Help! I’m in Centrelink hell - claiming the Baby bonus from Family Assistance

I’ve learned from past experience to NEVER take the appointment time at Centrelink for face value. I always have snacks/drinks and TOYS for the kids with me. Becaues one thing I find overly trying is to keep my kids entertained when there are no toys around. At my last visit, I asked the centrelink employee why there wasn’t a play corner with some books and toys since a lot of folks here did come with small children. I was told that it would be too unhygienic to provide toys and therefore they wouldn’t do it. Unhygienic? I really wonder if they’ve ever had a look into their public bathroom. I generally walk over to the library when I or the kids need to use one because the centrelink one I wouldn’t even enter without a full body chemical hazard suit.

MY local c’link doesnt even HAVE public toilets, they have a sign directing people across a main road to the train station to use theirs. I’d rather go back to the local shopping centre adn use the parents room in there, less likely to have some junkie’s leftovers in the bathroom then, urgh horrible experiences with train station toilets.
It was also the first time i’d gone in there since having my daughter. Ive hears before of the ‘hygiene’ issue with toys and ‘communal’ items. Also the theft rates ive been told make it less than worthwhile, think of it, each kid takes a toy home coz mum or dad dont wanna piss off poor little timmy/katie and cause a scene.
I can tell you though, never again will i enter a centrelink office without having at least a couple of hours worth of toys/food with me lol. As it is i rarely leave the house without a mueslie bar or 5 just in case, you never know how long even a simple trip to the shops could end up taking lol.

oh boohoo. Obviously to be paying 50% tax you earn a very good wage so perhaps enjoy it rather that being bitter.
Alison writes an amusing column about parenting - dont read it if it bothers you.

Rech- My work hours supposed to be 40 hours a week, but in reality, its close to 3 times that amount of hours I put in. a week as well paying a significant amount of tax. It is a choice I made as well as working in a job I enjoy. I would be happy for employed people to claim my tax money for baby bonus, remember- they have paid taxes as well. what I do not accept is able bodied people sitting on their computer playing games all day and claiming disability pension. Try to have a lifestyle where expenditure doesn’t outstrip earnings, and you won’t have anything to complain about. I still manage to have my flash car and big screen TV with holidays with my wife and two kids- all this with a mortgage. But I cant complain, because I budget my income and most of all- I want to buy something, I SAVE UP MONEY FOR IT. try doing that rather than blowing your money on lotto or booze fueled weekend or buying your lunch. You’d be amazed how much you can actually save.

As to your horror with FAO and centrelink Alison- its nothing new. its called red tape and its how governments run. Just look for the light at the end of the tunnel and you will get through.

Boohoo. If you are paying 50% tax I want to know which country you are in as it obviously is not Australia, the highest rate here is only 45c in the dollar and you would have to be on an income over over $500,000 to effectively be paying that since that doesnt kick in till you are on $180,000 and every cent less than that is taxed at a lower rate!

Since you dont know how the Australian tax system works I have some land on the moon you may be interested in.

Cry a fricken river, Why are you even reading this column if you’re going to whinge about people raising the people that will fund your pension

hahaha… yea I agree with Rech, I work for an accountants office and people whinge all the time about how haaaarrd it is to claim this that and the other.  Oh dear dear me. I quite often find it amusing to read what Alison’s latest whinge on how it’s so haaard…

Whilst 50% is clearly a slight exaggeration, I certainly feel the same frustration as Rech. I also pay a lot of tax because I worked very hard to get a good career. It disgusts me to see all the things tax is wasted on. I still think the biggest slap in the face is when my tax $ are simply given to other Australians in the form of baby bonuses. As if pumping out another mouth to feed is a contribution to the country! It’s not, and we are over populated enough as it is. The whole baby bonus scheme was flawed to start with. It should have been a paid parental leave system to encourage women with careers (ie not the bottom layer of scum in society) to have families. What we have is Idiocracy in the making. In another 10 years the mean IQ level in Australia will probably be down 20 point thanks to the baby bonus.

I tend to agree.  If she didn’t have her hand out trying to make the rest of us pay for her kid, then she wouldn’t have a problem.

