Australian Carers & A Welfare Support System to Die In.

 

The following is my submission to the Royal Commission Disability Abuse Part 1 lodged on Friday.  Part 2 on COVID19 has already been released & can be found on my blog page too.  Should you need anymore information to substantiate the details herein I'm happy to provide it.

Part 1 - Care of the Disabled & Aged

Part	Particulars	Pages
1.1	Australians Right to Health & Welfare A brief history of the National Welfare Fund the foundation of homecare for both the aged & disabled	2-4
1.2	Cashless Debit Card - the Welfare Funnel out for nothing but Political Donor Profits	4-5
1.3	Carer Payment (CP)/Carer Allowance (CA) Qualification	5-12
1.4	Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) Part 1	13-14
1.5	Transitioning back from Caring dragging an anchor	14-17
1.6	A Caring Future	16-17
*	References	18

 

Part 1.1 – Australians Right to Health & Welfare

1.1.1 I’ve seen both sides of the coin as a carer and as a wheely for life disabled care receiver.  That progression has occurred in less than 5 years.  I’m a living testament of Australia’s failed home carer supports under Social Security.  Let’s be honest, when people cannot afford to rent anywhere on Newstart, Robodebts have been issued to millions of Australians & they are unlawful, people are dying on wait list for care & people are dying from the poor care they are getting on NDIS, starved & neglected to death in aged homes, we are getting absolutely no health & welfare. Hearing of a new system from the same old rorters just isn’t going to do it anymore.  Australia crossed the line into crimes against humanity territory long ago with Robodebt, Cashless Debit Card, & let’s not forget that atrocious offshore detention. What is going on in the old Department of Human Services new Department of Social Services is nothing short of an unlawful punitive free for all, crossing off the sections of Article 7 of the ICC Rome Statute Crimes against humanity like it was a shopping list.

1.1.2 Let’s carve it in stone today.  Health & welfare is an entitled right in the Constitution, because it has been fully paid for by Australians.

1.1.3 Behind the Social Security Act 1947 that was introduced by referendum, was the National Welfare Fund.  It was a bi-partisan policy from Liberal’s Menzies & Labor’s Chifley.  Like any other contract, that has sub-clauses & additional accepted common law information, Australians were promised if they agreed to a tax bracket increase at a time when Australia was rebuilding post war, they would have a good Social Security System.

1.1.4 At no time have all tax brackets been reversed back by the National Welfare Fund income tax adjustment.  Make no mistake, when a purpose specific 7.5% taxation hike was taken from Australians since 1943 with assurances it would be deposited to a Trust a/c & a very large surplus (worth in today’s terms over a billion) was shifted to Consolidated Revenue by Menzies only 7 years later 1950, excellent feasibility was already established. As was also the intention that that money be kept separate & for the sole purpose of health & welfare.  In accounting it means that Government, the Opposition & Treasury had better find that money & a lot of account books showing a purpose specific general ledger set was established & maintained back to 1950 to convince this girl Australians health & welfare monies haven’t been misappropriated.

1.1.5 Additionally, the Commonwealth has charged a Medicare levy, smokers levy, just about any levy it can think of, for health & welfare that should already be paid for. Australian voters gave what was claimed to be a mandate to accept GST, that at no time GST would ever rise & there would be no other taxes.   Already Government has broken that mandate by introducing a series of levies & increased GST by adding it to small value online purchases since 2018.  It has already been getting additional taxes it should not be receiving & still has been pulling stunts like COVID19 that I will show is a fraud in Part 2. No matter what our bi-partisan Government gets in taxes, they never give us the health & welfare we have paid for.  What kind of scum, force people to do Mutual Obligations aka Work for the Dole, for their own entitled money?  Neither the Liberal National Party or the Australian Labor Party are fit to govern and both have shown an intent to defraud the Australian people of their entitled health & welfare.

 

https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE6856427&file=FL17115462&mode=browse

1.1.6 We should already have that health & welfare future fund promoted every time Liberal National Party Coalition have wanted to challenge the terms of the GST Mandate it made.   And as the Trust moneys were shifted to a general interest-bearing Consolidated Revenue a/c we should have an awful lot of accumulative interest too.  We shouldn’t have needed to pay ANY Medicare Levies as introduced by Australian Labor Party (ALP).  Neither should we have had to pay for a smoker’s levy when WWII diggers smoked increased in the past by both LNP & ALP.  No need for alcopops levies those Depression boozers would drink all our young under the table. And there should be absolutely no need for a COVID19 levy which I will show in Part 2 was a highly suspicious medical event that both LNP & ALP had to know was a lot of baloney.  Failure to pick it up shows how little has been really spent on our health & real doctors instead of BETA psychologist for a long time.  Our health & welfare was already paid for in full & with interest.

