defacto WTF

Pls need more info if available on defacto. Need to escape a toxic work environment and resign from my part time professional job. Want to focus on my final year at uni, where I need to be doing research preferably full time. Turns out Centrelink will give me next to nothing on defacto grounds and otherwise I’d be eligible for $870 p/f. I moved in with my partner only one year ago and he can’t afford to properly support me through a final year of full time tertiary research and it’s a lot of pressure on him and a huge ask and he has his own financial obligations. We’re young, unmarried, no kids, no shared assets aside from rent and meals we split. I want to say we will be together forever but let’s say we break up in a year anyway after I’ve lost all my agency, and our relationship is strained by financial burden. In the meantime I’ve used all my savings and I’m up shit creek minus one relationship, the pittance I’ve scraped together for my future, and any prospect of buying a house. But yay I got that sheet of paper right! Guess that’s life.

Does anyone know of any options or details with regard to defacto partnerships beyond the online calculator, if partnerships are financially independent? Is that a thing? We have no shared assets, but we do share rent and groceries, but that’s 50/50. We’ve only been living together for a year. Or is it non negotiable for partners who live together?