Thread by @twtrrr

In just two weeks I have experienced contacts with the Department of Housing, Job Service Providers, the hotline for same with Dept of Education, Skills & Wmployment and Centrelink. All have taken hours of my time in calls & appointments with them that bring zero hope. #auspol

For each one of these contacts, I am required to give my Centrelink Reference Number - I feel I no longer have a name, I am simply to be referred to as 123456789A nine numbers and one letter. After which all manner of other identifying details become relevant and required.

I am working in a underemployed capacity, and literally am only eligible for a whopping just under twenty dollars of the set rate of JobSeeker (sans Covid19 supplement) and has been on this payment for years - what help is provided? What assistance? Why is now different?

Every single department I speak to and generic number I dial for call centres - costs me time and money and mines me for personal data - for databases that then ignore the information, and benefit me nought. These people are ALL PAID to do this to people. #auspol

My underemployment, homelessness, unfinished courses and incomplete lifestyle without enough for anything is apparently something I should be grateful to my country for helping me achieve. What!? Public servants are being paid to screw up my life it seems to me. Not to assist.

My serious housing stress and a budget that just won’t balance - apparently this is my fault! @Anne_Ruston @SenatorSiewert @ALeighMP My underemployment and deferred unaffordable degree - my fault! The help provided makes my dreams less accessible. For what do I deserve such pain?

I don’t constantly say we need to #RaiseTheRateForGood because it’s something I am paid to do. I don’t do this because I haven’t got better or more worthy things to be doing - if they were achievable... I do this because social security and public housing are wholly inadequate.

I don’t see an end to my housing stress in sight. Still on the public housing list - paying way too much to not be homeless - not supported as other homeless people were through Covid19 with accom paid for by gov. Left to my own devices and with less than ever before. Not helped.

When it comes to “mutual obligations” for things I get no benefit from doing, that I am coerced to do, otherwise payment is suspended, as opposed to the nowhere near enough that beats that nothing - what do I get in return? Just that pittance? Is that reasonable? No way! #auspol

When I try and complain and am@advised all calls are recorded - but try and record them and they tell you you’re breaking the law - HOW THE HELL DOES THIS PROTECT ANYONE? #auspol

When after speaking of verifiable breaches of obligations and duty of care towards me as demonstrated by my JSP - negligence, endangerment, breaches of Covid19 health requirements and suspensions to punish their lack not mine - I am asked if Inreally want to make that complaint!

Then the phone disconnects.

This is the level@of professionalism@and respect I am shown. Yet get upset and they take a tone with you - like you’re a dog! It’s disgusting.

I hate this country’s social security system - all it is doing is driving people to hopelessness. #auspol

It took five phone calls and a constant assurance that yes, I really did want to make a formal complaint about the data mining of personal details and exposure to a non-Covid19-compliant business through my JSP - yes, I want a formal complaint to be taken and looked into.

JobSeekers and people experiencing housing insecurity/ homelessness as a result of living below the poverty line, getting no real assistance with education, rent, reality in their lives... being made to comply or not be underpaid to live - is a kick in the teeth.

Made worse for the fact that everyone from every social services provider, Centrelink and Housing Dept staff and Housing Service provider Staff and Department of Education etc. are all well paid & get holidays for dealing with the disadvantaged. Where’s their incentive to assist?

The Crime of the Century: #homelessness, inadequate service provision by social serviceS literally paid to “help”
people - who instead adhere to rules, regulations and legislation that binds them to sanction and cause harms. #auspol #RaiseTheRateForGood

https://twitter.com/altraider/status/1314874565357568006?s=21

https://twitter.com/Altraider/status/1314874565357568006

After hours and hours of lost time in phone calls, attending and being available for appointments, meeting my end of my mutual obligations - I learn that I need a new JSP. Is that straight forward - no. Does it matter who you’re with? They all run from the same rule book. #auspol

Apparently there are three #Streams of JSP service that JobSeekers are placed into. I was very clearly placed in the wrong stream with my JSP insisting that I could only look for full time work and would just have to quit my stable job for whatever came up. What?! Streams A B C.

If you want to change the Stream your JSP has you in, you need to contact Centrelink and arrange an appointment with one of their social workers to assess this. Stream A = least assistance, Stream C = most. They had me in Stream A. Why? So as not to assist at all? What?! Why?