1.1.7 In a Court of law any reasonable person would expect, that if they paid the same entity (namely the Commonwealth), funds as requested (namely tax at the required rate), for a purpose specific service provision (namely health & welfare), they get it. Whatever name is over Dept doors, whatever new program name or Act is created to hide the abortion of supply, Australians have paid the entity the Commonwealth for their health & welfare in full & it has not & is not being supplied. 

1.1.8 Australians have overpaid for their health care.  They kept the agreement enshrined in referendum in terms of the additional taxation.  Historical brochures & media releases are in the public domain to help us to interpret the intention of Social Security & they certainly don’t resemble anything like the minefield of Robodebt programs called Isis, “Trigger” instructions in Acts, breach zones for payments.  What’s been dished out by this appalling Department whatever they want to call themselves has been mentally & physically destructive to the majority of customers.

1.1.9 In stark contrast both LNP & ALP as they have sat rotationally in Government have bi-partisan had a hand in unwinding the 1947 Act till they replaced it all together. Created in the year of Keating’s “Recession we had to have year” we got the Social Security Act 1991.  Even after it was created the pair immediately set about making it even more punitive than it was to start with.  Our politicians have actually had the nerve to have people do “Work for the Dole” aka “Mutual Obligation”.  If Australians had deposited the 7.5% tax hike in their own banks or income protection insurance, they wouldn’t have an “Obligation” to work to get their own entitled money. Why should DHS Centrelink customers have any “Obligation” to work for their own prepaid money.  It has never been “mutually” agreed.  If customers refuse to do the “mutual obligations” they have their benefits their own entitled money cancelled.

1.1.10 When the majority of benefits affects is DHS Customers rent that means it should constitutionally be subject to s51xxxi “just” terms.  How are breaches of peoples entitled benefits for failure to perform enforced acts they should not have to even constitutionally lawfully acts? They are not “just” Acts that have been created.  Government & Opposition have legislated slavery.

1.1.11 Australians gave a mandate to the Australian Government that it would let it introduce GST on the condition it would never increase it & we would have no other taxes.  Immediately after they introduced a smoker’s levy & haven’t stopped introducing levies to the point, they openly introduced GST on small international online buys.  This is a GST rise - the mandate was broken.

1.1.12 Still despite more & more tax we have received less & less health & welfare. Where has the Social Security money gone that gives us such a rosy OECD expenditure figure?  Start with Cashless Debit Card.

1.1.13 Welfare recipient are belittled with comments like “Dole Bludgers”, “Welfare Cheats” & while being subjected in the “lucky country” to disgraceful comments like, “the best form of welfare is a job”.  All this from public purse overpaid rorting bi-partisan bullies not doing their jobs.  There is more Government time spent on uncovering their respective rorts than them actually doing any meaningful work.  Question time is a farcical show where they hide their acts with a pantomime of time wasters designed to stir up dissent with lgbtiq & aboriginal issues that will never get resolved because they are too much good value for media distractions. 

 

1.2 Cashless Debit Card - the Welfare Funnel out for nothing but Political Donor Profits

1.2.1 The cashless debit card is a card designed by an electoral donor of both LNP & ALP Andrew Forest.  It is supposedly a trial.  How do you call a major rort of public funds that has been shown to reduce the birthweight of babies in the areas it is inflicted on a trial?  What costed taxpayers virtually nothing before now sees in “trial” areas the introduction of a card costing $10K per annum per card going to a company heavy with ex politicians’ & their interested parties. This has gone on for over 6 years (that is over 2x sitting terms of an elected Government).  So blatant are our Government rorters, they did not even bother to gather any viable tangible data on this “trial”. 

1.2.2 Here is a card that amongst many things: -

1.2.2(a) pays all the transaction fees at the highest price card in the world & yet we are led to believe does not accumulate reward points to anyone’s benefit;

1.2.2(b) was thrust on welfare recipients Constitutionally s51xxxi, unjustly acquiring the use of customers welfare benefits, because a high proportion of their benefits is their rent.  Many landlords do not want the card or any dealings with Centrelink.  Even when charged with the job of paying rent direct the high number of complaints shows that this is not being done properly & timely;

1.2.2(c) to opt-out requires disabled people to give additional health evidence to able bodied applicants of their medical conditions in order to prove they have a valid reason for their drug use & they are not incapacitated to manage their own financial affairs (with or without carers);

1.2.2(d) Government promotes as being the same as any other bankcard & yet even if you do opt-out, they don’t process your opt out application, in the same instant timely manner as other bankcards;

1.2.2(e) Is scrip goes plastic illegal in many countries because it encourages monopoly traders. 

1.2.3 I formerly submit my Senate Cashless Debit Card submissions that are already in the public domain: -

1.2.3(a) http://aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=c593cba1-f094-4df6-8adb-8505aca9b1c6&subId=670730

1.2.3(b) https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=2bb23750-ac7e-44da-aaee-3fe55f584ddf&subId=694733

1.2.4 Every Senate hearing for this I have watched a political show as the political donor recipients have stacked the Committee numbers to ensure it gets passed by Senate. 

