My experience with Centrelink

Hi all I wanted to share my experience with Centrelink yesterday. The reason I am sharing this is to post about my experience but also see how people’s experiences are as well. I will try and stay on topic and include some other points that really frustrate me about Centrelinks services.

I am on jobseeker currently and am also prescribed medical cannabis which isn’t subsidised by the pbs so completely out of pocket. More often then not I’m having to call for urgent payments to get processed to get me by. I don’t want to go on disability because I am not disabled in anyway I am 99 percent recovered from my accident and cannabis is essentially there to help me manage trauma, sleep, anxiety etc. Prior to being on job seeker I was working within the corporate space and I was on a salary of 100,000k so I am by no means trying to take advantage. I genuinely want to go back to work but am finding it hard with the limited funds as well as this the third party providers I’ve had a number of these and find them essentially useless they don’t offer roles that are suitable for me and are essentially telling me I have to take any job ( pretty much forget about my career path )

Anyways I’m managing ok I have a good LinkedIn network and I anticipate I’ll be back to work within 3 months. The last few months I feel I’ve made progress with my mental health and all efforts to get back to a place where I am comfortable and positive. Yesterday I feel like 3 months of all my efforts went down the toilet with my interactions with Centrelink. Where do I start in total I had to call Centrelink over 80 times. Can you imagine what that does to one’s mental health. The first services rep was an Indian lady mind you I’m not racist but why is there so many Middle Aged Indian women working for services Australia. Why ? I seriously do not get it ? Is there some sort of direct hiring line from India or is there some thing dodgy going on with the hiring process because you could put a potatoe in a chair and put a headset on it and I’d get more compassion from the potatoe. They don’t speak English properly I’m often having to repeat myself multiple times and they make their own rules up as they go. One lady rejected my urgent payment because my phone being broken and glass cutting me isn’t considered urgent whereas the second middle aged Indian lady I spoke to seemed to think it was sufficient. Hellooooo.

Mind you this whole process started on Tuesday 1pm and just got finalised around 2pm on Wednesday.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve had really great experiences with some people at Centrelink. I know if I get an Aussie - I’ll get compassion and understanding and even if they can’t help me they will atleast explain clearly why or point me in the right direction.

This is the same with when I speak to men at Centrelink.

It’s just that middle aged Indian women and there all over the place. If there not mentally torturing us at Centrelink there on the buses or trains with there frizzy hair and there long distance loud speaker calls

I am so rattled by my experience I don’t even know if what I’ve said makes sense