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donnafischer's avatar
10 years ago

Centrelink for the uninitiated!

Well, that was fun, 45 minutes waiting on hold on the phone to speak to someone about our 2 week old claim for my sickness benefits. Never claimed with centrelink before so it's all been rather daunting.  So if you are putting in a claim, are self-employed / like us have a family trust set up, be prepared for a long wait. 

When you have a trust in place, that means your claim will end up in an area (that for the life of me I cant remember what she called it) where they go over and understand the legal issues of a trust. Currently that part of the process is taking 42 days approximately. Whether thats working days or consecutive I'm not sure.

The lady on the other end of the phone was lovely and kind, and asked if we were experiencing financial hardship. Without hanging out all our dirty laundry for all to see, the past 7 years have not been kind, we lost nearly everything and are starting again with very little. So yes, we are doing it extremely tough. So she's pushed our claim as urgent and I should have a decision by the special trust people and back to the normal claim people by the end of next week, which means just in time for my next chemo round on the 20th April, we will have our claim sorted and hopefully, a little bit coming in to cover bills that are backing up.  Sigh. Does it ever get any easier.

Oh and she recommended that because a carers allowance/pension takes longer than normal (??!!!!??) that he put in a newstart allowance, and then they will automatically switch it over to a carers one.

It really shouldnt been this complicated should it? I'm sick, I cant work and have been advised by the specialist to kiss this year and till this time next year before I can consider working again. And I'm having chemo which knocks the living shit out of me, I cant drive because my head is weird and i'm off balance. So someone needs to be with me most of the time so I can have some sort of normal life in this seriously shitty situation. Sorry, didnt mean to turn this into a rant. Was trying to be helpful. I hate how this disease turns you into an emotional wreck.

Anyway I hope that helps someone who might be starting the whole centrelink dance.

 

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