 

 

 

 

Part 1.3 Carer Payment (CP)/Carer Allowance (CA) Qualification
1.3.1 I was already helping my care receiver a frail aged disabled, while running my own small business. Round about 2011 the combination of a car accident (not my fault) & my care receiver’s condition deteriorating, necessitated me applying for CP/CA (same form). Despite my care receiver qualifying at twice the level & me being the sole carer, I only received CA.  At that time, it was an inadequate $115pf (it’s now only $130pf). Who can afford to live on $57.50pw (no rent allowance)?  I had to claim Newstart as well & that meant I was forced to job seek & do Mutual Obligations aka Work for the Dole on top of caring. I reduced small business customers down, but kept it going (done respite day) so I’d have still have current skills when I finished caring. I reduced my customers & had Mutual Obligations. I opted for volunteering to meet the 25hrs pw “Mutual Obligations” instead of Work for the Dole.

1.3.2 I used my watch to time my care activities for a week & then averaged the results for the Application form.  When I applied, I was doing 42-45 hrs pw of “personal care” & then had the other non-claimable jobs for my care receiver.  For qualification for CP, I had to perform “personal care” “equivalent of a normal working day in personal care”. A normal working day in respite care was 5 hours total & this was not all “personal care”.  Fair Work Australia deems a normal working day as being part of a normal working week 38-40hrs, but not Centrelink. 

1.3.3 One of the gems I had thrown at me, that was nowhere on the CP form or guides or on the Centrelink website (it was introduced in the Centrelink Senior Review), is that “personal care” had to be “constant”.  Carers per the website were entitled to 63 days off per year, but to qualify by the hidden “constant care”, I had to perform 8hrs per day & it be “constant” so 7 days a week for 13 weeks of “personal care”. This is a total of 56 hours per week just on “personal care” & no days off for sickness or anything including Centrelink’s Mutual Obligations.

 

1.3.4 Of course DHS Centrelink have improved their act with the merge of the new Departments & running an unlawful mafia style debt collection operation.  Like hell! It is pretty clear the same old dirty games are in play.  Why wouldn’t they be when they shuffled the deck chairs & promoted the biggest Robodebt crooks.  The Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 Principles 8(a)(ii) requires clear statements on procedural requirements yet DHS Customers get indistinct requirements so they can keep make it up as they go along to assault people.    From personal experience “may allow”, means never allow temporary exemptions from the “Obligations” people should not have to complete in the first place.  Let me be clear these people are bastards that should be in jail.  I can remember in the 2011 flood I was in a Clifton Toowoomba that was totally cut off by flood water & I phoned my Job Service Provider (JSP) at that time to get release from my “Mutual Obligations”, because the water was 2 inches from entering my Care Receivers home.  The State Govt was putting out announcements not to travel unless you absolutely had to.  I was told that unless I attended an appointment at the JSP’s Office in a few days’ time I would have my benefits stopped. I lodged a complaint with Centrelink & when they phoned me it was after the appointment, as I was sat on a coach high enough if the flood waters had not receded it would have a chance to get through.

 

1.3.5 The “personal care” referred to is residential care, where they have teams of health workers. They can apply Henry Ford’s batch processes in environments fit for purpose designed. Residential care workers are pre-trained nurses, supported by cleaners, cooks & visiting doctors. Home Carers like me had a copy of a submitted home care support pack application & nothing supplied after. The supported jobs I performed that were non-claimable in Centrelink’s qualification hours, included cooking, cleaning, & all other home maintenance (this incl getting friends to help me with the bath to walk-in shower conversion because I couldn’t lift my care receiver anymore) excepting lawn mowing.  No activities are claimable outside the home & that includes doctor’s trips & food shopping.

 

1.3.6 Government pays for a Hilda report that tells it what the average hours are for housework (29).  Government since 2011 has withheld the information from both the popular media & applying carers, that it had a 2 year wait list even then for Home Care Pack provisions. Government would have known home carers would have to pick up the slack on their negligent non-existent supply of home care packs. That means every Carer who did not get the home care pack support, was doing an additional 29 hours pw unpaid housework that the Government should have been funding.  The minimum CA qualification hours were 25hrs “personal care”.  Add to that the 29 hours Hilda Report housework hours. That is 54 hours. DHS Centrelink now openly concede on their webpage that carers can take 63 days off per year. Every single CA receiver like me, who was completing the household jobs of the care receiver also should have rightly been entitled to the full CP from the start & not just the CA we were paid.  Instead, we got assaulted with even more “Mutual Obligations” progressively increasing by the length of time you are caring.  Frail aged people get progressively worse while DHS Centrelink simultaneously increases the “Mutual Obligations” & they don’t give a damn about the damage they do to Carers.