What ever happened to making sacrifices to have a family?  I guess she’s just one of the many these days who want it all; without having to work for it…

“Me, me, me. It’s all about me!” - Moto of mothers all around this once great country…

SoftMike - Not all of us women who don’t have a career are ‘the bottom layer of scum in society’ and I actually take great personal offence at that! I have worked hard, payed my taxes just like you have and for various reasons am now out of a job. Do I want to work? Yes! Am I doing something about it? Yes! I’m back at university getting myself (another) education and a new career! Oh, and may I add that I’m five months pregnant with my first baby and I fully intend to claim the baby bonus! I have worked hard, paid my taxes, my husband works and I, like other stay at home mums/mums to be that I know are most certainly not ‘the bottom layer of scum in society’. Get off your high horse, mate. Situations happen, it doesn’t make someone a lesser person or change a hard working person to ‘scum’!

Totally agree with you Rech…

You do not pay 50% tax.  Nobody does.  The top marginal tax rate - which is the rate of tax someone will be eligible to pay once they start earning $180k (which I doubt you are earning, you don’t strike me as someone who is educated, skilled or otherwise personable) - is only 45 cents in the dollar for income earned in excess of $180k. Little less whinging, a little more remedial maths, eh?

Thank you for clarifying my tax status people. Of course i dont pay anything like 50pc tax. Its 45pc at the margin plus Medicare levy, which must be about 48 per cent in total. Nothing like 50, right?

Cant everyone see how ridiculous it is for people like Alison to be both paying tax AND receiving benefits? All this money churning around for no reason. Im not blaming her, but the welfare state today is a joke, and the fact that someone can be earning a living by writing about their experiences on welfare is very, very strange.

“Try to have a lifestyle where expenditure doesn’t outstrip earnings, “
My expenditure doesnt outstrip my earnings at all, i dont see what you are getting at. I save lots and give a lot to charity. But when i sent a cheque to the ATO last week for $75,000, i can’t help thinking that i would rather give the money to my daughter than to Alison who obviously doesnt need it, doesnt seem to even really want it, and whinges publicly about how hard it is to take money off people like me. A pretty human reaction I would think.

I don’t think it’s sponging when you pay taxes for years so that everyone else who is having kids can claim the baby bonus. Why should people take the high road and not claim it when their taxes are still going toward other people claiming the baby bonus anyway?

As for the original question, I didn’t have any problems with claiming the baby bonus for my first child. He was born on 31 Dec 08, which was the last day a child could be born on to claim the lump sum amount. I filled in the form I was provided at hospital, but had to go online to do a part of it (I think it was so I could get a CRN for both my son and I, my mind is a bit fuzzy on the detail). I took the form down to the local Medicare office as I had to update our Medicare card anyway and was paid the baby bonus without a hassle in about a fortnight.

I’m due with my second baby in 10 weeks and am now hoping that I don’t get the run-around this time.

Got to side with Alison here.... I work for a living too, and I didn’t desperately need the baby bonus. But you’d have to have moral fibre made of titanium to turn down $5000 that’s offered to you.

Hardly a sponge when she works for a living and pays tax is she? Anyway I would $5k is given to help a child get a good start in life than given to some dolebludger…

The fact that she doesn’t need it shows that she manages her finances well, has planned for the baby, or they earn enough to cover expenses while on maternity leave. Or all three. She’s paid tax, of course she’s entitled to get a bit of it back when she has a baby.
Do you ever drive on roads, claim medicare benefits, watch ABC TV? Did you go to school? Then by your definition that also makes you a ‘sponge’. Find someone else to harass, like the mirror.

Why the hell shouldn’t she claim it?  I claimed it too when I had my baby earlier this year.  I have worked for the last 18 years straight and paid thousands in tax, so I am more than entitled to claim the baby bonus.  Try directing your “sponge” comments towards the thousands of dole bludgers and other Centrelink rorters.

of course she’ gonna claim 5k… money’s money aye… whether you work or whinge for a living.

What a laugh. I am sure Alison has paid more in taxes than what she’s getting back through the Baby Bonus. “Sponges” are people who don’t pay taxes yet continue to receive benefits when they are perfectly capable of working and supporting themselves.

