kingstribune.com

Does this mean that public servants validate my very existence? God. Time for another drink.

Several years ago, when lovelyhusband and I leapt gaily into cohabitation we managed to kick it off, very cleverly, on the last day of the financial year. So I rang Centrelink to say I was finally off their books (15 minutes on hold, then “Ok, that’s grand but could you please fill in the 300 page form that says you don’t want us to give you money anymore and get it in to us before yesterday or we will continue to give you money no matter how often you tell us not to and then, after six months, we will be horrified to learn that you were extorting money out of us when you deserve NOTHING and promptly fine you a squillion and 3 dollars at 15% interest and report you to Today Tonight. OkThanksBye”).

So, being the obedient little citizen I am, I filled in their form, sent it back and got on with my life.

A couple of years later Centrelink sent me a letter saying that I owed them $190 and I had better pay it straight away, goddamit, or they would send some lads around to mess with my kneecaps.

So I rang them to say that there must be some mistake because they hadn’t been paying me any money that I could be required to pay back to them.

“Yes, we did”, said Centrelink Phone Chickie, “it was two years ago”.

“Oh”, said “I, umm, why did it take you two years to find out about this? And what money did you pay me that you shouldn’t have?”

“There’s no need to get snitchy with me”, said Centrelink Phone Chickie, “it’s not MY fault. I mean, you have no idea how stressful my job is….sniff…and I’ve just got back from 6 weeks sick leave, so don’t give me any grief or I’ll have to go out on stress leave for the next six months and it will all be YOUR fault.”

“Right, yes, fair enough, I said. “I really don’t mean to be difficult, but could you just tell me, without traumatising yourself too much, why I owe you $190”.

“Sniff…sigh….well I really think you should just pay your bill and not complain so much, but anyway, we paid you money until 30 June 2006, and you moved in with your new partner on the 30th June 2006 so we overpaid you by one day and now you owe us $190”

“$190?” I asked, “for one day? You were paying me $190 a day?”

“No, of course not, that would be far too much middle class welfare, even for this pork-barrelling, kowtowing to the marginal seats Bushy-eyebrowed government, we were paying you about $7 dollars a day”.

“Well, yes,” I said, “So then if you only overpaid me for one day at $7 a day, why do I owe you $190?”

“Now look here” she said, “there’s no need to take that tone with me, it’s not MY fault you lied to us and tried to cheat the good hard working taxpayers out of their money. Anyway, dealing with these kinds of complications is not in my job description so I’ll have to pass this on to my supervisor. She’ll call you tomorrow. OkThanksBye.”

Three weeks later Centrelink sent me a cheque for $13.24 cents, claiming it was money they had underpaid me for the financial year two years ago.

Fast forward a few years to tax return time 2008. Centrelink sent us a letter to say we couldn’t have any of the fistfuls of cash they were flinging at Working Families because we now earn too much and are therefore stinking rich people in safe Liberal seats that the caring socialist government only kowtows to if they work in the coal industry.

Fair enough, I said, I’m ethically opposed to flinging fistfuls of cash at the Perfectly Comfortable anyway, but just out of curiosity I decided to call them to ask what the cut off is between Beloved Working Families and the Bastard Stinking Rich.

After the obligatory 3 hours on hold I got to speak to Centrelink Phone Chickie Number Two. After telling her the name of my grade four teacher’s second cousin’s dog and the hair colour of the boy who fancied my maternal grandmother in high school, she finally told me that the cut off was a couple of hundred dollars under our combined income for that year.

“Ah well,” I said, “luck of the draw, hey. Never mind, thanks for your time.”

“Well…yeeees”, she said thoughtfully. “Of course if you had another child you would be under the limit”.

“No, no, I laughed, “three is quite enough for me.

“Three?” she said, “oh no, you don’t have three children.”

“Um…. We don’t?” I said, doing a quick re-count in my head, “I’m fairly sure there are three of them, unless I’m forgetting someone….”

“Oh no,” she said happily, “you don’t have three children; you have two children plus one child.”

Now, I am more than a little dyslexic so this threw me for a minute,

“Umm, doesn’t two plus one equal three?” I asked timidly.

“Well, there’s no need to be insulting about it” she said huffily.

“No, no, of course not” I said, “but perhaps you could explain how us having two children (mine) plus one child (Justin’s) doesn’t equal us having three children between us?”