 

1.3.7 Conditions for home carers have only improved slightly with that acknowledgement of the 63 days off p.a., but realistically if Carers were doing a community expectation comparison of what is a normal working job, the time off should equate 2.692 days off per week for CP qualification. That totals 140 days per annum ((52w/e x2d) + (4holiday wksx7d) +1sickd). When you consider the time in lieu for episodically bad days that figure should increase.

 

 

1.3.8 In order to qualify for CP from CA + Newstart, you were expected to be completing up to 123 hours pw (56hrs personal care+29 Hilda housework hrs+38hrs Mutual Obligations for a period of 13 weeks with no day off.  It is pretty obvious, that If I completed a form saying I had done this I would have had to have been lying on the forms.  When to qualify for CP from CA a Carer had to do over 17hours a day for 13 weeks without a day off the Secretary trashed the Principle of Social Security (Administration) 8(a)(iii).  DHS Centrelink fully intended to not deliver the service “in a fair” manner. 

 

1.3.9 My CP denial was challenged at a farcical Administration Appeals Tribunal (AAT).  I had no legal help, because I could not afford the time off during the day to get legal help. DHS dragged out my AAT until winter the worst time for a frail aged disabled, but that gets ignored because colds & flu that frail aged are highly susceptible to are “episodic” events.  At the time I went into Tribunal my care receiver was episodically sick & my area had an over 4week wait to see a doctor.  With a 2% success rate I had no chance winning at AAT whether I had a legal aid or not.

 

1.3.10 About all I could hope for was that a Member would actually read my submission.  I put a lot of detail in my Application & Response.  I had no time to sit for a lengthy period in a Tribunal room & no time to prepare for a Court case after (I expected on 2% odds to lose) that would be heard likely in Brisbane 160km away.  The best I could hope for was it would be on file for prosperity.

 

1.3.11 You are told you have a right to a review of any DHS decision, but you get a review by a Centrelink Senior Officer from the same Division of DHS motivated to hide its faults. Then an authorised review from DHS again & then a Tribunal that reports back on performance to you guessed it DHS again.  The AAT Member is hired & fired by the same politico’s that created the laws for DHS.

 

1.3.12 Of course, you can opt for the Ombudsman’s Office that currently is held by a long time Public Servant, who was on the same Committee DEEWR, with the current Secretary of Social Services, who helped design this mess of non-review of their activities. All DHS does is drag out provision of benefits, drag you round in circles of their own staff, so they have more information, in case you can get a rare legal aid provider that will take them on in Court.  You really have no review at all. 

 

1.3.13 My AAT action hadn’t been about extra money it was to make the Mutual Obligations of 25 hrs pw more flexible & inclusive of carer chores I was having to do as they were not supplying home care packages.  DHS Centrelink was about making sure I’d not have the time to fight an unsupported action in Federal Court, as they’re decisions would come under scrutiny in an arena that didn’t report back to them.

 

1.3.14 There were so many things legally wrong with my AAT Decision I knew immediately it could be beaten in Court. 28days to lodge, no legal help & an episodically sick aged disabled care receiver in the middle of winter, meant I was behind the 8-ball from the start, but initially I wanted to start as this old screen capture of an email I sent to Mission Australia my Job Service Provider shows. 

 

 

 

 

1.3.15 Model Litigants DHS Centrelink made goddam sure I had no hope of going to Federal Court.  They increased my Mutual Obligation hours to the maximum 38hours pw.  My new JSP was so disgusted he turned his screen to me so I could read the instruction came direct from DHS Centrelink as he went & made himself a coffee.

 

1.3.16 Even with the 38hours I kept going as long as I could caring it took a severe toll on my: -

1.3.16(a) health (I suffered what the doctor thought was depression, but it turned out it was a symptom of my blood pressure being through the roof);

 

1.3.16(b) ability to quality care.  I was unable to take my care receiver out as much (unclaimable Centrelink hours & I had no spare time).  I was advised that my care receiver could be put on the patio for her Vitamin D.  Games done together (recommended by Alzheimer’s) weren’t approved by DHS Centrelink;

 

1.3.16(c) external relationships;

 

1.3.16(d) my Small Business. Though it paid virtually no profit I’d struggled to keep it going so I’d have reference & a work history showing currency of paid work after caring.  Thanks to DHS Centrelink it was virtually gone. 

 

1.3.17 One time I tried I write down my time commitments & the difference between my Newstart + CA & my care receiver’s pension (about $200pf less).  So, I could try & get through my care receiver what I was juggling. Mr care receiver I think did not believe what I was saying.  Really who would accept that a Govt Dept would purposely intend to try & work Carers to death & enforce carer support laws that prevent disabled people getting out of the house. 