“I work for a living” so does she! It’s not like she’s off expecting the government to pay her way. She pays taxes and works hard like everyone else.

The baby bonus, like any system can be abused and maybe that’s why they have all the red tape. But that doesn’t mean the honest people who claim it are lazy dole bludges.

She’s not saying she couldn’t use the money for her child, she’s saying she has budgeted without it. Doesn’t mean she isn’t entitled to it.

It always amazes me how quickly and narrow minded people write comments without thinking. It’s very safe to assume you don’t have children!

Right, and you don’t claim any tax deductions do you? Because you don’t need them.  I also expect you won’t be after a pension at any stage. After all, you work for a living.

LOL - so true. When a person claims charitable donations on their tax return, that’s perfectly ok, no one speaks ill of them. But if you claim the baby bonus, you’re “just another sponge”.

OddCreature:  Based on your post, you are on the system as a zero rate customer which means you are still listed as Current for FTB according to the FAO.  Go to your online services, update your income estimate to an accurate reflection of your income (at the moment it must be listed as lower than what your income actually is in order to be on the system otherwise you would have cancelled off), you will receive a letter stating that your FTB has been cancelled due to income and then there will be no more letters requesting income when that financial year is over.  If you do this now, you’ll still be asked to lodge your tax return for 2010/2011 as you’ll be cancelling part way through the financial year, however from 2011/2012… no more letters!  Hope that helps.

I do get FTB but I claim it at the end of the year. Even I get letters throughout the year saying, your fortnightly payments have changed from zero to zero. Really? Did you need to waste that paper and the stamp money on that?

Also I just claimed FTB for 09/10 through their online system, it said they required a copy of my citizenship certificate. I’ve been a citizen since I was 3mths old, I’ve gotten baby bonus, FTB, Child Care benefit and Child Care rebate since my daughter was born, almost 5 years ago, and now they’re checking if I’m a citizen? Anyway I sent through a copy the next day and kept on checking back on the online system and a week later it still said my citizenship certificate was outstanding, so I called, and eventually got through (when the phone wasn’t engaged!) and they said it was received the day after I sent it, but the system isn’t up to date!

The citizenship certificate is so funny. I have just claimed back the child care rebate on line for the 3rd year running.

Each year the online system automatically fills in all my citizenship information because it is already on file but each year they insist I take the hard copy in so they can make a copy even though the date I became a citizen is never going to change and it is already on file.

Every year I have go stand in a Centrelink queue for about an hour while they photocopy the same certificate - if Centrelink have to do this for everybody no wonder the queues are so long!!

I completely agree ‘enough is enough’!

I am a hard working student living at home and working part time and I am sick to death of many other students who earn more than me, live at home and who have wealthier families than mine claiming youth allowance, aus-study, rental assistance or some other benefit, all because technically they’ve earned enough to declare themselves financially independent!

The government seriously need to reevaluate the criteria that qualifies such people for hand outs!

I’m not arguing that I’m struggling and should be getting benefits instead of them, I am comfortable and believe handouts should be for those who truly need it, not these upper-class, priviledge rich kids who have found ways to abuse the system!

Nup, you’re just an idiot and doing us all a favor by not claiming. Thanks from all of us claimers!

Aren’t you a hero! A few here seem to have a problem with people claiming money through centrelink. Here’s the deal- they aren’t lying to get it, the law says they are entitled to it. Some people are just so morally above the rest of us that when offered some cash as part of a government benefit they would proudly turn it down… I don’t “need” the money- as in, I’m not hungry or about to lose my home, but I’ll definitely be claiming it- nappies are expensive- and so is that plasma tv i have my eye on!

Well said!

Good to hear, from the other comments on here most people are just greedy; their sense of entitlement is disgusting.  But with you, maybe there is hope for this country still.

clap clap clap, your PRIDE will get you a long way then. Refusing money you are entitled to. Applying for a baby bonus won’t class you a welfare bludger already what a hypocrite of a person you are! It must suck to be you.

And you live in Camberwell in a multi million dollar home. $5000 is small change to you....