“Well, of course if we assessed the children all together then it would be three children, but we didn’t, so it’s not.”

“Ah, I see” I said brightly, “you can’t assess us all together because we didn’t have the children together? Fair enough”.

“Oh no, there is no problem assessing you all together, this government is very understanding of the modern Working Family in all its permutations and we don’t make any judgements about the way you choose to break up perfectly happy marriages and destroy your children’s lives in search of your own selfish and ephemeral gratification” she assured me, in loving tones.

“Um, yes, thank you. I now feel very validated and empowered, but could you perhaps explain to me about the two plus one thing?”

She sighed impatiently. “It’s very simple you know. If you had three children you could have some money, but you don’t, you only have two children, plus one child, so you can’t have any money. There are people out there who really do have three children who deserve this money you know, why should they have to suffer?”

“Well, yes, fair point, but if two plus one equals three, then don’t we in fact have three children and are therefore good deserving people?”

“No. You. Don’t” She said firmly.

“Ok,” I said, starting to losing the will to live, but refusing to give up. “Can you tell me why?”

“Well, because that’s the way we assessed you, that’s why. I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about this, it’s all here on the computer screen, it’s perfectly clear you know”.

We sat for a minute in frustrated silence, then I said, “Is there a way that you could tell the computer that two plus one equals three and ask it to re-asses us as having three children?”

“Ohhhh,” she said, “I hadn’t thought of that. Let me think for a minute….”

She put me on hold.

Twenty minutes later she picked up the phone again.

“Mrs Shaw, I think we can help you after all. I think we can tell the system that you have three children, not two plus one, it will take a lot of work though, and I don’t mind doing it, but I think you should just sit and listen for a while as I tell you how terribly complicated it all is and how hard I will have to work to tell the computer that two plus one equal three so you can appreciate how difficult everything all is for me and how much easier it is for you in the private sector and I would go on about it for a lot longer but it’s almost time for my afternoon tea break so I don’t know if I will have time to do it justice.”

“Splendid” I said, “So we can have some money after all?”

“Well yes”, she said, “but it’s not something you can do over the phone.”

“No, no, naturally not.” I said. “How do we do it?”

“Well, there’s a form to fill in.”

“Of course there is,” I said, “So, where do I get the form that tells you that three plus one equals two?”

She directed me through 23 pages on their website until we reached the two plus one equal three form. It was 27 pages long.

I took it home, we spent three hours filling it in, attached photocopies of birth certificates and each other’s bottoms and sent it off.

A month later, as I was slumped half asleep at my desk, I got a call from a blocked number.

“Hello, this is Centrelink Phone Chickie Number Three. Can I verify your identity please?”

“Umm, what?”

“Yes, this is Centrelink Phone Chickie Number Three. I need to ask you some questions to verify your identity.”

“What? Why? You called me!”

“Yes, but I can’t talk to you until I verify that it is you I am talking to”

“Yes, but you called me, on the number you have had on my file for the last 5 years…and you called me…oh whatever, alright, what do you need to know?”

So I told her how many five cent pieces I have down the back of my couch and what coloured underpants I was wearing on my 14th birthday and she finally consented to talk to me.

“Yes, I’m just calling to let you know that we assessed your application to have two plus one equal three and we’ve decided that you can’t have any money.”

“I see,” I said, “and why is that?”

“You earn too much”

“What do you mean we earn too much? Centrelink Phone Chickie Number Two told me that if two plus one equal three then we don’t earn too much.”

“Well, I don’t know why she told you that, anyone can see that that’s not the case at all, why are you wasting our time with all this whining about wanting money you don’t deserve? We have actual work to do you know, I myself have at least 15 pieces of paper to staple today – and we don’t even have the special ergonomic staples to protect me against RSI and that’s going to cost the tax payers a fortune in work cover claims one day you know.”

She had a lot more to say, but I was distracted by the awfulness of my sketches of Kafka, motorbikes and cockroaches so I didn’t really hear much of it.

Eventually we agreed that I should write a formal letter of apology for the stress and trouble I had caused the poor Centrelink Phone Chickies and then we would all just leave each other the hell alone.

2 weeks later I got a call from a debt collection agency demanding that I pay them the $300 I owed Centrelink, plus the $4000 in legal fees that they had added or they would have me arrested and deported for breaches of my immigration visa.

I gently put the phone down and headed out to the pub.

I drink, therefore I am.

< Prev		Next >