something useful together. Maybe we'll need a lawyer, who can find some loophole.

[fedup]

Yes a lawyer,I have approached a couple and they won't have a bar of anything to do with centrelink,and I can't blame them.I would like to know who exactly drew this latest round of legislation up.

I would back up anyone taking this outfit to task

[roxane]

I guess lawyers would be willing to do anything but not for free. I'm willing to contribute if someone can find one and if everybody else would contribute.

[aussieinusa]

Apr 19, 2013 11:41:51 GMT 7 roxane said:

I just wrote an email to warren entch's to have a look at this issue. Probably they will come back with the usual bullshit, but worth to try, u never know.

My point is, that this is not really about the carer payment, but to find something where the gov can be attacked and hold responsible for their mistakes. Obviously the human rights strategy doesn't work. But if they can admit to one stuff up, the rest will be a piece of cake.

So come on guys try to find some new strategies! Lashing out on the gov. is unhelpful and unproductive. Put something useful together. Maybe we'll need a lawyer, who can find some loophole.

I personally think we have a better shot through the court of public opinion. I'm fairly sure that if the stories of so many people effected by the government's sneaky overhaul of the welfare system (which all the recent 'reforms' and loophole closures amount to) were reported in the media, there would be some much public outrage they would have to make some major changes.

Right now, the government is doing a beautiful job of what's called "issues management" in the trade: controlling the discussion of a particular issue in the press by having something to do with many/most of the stories out there. Have you noticed how many of the stories about welfare cheats have a little something extra CL has thrown in? Some surveillance footage they paid a private investigator to capture of someone rorting the system, or a special tour of their fraud-detection facilities, for example. It's not some happy coincidence, where the current affairs people were already planning a story about welfare cheats that day and CL just happened to have some great footage to offer them; those welfare cheat stories ran because CL are offering the media whatever special access they can to get them to run those stories. Taxpayers' money paid for the private detective to take surveillance footage of someone working while they're on Newstart, or strolling down the street hand-in-hand with their partner while claiming at the single rate... and while that's supposedly to help get the convictions, the second they have that conviction, the tape somehow magically finds its way into the media's hands right away (actually, one of the media relations staff in CL sends it to them, in the hope they'll run another welfare cheat story).

CL's media relations team aren't exactly sending out press releases about the needy and deserving Aussies struggling to get by on below-poverty-line payments; they're telling the world about the fraudsters, the single parents who won't go get a job ('cos they say caring for their kid's a full-time job, bludgers!), and the DSPers who've supposedly jetted off on indefinite vacation at taxpayers' expense. That's not an accident: the more negative stories about CL 'customers' that run in the media, the more supportive voters who aren't CL 'customers' (or who only get Family Tax Benefit) are of CL making life ever-tougher for us. They're not going to use their considerable PR resources to tell accurate stories, about people struggling to make ends meet and navigate a complex and heartless welfare system, while also facing major life challenges or disability issues; if those stories dominated the media coverage about welfare, there would be a public outcry every time CL 'closed a loophole' or 'reformed the system' in ways that make our lives even tougher. So to make their own lives easier, they use considerable sums of taxpayers' money to fund their media relations team, to make sure the media runs lots of stories that grease the wheels for them.

Someone somewhere has to start working to get more accurate stories about CL customers -- ones that tell the story of the majority of us, who aren't defrauding the system or too lazy to work -- and since nobody else seems to be doing it, it might have to be use. And while we don't have a team of people with journalism degrees and years of PR experience working in an office full-time, with media monitoring services and press release mailing lists and a huge rolodex of media contacts to help get the job done, we do have the truth on our side: the majority of CL customers are not welfare cheats or people living it up on the taxpayers dime, no matter what CL's press releases and public spokesperson comments say.

[Banker]

ausieinusa; This has been something I have been talking about on here for ages, the fact that the staff at C/L that are charged with fraud, their names are never released and its just a big cover up. That is why I asked the question the other day about the fraud in the job centers, its just gets covered up.

[fedup]

Any links to these charges,ie newspaper clips etc

[Banker]

Apr 21, 2013 12:47:09 GMT 7 fedup said:

Any links to these charges,ie newspaper clips etc

Try this one first:

Data matching, staff and customer complaints spark investigations.

Complaints, monitoring and data-matching systems at the Department of Human Services (DHS) sparked two-thirds the number of investigations into staff conduct last year compared to the year prior.

Shadow Human Services Minister Kevin Andrews this week expressed concern over the 197 code of conduct investigations that had taken place during the 2010-11 financial year.

Those included ‘minor’ misconduct, such as angry outbursts, as well as 25 investigations of improper use of internet or email, and 67 investigations of ‘improper access to personal information’.

The latter occurred when employees accessed records either without a business reason, or despite being directed not to do so, for example if the records belonged to themselves, family or friends.

“The sheer volume of investigations is concerning,” Andrews stated.

“At a time when the Labor-Greens alliance is making noises about regulating the media to apparently strengthen the privacy of citizens, the department which holds information on every Australian has had 67 investigations for improper access to personal information.”

DHS general manager Hank Jongen said the department, Medicare and Centrelink aimed to restrict access to customer information, perform audit logging of all access to customer records, and provide timely and accurate reporting mechanisms for staff and customers.

The 197 employees who were investigated represented 0.55 percent of Medicare, Centrelink and DHS staff, he said. Of those, 128 were found to have breached the code of conduct.

For comparison, 286 employees representing 0.8 percent of total staff were investigated in 2009-10, and 187 were found guilty.

www.australianpensioner.org/centrelinknews.html

[Banker]

Some more from the Great Australian Pensioner Web Site.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman has given the welfare payment agency Centrelink a bad report card.

Ombudsman Allan Asher says he has received a barrage of complaints from pensioners, the unemployed and family payment recipients.

After launching his own investigation he identified "systemic weaknesses", including Centrelink not telling people they are entitled to an independent review of decisions.

"We've heard from many thousands of Centrelink clients who've complained or had arbitrary withdrawal of benefits or imposition of conditions or changes or reporting requirements, all of which have proved to be invalid," he said.

He says the system is complex, lacks transparency and treats people unfairly, who often give up pursuing their appeal.

Almost half of all reviews resulted in a changed decision to the customer's advantage.

www.australianpensioner.org/centrelinknews.html

[fedup]

I like the way they play with numbers,trying to make it look insignificant

BUT look at the percentage rate of those found guilty

Says a lot