 

1.3.18 I have had no contact for a number of years now.  My care receiver is fully cared by Blue Care at a far higher cost to Govt than the difference between CA + Newstart & CP. I’d stopped caring in every sense, as I’d worked sick & tired for too long. There’s only so many hours in a day.  No sleep equals high blood pressure. Even now I’m insomniac.  Finding out the Carers Recognition Act 2010 was not implemented until 2012 via Annual Reports is just not good enough.  When I hear comments from Government like, “The best form of welfare is a job”, I want to scream, “Home carers are doing a job & you abuse them & don’t even pay them”.

 

1.3.19 From the above principles of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999.  “Ready availability of publications containing clear statements”.  The operative words in the page below are “may” & “significant period” undefined as to what that period is.  This Feb 24, 2021 offends the principles of the Act.  It is designed this way so corners of the APH can discriminate as to who it gives the appropriate financial support of the full Carers Payment to. 

 

1.3.20 Until we get clear statements & all discretions are removed from the same Secretary & Department that ignored 76 AAT rulings on the unlawfulness of Robodebt we will never have the fair & equal Social Security we are entitled to. On my respite day I’d travel to Brisbane & do my care receivers shopping on the way back & drop it in. I’d see & talk to people with their carers nowhere near as bad as my care receiver that had home help, meals on wheels, gardens mowed. My care receiver had none of that, we were on the home pack wait list. 

 

1.3.21 At the time I applied for the full CP the qualification period it was 13 weeks.  It is now 6 months.  Carers are clearly not being killed off fast enough for Governments liking. This DHS Centrelink screen capture is as poorly defined as the form I filled in.  It offends Principle 8(a)(ii) “clear statements”.  It is designed to give the appearance of a fair Carers provision, but it still leaves it open so DHS Centrelink to use its discretions.  Anyone that has watched DHS Centrelink in Senate questioning on Robodebt would have to know they can’t even be trusted to apply the law when it is spelled out in front of them e.g., 76 decisions of AAT on Robodebt unlawfulness. Let alone leaving them to decide on hours.

1.3.22 Every year there’s a budget night where we hear what’s in the budget for people on welfare.  Why? If the purpose specific health & welfare tax had been properly managed, like it had to be, when it sat in the National Welfare Fund Trust a/c, we’d have enough money for the aged population we are entering now.   If you apply for CP like I did at the wrong end of a budget period you get knocked back.  I was told at one time I had the right to apply again for CP.  I shouldn’t have to reapply for a benefit I was entitled to get the first time.

 

1.3.23 People are knocked back & having their entitled benefits withheld when they are being paid amounts now so far below the poverty line it is ridiculous.  Australia needs to find out why?  During my Robodebt case I received a number of financial documents that had incorrect dates.  Receipts wrongly dated, wrong dates of an allowance payment on an ATO Annual Summary. Look at Robodebt itself.  All that additional money to the budget from prior periods going into DHS Centrelink.  People were charged for unlawful debts they did not owe. Disabled people were targeted en mass despite there only supposed to be 300 test subjects approved & overseen (I got no assistance at all).  It is appalling that disabled people like me were forced to repay debts we did not owe, while approval for entitled benefits were withheld & dragged out (4 months for my leg amputation) in the latter half of 2017. DHS Centrelink had budget money & the unlawful Robodebt money.  Where was all the money that DHS Centrelink was withholding benefits for an abnormally long period?

 

1.3.24 In my case my approval for the full Disability Support Pension (DSP) was withheld from me for 4 months when the Ombudsman’s office told me the norm was 2 months. A Centrelink Senior Officer lied in review about my application receipt date & lied about my right to have the adjustment between the lower paid Newstart & DSP I was switched to from Austudy in hospital backdated.  Where did the budget money go? DHS Centrelink still will not give me an Authorised Review of their actions on the “voluntary” repayments I was forced to make in breach of the old version of the guide 6.7.3.08 that enabled a debt in review to be paused.  I am told because I am in Managed Service Personnel as I am an abusive person (I objected to being given unlawfully undue menace to pay an unlawful debt they knew I did not owe) they don’t have to give me any reviews. The other Authorised Review they won’t give me, is on their continual attempts to stop my health card. A hospital health certificate was knocked back because it was for too long over two years, a second replaced medical certificate was knocked back for 4 months the doctor miscounted the months in community nursing transition when I had been approved already for DSP & they had me “parked” for a second time no explanation given.  

 

1.3.25 My DSP was parked twice.  Rent assistance stopped for no reason while in hospital. I’ve been given 2x overpayment Robodebts: - 1. I had to defend myself starting while I was in hospital transition care; & 2. I caught them trying to set me up.  I’ve been denied Authorised Reviews. I’ve had poor help from the Ombudsman’s Office to even get Authorised Reviews of criminal actions that were systemic me & others despite me proving Centrelink were lying in the investigation (Refer Senate Compliance submission 2019 & 2020 update).  I have been subjected to appalling provisions from NDIS for over 3 years.  Every single year I have had games with my health card since being disabled.  I’ll give you an explanation. They have been trying to kill me at worst & at best have intended to do me physical & mental harm.  COVID19 shows they have intended to do the vast majority of people physical & mental harm.