Why aren’t our employment streams (needs?) ascertained by our JSP’s and our needs at that point in time. Rather than acting to exclude some from help others are readily given? This system discriminates amongst the needy and pretends it helps all. It doesn’t. Not at all. #auspol

So, you call Centrelink to have your employment stream reviewed. But you call the Department of Education, Skills and Employment to change your Job Search Provider. They tell you this is easy and doesn’t reflect poorly on you. But it does. They complain about your complaints.

At the end of my call to complain about the negligence and lack of duty of care or fulfilling of their obligations to me - accepting the job report I had for them - the JSP complaint line - tells me that to change JSP’s I now must call back tomorrow. They can’t do that today! OMG

It’s never ending - and for what? Less than twenty dollars of the official rate of JobSeeker, a life of poverty and government and societal abandonment - blamed for the lack of progress made impossible by such a system - kicked, demonised. Failed. I need to call back tomorrow. 😡

What benefits should be showing in my life for Social Securoty assistance in a time of under or unemployment? Because homelessness and sanctions without any other assistance bar a measly poverty entrenching amount is hardly worth celebrating. #auspol #RaiseTheRateForGood @ACOSS

What was also interesting is that when I called Centrelink to ask for my JSP to be reviewed, they suspended my obligations and need to contact my JSP from that date. After which I received SMS’s from my JSP demanding and requiring me to contact them. #auspol

I had my payment suspended as they failed in their due diligence with me to gather data required from me. When I noted this as something they didn’t do, they demanded I tell them right then - to cover their arses! Then advised my payment would be suspended until I did so. Wtaf!

Thankfully, Centrelink was already alerted, and I was diss about the place they sent me to, so Susa I pre-recorded a potential grievance and got a reference number. Which is now jam packed with “indictable” breaches by the JSP. #auspol

Three departments are managing #JobSeekers Social Security, Services Australia and Department of Education, Skills and Employment. If you’re situation has made you homeless, there will also be a private “Housing service provider” and the Housing Dept. All paid to “serve?” #auspol

My existence on this treadmill of worsening outcomes for me - of repeated stories, over and over again, as each demands you tell them from the beginning - none Shari g your recorded story with others - in fact, all ignoring it. Just paid to be here and process you like

I am having my time, my patience, my energy, my resources, wasted, used, spent, lost and taken for what? To justify the pay cheques of every other link in this chain of mandated, ill-equipped service provision. Who get jumpy when you point out there’s no housing and scant $’s.

Year after year my prospects are worse, my resources less and options fewer. My situation on the brink of dire and collapse... yet this system wants me to be sanctioned for what it gives? What? Where is that which I should truly be grateful for? What security? Sanctuary? Safety?

My JSP tried to tell me that when @Centrelink changes your status in their system that it takes three weeks for that digitised computer entry to get to them. That meanwhile, I would still have to deal with them. I called her a cow and hung up. It was too much bollocks. Too much.

My JSP also told me that they were ONLY looking to assist me with finding full time work - that I would be expected to quit my existing job of almost two gears to take one, if offered, on. Irrespective of the clear negative outcomes this could have for me. @Anne_Ruston

Plus, the max number of jobs #JobSeekers are being asked to look for now is eight per month. I was being “aided” in no obvious way whatsoever by my JSP in Stream A (least assistance) to look for 8 FT jobs /month while working already. While not working others only four. Wtaf?!

*suss about the place

Right now if you’re homeless in Queensland - good luck. You’re stuffed. There is no housing. That’s my experience as a homeless person here anyway... complain about it, oh yeah. They’ll kick you off their pointless waiting list as punishment. From nada to less. #Housing #qldpol

Oh, and even better, get this: If you are exempted from some obligations as a JobSeeker due to being homeless - this exemption has an end date that doesn’t give a rats if you’re now housed or not. Even while Social Security values the worth of the Australian home. #auspol Rubbish

So here I am “living the dream” - does any other government department or other entity feel like making me promises of assistance it doesn’t provide, and then kicking me for pointing out - This Emperor has no clothes! #RaiseTheRateForGood #SocialSecurityIsARight #HousingForAll

#unroll please @threadreaderapp

@threadreaderapp unroll please? 🙏🙏🙏