Ellie, your story is EXACTLY the same as mine.  I work 50+ hours per week and have to report my earnings just to keep my health care card.  My youngest child has a disability and if I didn’t have that health care card I have no idea what I would to.  It has literally saved me thousands.
Previously I was doing the parenting payment thing as well as working. My child turned 8 and my Parenting payment automatically turned into Newstart.  I did not worry too much as I though I would receive the same amount of money per fortnight but just under a different name.  How wrong could I have been, a $430 per fortnight difference.  That is the difference between eating and not eating for myself and my children.  But, not to worry they are the rules etc…
I have been receiving a carers allowance for my youngest since he was born.  I am also exempt from having to work the required xyz hours as stipulated by Centerlink.  However, I received a letter a few months ago telling me I was to be assessed on the carers allowance, that it seems I many not be entitled to it any more.  Even though I was sitting in the Centerlink office with my child who is very obviously disable as well as having Down Syndrome I was told and here it gets really, really good. “ I’m sorry, you don’t qualify for a carers allowance any more because you work over 15 hours per week. Also your son does not meet our disability requirements” WTF!!!  How can a child who is not only born with Downs but who also can not walk unaided, can not speak and can not feed himself not qualify?  Whilst I was sitting in the waiting area I was overhearing a charming, social upstanding figure of a mother complaing because the carers allowance she gets for her daughter who wets the bed twice per week is a lousy amount.  Can you believe that?

If you want the government to give you money/concession card, you will need to attend appts from time to time. If you don’t want your $50 per fortnight, work a couple more hours, then you won’t need to deal with centrelink.

Yep. I remember being a lowly uni student surviving on youth allowance and running into these sort of stupid issue which would result in my payment being cut and having to survive on 2min noodles until it was resolved. I was lucky, as at the time my father worked as upper management at centerlink and was able to ring up my case worker to get them to resolve the issue. It is amazing how quickly things can get done when they think that someone higher up the food chain is taking an interest. I feel sorry for all the other people who have to put up with all the crap and red tape, without any recourse or people to intervene on their behalf.

As a side note, I find it laughable that I am at the moment eligible for FTB A and B, as we are a single income family at the moment. However, If my DH were to earn half of his income and I were working and earning the same (so our total family income was the same) I would only be entitled to FTB B - Not A: And only 1/3rd the amount in total that I currently receive. Stupid, isn’t it. But until they fix the system, I will continue to claim it and use the money for a better quality of life for myself and my family.

Rugrat, actually, you would pay a lot less tax if your DH & you both worked & earned the same money overall so the FTB A helps compensate for that.

Spot on Greg!

A piece of interesting advice given to me by someone who once was in the system was to always, ALWAYS appeal all the way to the tribunal if you feel you have a valid case (or even a halfway valid case). 

From what I was told, a decision is almost always immediately ratified at the Review level, unless obvious blunders have been made (as seems to be your case).  Centrelink counts on people not being bothered to take it to the Tribunal level, thinking that it’s no use. 

What they don’t tell you is that, even if your case falls on the questionable line of the law, the Tribunal will often overturn the decision, because the next level is the Independent Review, which doesn’t just have the power to overturn a case, but to give government advice to completely alter the law itself.  So, it generally works out a lot cheaper for the government (any government) to let one case go through, than it is to have the entire law overturned and have a whole new class of eligible recipients.

If people want to know what Centrelink hell really is, though, they should try living on no income at all for 13 weeks while the process goes through the tribunal.

Sure, you get back pay, but you’ve got to find the money in the first place. (It should have taught me not to be honest with Centrelink in the first place - apparently, my parents giving me $20 a week to help me out while on Austudy is classified as ‘being supported’ when going for Sickness Benefits post-surgery.  Thank God that rule has had some adjustments since then.)

*end of Greg’s post-hijacking*

The only problem with this is that people may have got rid of all the stuff from their previous kids, believing that they weren’t going to have any more. Accidents happen.

And what about those entering a new relationship and having a new baby when they have much-older kids? Surely they wouldn’t have kept all the stuff from their previous kids?
That’s the only trouble with changing the rules, there’s always going to be someone who misses out.

Yup! i used to work for FAO and it’s amazing how many people don’t read the all important front page of instructions. Particularly frustrating when their yelling down the phone at you blaming everyone but themselves.