 

 

 

 

1.3.26 Why do we have a budget for welfare tied to the other expenditure item in the first place.  That is not the basis upon which Australians were told their health & welfare would be managed.  The separate Trust Account shows their money for health & welfare should always have been kept separate.  Why when the system was heavily promoted do Australians not have the right to claim that both ALP & LNP were elected by a mandate thereafter as strong as the GST they have also trashed. 

 

1.3.27 Those CA receivers having to claim Newstart for a liveable income, are also juggling WFD or volunteering 15hours pw now. When CA has a minimum of 25hrs personal care qualification & Govt is not supplying immediately home care support packs Carers are already doing 25hrs + 29 Hilda report housework hrs.  Adding even 15hrs Mutual Obligations to what is already a 54hr week is not fair in anyone’s language.  It is time “constant care” was sent to the bin & it was made very clear it has no part in qualifications.

This slight improvement does not change what was done to Carers previously.  Or the fact that Government has been negligent in providing the homecare packs supposed to support Carers.  All CA receivers denied CP should receive compensation at the very least equivalent to the difference between CA & CP.  Make no mistake critical information on the virtual non-existence of support provisions was withheld from the public.  We are now facing a crisis in aged & disability care.  When a lot of people are look at the treatment Carers have received in the past, there will be few takers for care roles needed for the future unless that compensation is magnanimously given.  It needs to be given loud enough that people will think there really is a change in how carers are treated. 

 

 

 

Part 1.4 Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT)

1.4.1 Today the AAT has become a bigger farce.  It is stacked to the hilt by political staffers of both the Govt & the Opposition. The separated disability section for NDIS is a disaster & a travesty of justice for the disabled.  How fair is it that able bodied people defending Centrelink matters get months & months to apply for reviews & have access to at least AAT2 Decisions and yet disabled people only get 28days to lodge a review, get no AAT1 go straight to AAT2 with no advice, there are no precedents & virtually no legal help? It isn’t fair, it isn’t just, it is an abomination.  These early cases under the NDIS Act are the precedents that will be used to set lawful decisions for decades to come & the basis of those decisions are already corrupted & blind.

 

1.4.2 My NDIS AAT2 was a disgrace.  The newly promoted up Member Meagher had nothing to worry about when letting her appalling bias towards NDIS & DHS show.  She ignored: - precedents on transport; ignored NDIS lied in the Tribunal about the Qld Govt Taxi Subsidy Card ceasing; ignored NDIS continual stretching out the time with absences across the day; ignored NDIS had not only failed to supply a Support Co-ordinator & actually removed all money from my Plan account; she even ignored me when I made my summation one of the brief periods I got to speak.  Who has to worry about performance though, when your daddy is the person who reviews your performance at work?

 

1.4.3 What incentive is there for any Tribunal Member LNP or ALP to rule properly in AAT.  Former Members Carney & Treble’s Don’t come Monday letters are testament to that.  Just reflect on the Tribunal justice rampant in Australia’s health & welfare.  Two people ruling per the law are sent up the road & Secretary Campbell who ignored that law in 76 rulings₆ in Robodebt is polishing her OAM & enjoying her promotion.  All fine & dandy with Government, the bi-partisan Opposition & their Governor General pick.

 

 

1.4.4 LNP & ALP bi-partisan, created the mess & overload in the nursing homes for aged & disabled alike.  Home Carers like me had no choice, but to give up.  We were forced out & more than a few should be asking why. Many disabled are insurance beneficiaries & the people owning those inner-city houses properties that developers want are the aged. Starved of viable homecare they are forced into those non-transferable ownership retirement homes.  It is overtime, that political donations were looked into with a high focus on investments in nursing homes.  What is rolled out here is generational poverty.  It will result in even poorer care in the future.  Too many people have turned blind eye to the corruption behind political donations for too long₄.

 

 

Part 1.5 Transitioning back from Caring

 

1.5.1 Women are penalised by time loss in child birth, as single parent custody rulings (50% marriages end in divorce) & when the majority of primary aged Carers are women (70%) they are assured a life till death of poverty.  You would think Government would want to remedy that.  Not so. In fact, both LNP & ALP have gone out of their way to make it harder for women & the children they have custody of.  We have had no fault divorce when usually it is the men that are usually the strayers with the women left holding the baby.  We have had single mothers forced onto Newstart.  We have had disgraceful treatment while women do any caring.

 

1.5.2 When frail age is on 75yo for many & 80-84 the average mortality age Carers can expect a minimum of 5years service.  Governments State & Federal enforced by Courts that demand a currency in education, job skills offer nothing that gives a realistic pathway back from Caring into the workforce. 

 

1.5.3 Look at any of the occupations where females dominate in numbers & you will find they are underpaid in comparison to men with similar skills.  The jobs we have to do as women are those that accommodate our caring roles. 

 

1.5.4 I was a bookkeeper that while caring Federal Government changed the laws requiring me to be an eligible bookkeeper to trade.  Bookkeeping uses mathematical formulae that have been virtually the same since the 1400s.  Every year there are changes per the budget & ATO quarterly ruling advices. They are not the end of the line before the ATO.  The Accountant is the go between check stage.  It is a travesty that Government & Opposition imposed the eligible bookkeeper status forcing many bookkeepers a female dominated flexible occupation out of business to grow their Big 4 Accounting political donors to create a bigger monopoly.  

 

1.5.5 When I finished caring I immediately enrolled in a Cert III in Business that my local librarian recommended that was part sponsored by the Qld Government & I paid the balance of about $200. On paper I was $116pf financially worse off, because I had aptly advised DHS Centrelink I was no longer caring, but in reality, I genuinely had used that money for carer expenses so I was financially no worse off.   Despite being a State Government sponsored course DHS Centrelink & my Job Service Provider refused to concede it was an approved activity, so I couldn’t even get the student start up grant or Austudy.  I had to continue volunteering to complete Mutual Obligations & looking for work to get Newstart in addition to studying until I completed the course. I’m not seeing anything Mutual in those Obligations.

 

1.5.6 Yes, I lodged a complaint.  Experience & the 2%-win ratio told me I had no chance with AAT.  Even doing the study, volunteering, part time bookkeeping & job seeking hours per week study, I was still better off than when I was caring.

 

1.5.7 I received my Cert III Business & November 2015 & was accepted for Diploma level.  I used the Commonwealth Governments website to select my College so there would be absolutely no doubt it was an approved entity & chose Ivy College.  Unbeknownst to me this approved Centrelink College had been de-registered 3years before by ASQA & that deregistration had been upheld in AAT.  They knocked back my first Confirmation of Enrolment because they said it had to be on one piece of paper not because the College should not have been trading in the first place.  Even in the Authorised Review the officer claimed that this was an approved College.  DHS Centrelink had the nerve to give me a data-match enquiry letter dated the day I left hospital a wheely for life October 2017 that resulted in a Robodebt for me leaving this unregistered College.  I note I left with a full Special Circumstance remission held in accordance with the HES Act2003.  Does this sound like any public service hierarchy or Government helping carers or disabled re-enter the workforce?  Does this sound like any public service hierarchy that should still have jobs? 

 

1.5.8 Despite going back & doing a Cert III Business & the getting a Diploma of Accounting for something I had been doing for years before I was a Carer (I worked for a bookkeeping agency & accountant).  I still cannot qualify as an eligible bookkeeper performing BAS because I have to prove 1000 hrs history in the past 4yrs.  When the Carers of the aged have been forced by the neglect of Government in provision of home aged care packs to have lengthier absences than we should have had to, we should not have to put up with cr*p like this that prevents us getting back in the workforce faster. GST has been in Australia since 2000. The laws & rulings at ATO change every year.  If I was a lawyer that had a break for caring no-one would dispute that the Constitution was still the same but there may be new precedents for each case to familiarise with. My case is not unique it is rampant across Australia. Female carers & workers are targeted in Australia for doing carer roles.  In the recent Senate questioning Media Anna Rogers Submission 853 noted her pay drop on returning after caring from a Grade 6 to 2a she still had 10 years qualifications & experience (46:47 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmHXbc_6ltI). 

 

1.5.9 In addition to losing our incomes while caring Government & the Opposition have actively encouraged & promoted by their legislation ways to prevent our re-entry after caring.  Simultaneously, they have reduced our incomes on welfare by making it almost impossible to get the full CP & shifting single mothers to Newstart.

 

1.5.10 DHS Centrelink Secretaries have for years been ignoring their obligations to Carers under the Carers Recognition Act 2010 & indeed Annual Reports show they did not introduce it until a few years after.  The Department of Social Security has knowingly concealed the level of wait lists for care packages from the wider public’s knowledge for over a decade.  I can show the Department of Social Security has wilfully ignored their obligation to provide full clear information on benefits.  I can show that the Secretary has failed to implement a structure that appropriately invokes the need for her to use her discretionary powers for the better treatment of all Social Security recipients.

 

Part 1.6– A Caring Future

1.6.1 Home Carers are doing a vital job for the community.  They are the barrier between a swamped residential care that needs to be restored fast as baby boomers are 75.  These following paragraphs are from a public submission accepted to Senate Newstart & Other Payments Submission 284₇.