Sweetie, just a little reminder that it’s the"complacent middle class” who contribute most and take least from the system, so if these “complacent middle class” people do decide to start a family, then surely they are just an entitled to receive their payment as anyone else.  No more and no less.  Maybe Kate from Australia should move to Cuba where her socialistic attitudes are well supported.

Agree Democratic! I’ve paid taxes my entire working life, is it SOOOO wrong me taking a couple of months of with my baby and claiming payments from the government? Payments that I and many other tax payers provide to other families when they have a new baby and take a couple of months off? I am honestly very surprised and disappointed at how many people are complaining about people like Alison claiming payments. We are entitled to them, we pay taxes every other day of the year why the hell do we then get criticised for taking advantage of the governments offer to help?

If you’re referring to the *single* complacent middle class then I agree with you. They’re the ones paying the most tax to fund other people’s lifestyles.

I agree with you, Kate of Australia. Centrelink is a terrible service to have to rely on when you’re a student or have a disability/illness or are looking for work. The money funding the baby bonus should go to those in genuine need of the money - like those who are on centrelink in the first place, not those who are earning in excess of $100k. Why should the australian government have to pay for someone elses kids, when most of those popping out the little turds don’t even need it, and deprive those in genuine need? To you whingers, try working in a $55k per year job, being made redundant and go to living on $570 per fortnight for a while and see how easy the dole-bludgers or the students or the disabled have it. You really don’t know how lucky you are. You don’t like paying taxes for the people on centrelink, but what makes you so different? The fact that you want to overpopulate the country more and more for your own selfish benefit? Please. Middle class breeders are by far the most taxing of all, not only on the government, but on everyone around them. “Oh I have to take time off work cos my kid is sick” or “oh, i have to leave early to pick up my kids from school” or “oh, I was late because my kid couldn’t find their shoes”. The amount of money wasted in accommodating middle class mothers is far more than a meagre $5000 baby bonus. Quit bitching.

So get a job and stop bitching.

How about you try giving for a while, instead of just taking, taking and then taking some more, and see if it gets any clearer then, Kate?

If you are middle or upper class then you should contribute the most tax and take the least welfare. That is how welfare and wealth redistribution works. It doesn’t mean that you’re somehow being hard done by if you’re in the middle or upper class- quite the opposite! Would you rather be earning enough money that you could pay that tax (and therefore also be keeping a lot of income for yourself) to support the society that has enabled you to become so privileged, or would you rather be working a worse job to begin with?

If you are earning enough money to pay for things like a car and a house of your own (luxuries, not rights), then you can afford your own child. I don’t agree with the baby bonus. I think that with the state of welfare being what it is, that money should be redistributed towards bringing other pensions which are the sole source of some people’s living into line with the cost of the bare necessities of life. If we could afford as a country to do that, then maybe we could look at making middle class lifestyles more affordable too.

I love all these responses from people like Kieren and Adam who assume that just because I am on Centrelink I must be lazy or a ‘taker’. Not surprisingly, very few people on Centrelink, or even on the dole (which is not what I receive, by the way) are there by choice. And if you believe that so many people just choose to live on next to nothing when they could be working, then you really are ignorant and incredibly sheltered/privileged.

I also find it quite funny, and just a little tragic, that numbskulls like these believe that the only way to deserve welfare is to get a job and ‘give’. Once again, welfare is there for those who aren’t capable of supporting themselves- not because they are lazy, but because they are old, isolated or seriously ill. And until we are taking reasonable care of those members of society who are most vulnerable, I truly don’t think that we should be giving money to people who, while they have made a valid choice to have a child and nobody denies that children are expensive, are not in dire need. Just because you have incurred a cost, have been a good little taxpayer or feel you need a break does not entitle you to priority funds. And yes, if you claim that money when you are such a person, I will consider you a bad person.

Finally, I totally agree with tania83- just because the middle class, and in particular parents, only receive a ‘meagre’ $5000 (again, try putting those words together for anyone who has to live on $300 a fortnight) does not mean they are not being compensated. A huge amount of public funds are spent on children and families, so while families may pay a lot of tax, they are probably also the most rewarded segment of society as it is.