 

 

1.6.1(a) There is an unrealistic assumption by the Social Security Act 1991, that care givers live with their care receivers. I lived less than 600m from my Care Receivers home.  Most Care givers have their own homes with furniture and their own belongings before caring drops in their laps. During caring like every other “residential care” worker they need personal space. After caring they need to have their own place of residence. They have lives too. Per ABS about 70% of carers are women. 

 

1.6.1(b) Over 50y.o. women are the most likely to be caring for elderly relatives, the most likely to be long term unemployed & part of the fastest rising demographic of homelessness.  Men are 50% of the population that get women’s care & have made up the vast majority of Govts that have decided they should be punished physically & financially for giving it. The community watched 4 Corners “Who Cares?” (Ref3) & were outraged at the neglect in residential care. ABC “More than half of the nursing homes run by Australia's largest private provider Bupa are failing basic standards of care and 30 per cent are putting the health and safety of the elderly at "serious risk". Still, this is the benchmark of neglect home carers are supposed to beat timewise to Centrelink for CP qualification.

1.6.1(c) Nothing I can see has changed. I’m now disabled in a community where NDIS has been unable for nearly 2 years to get me a care giver that actually turns up for even 2hrs a week.  I live less than approx. 2km from a Super Council & 2 hospitals.  71 hours a week without a day off for CA/Newstart is not going to make anyone consider caring as a viable long-term occupation in the caring industry after home caring is finished. There should be no Mutual Obligations unless care givers want to do them & it’s time to scrap CA & pay the full CP.  If this Royal Commission thinks that the penny pinching that has gone on hasn’t played a very big role in that violence, abuse, neglect & exploitation in home care it needs to think again.

 

1.6.1(d) “The current approach to setting income support payments in Australia” is more about paying as little as possible for Care givers. No-one on Newstart, that then progresses to Newstart + CA can possibly qualify for CP unless they are extremely lucky. This should be a concern, as the person in a family most likely to get assigned the role of primary carer, is the one not holding a job & already on Newstart. Carers are often poor when they start caring and poorer when parked on Newstart + CA. There they become deskilled due to the lengthy absence from the workforce & are on Newstart longer after the carer role finishes. Being a carer is entrenched poverty, for doing a job, that is clearly a community need. Privatisation
of services has been a failure, because of the inadequacy of trained available staff to meet needs. No-one disputes home care is far cheaper than the residential care costs. Govt still though is still using a failed model in doing cost comparisons. It fails to consider that unless there’s zero unemployment, the cost of home carers is only the difference between Newstart & CA or CP, because they are most likely claiming benefits. Wake up!

1.6.1(e) We’re about to be hit by a tsunami sized aging population. We need to make to make caring appealing again. Embrace the higher paid CP & scrap CA. Provide an online Cert II/III Home Care 8 hrs pw (part of the 56 hrs), study flexibly e.g., using respite days. Carers gain employable skills for an aged future. Carers can be assessed on the job by a Medical Professional not an RPL, but a Recognition of Current Learning (RCL). Timings for onsite assessments can be duo-purpose e.g., Across months pedicures, skin integrity checks, flu injections etc. This ensures care receiver’s healthcare & environment is regularly independently monitored and enables responsible batching of nurse delivered community care. Nurses’ involvement in homes, would no doubt start sensible experienced based
conversations on future home designs where the disabled are fully community integrated. By accepting carers are fully occupied now in an apprenticeship style of study & paying CP, it reduces the need for them to be considered in unemployment figures. ABS statistics show 50% of marriages do not succeed. That equals a lot of singles that will need care when the care receivers first training role finishes. The reduction in the unemployment flows equals increase of consumer confidence in the economy ergo stimulus. Care givers income bracket is such that any increases by receipt of the higher paid CP would likely flow immediately into local community. Ergo more stimulus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1	https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/13/centrelink-scandal-tens-of-thousands-of-welfare-debts-wiped-or-reduced
2	https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/09/24/a-whos-who-in-the-aat-zoo/ https://www.crikey.com.au/2021/02/16/christian-porter-aat-robodebt/
3	https://www.michaelwest.com.au/report-calls-for-visibility-as-bankers-swarm-around-aged-care/ https://www.afr.com/property/commercial/property-sector-s-donations-to-political-parties-20200205-p53xwv
4	https://www.michaelwest.com.au/report-calls-for-visibility-as-bankers-swarm-around-aged-care/ https://www.afr.com/property/commercial/property-sector-s-donations-to-political-parties-20200205-p53xwv
5	https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/09/24/the-attorney-general-transparency-and-the-aat/
6	https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/19/robodebt-court-documents-show-government-was-warned-76-times-debts-were-not-legally-enforceable
7	https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=bad39c07-84f0-4125-bf64-f07616cdd688&subId=669873