© Melina Magdalena 2006
My son and I spent three hours in Centrelink yesterday. He turns 16 next week.
Turns out we didn’t bring all the documentation that was required. We also need proof of his birth, my taxation statement for the last financial year, proof of his enrolment at school (his school ID card is not sufficient) and his payslips for the last 8 weeks. Even with all of this, his form will not be looked at before the day he turns 16, and will take a further 3 weeks to be processed. A person can starve, become homeless and drop out of school in three weeks with no income.
The Centrelink worker who eventually interviewed us said that most 16-year olds come in on their actual birthdays. Centrelink is busy from 3:30-5:00 every day when high school students come in to apply for Youth Allowance and Health Care Cards.
There was a section on the claim form that asked my son whether he had needed help, in filling out the form, and why. I think he knows now, why he got me to fill out the form for him.
You get the form in the mail, fill it out, and bring it, along with all the documents required, to the particular Centrelink office that is designated ‘yours’. You work out which queue to join. You wait in line while the workers at the counter process the enquiries. When it’s your turn, you go up and present your case. They type some details into the computer and ask you to sit down and wait your turn.
While we were there, one man left the queue and fetched a chair to sit on. He couldn’t stand up that long. The people behind him saved his place in the queue.
Although I’ve been a sole parent for 13 years, it has been some time since I’ve actually had to spend time in a Centrelink office. Most of our interactions these days are by telephone or the internet.
After we were placed in the queue, we waited for another hour to be interviewed. I spent that time analysing the place and the people. The walls were plastered with self-congratulations that Centrelink helps all kinds of people. I noticed straight away that single mothers are not represented in any of these images. Such blatant omission makes my hackles rise.
A nice cross-section of people entered the doors of Centrelink. I saw several leave in distress and disgruntlement.
There was the elderly woman who wanted to sort out what will happen with her pension when she goes to Europe to visit relatives for a few months. She was told she cannot arrange things with Centrelink ahead of time. Centrelink cannot tell her how her travel plans might affect her pension. She is obligated however, to report to Centrelink not more than a fortnight before she gets on the plane, and inform them of her plans. (Never mind that she cannot make those plans without knowing what funds she will have at her disposal.)
A Vietnamese couple of retirement age was told they have to come back with appropriate documentation. I’m not sure what their situation was. They provided documentation that Centrelink had accepted two years ago.
An Aboriginal woman carrying an infant was greeted by a Centrelink worker with the question “And who’s this little one?” Not particularly charmed by this question, she mumbled something inaudible. Perhaps she was tired of waiting.
My son simmered beside me as people were called in to be dealt with behind the counter. The order of service did not reflect the order in which we had presented ourselves in the queue.
We were the last people on the chairs when my son’s name was called out. Privately, I wondered whether we were being punished because I became hostile after the young woman who placed us in the queue had asked me whether I worked and whether I was partnered. I had taken a deep breath, and told her very quietly and very slowly that yes, I do work, I parent and I study. I am single. When I queried the need to present my son’s birth certificate, because he has been on my pension card for the last thirteen years, she exploded, and said “Yes, that is why we need his birth certificate!”
We followed the Centrelink worker into the Manager’s Office. He told us he doesn’t normally process claims for Youth Allowance, and asked us to please forgive him if he didn’t seem to know what he was doing.
We sat down.
He went through my son’s form, checking details and entering them into the computer. I explained that I hadn’t been able to find my taxation statement but that because my son had been proven eligible for school card this year, it was obvious that I wasn’t earning enough to make him ineligible for Youth Allowance. He said that Centrelink is not the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and therefore doesn’t really know what my income was. I didn’t bother reminding him that I have to report my income to Centrelink each and every fortnight so that after the ATO has done its dirty work and taxed me at 30%, Centrelink can then take another forty percent of my gross income away from me. It triggers instant rage in my son when I begin to tell the story again.
There is difficulty in getting payslips from my son’s employer. The man from Centrelink implied several times that my son’s employers are unscrupulous, lazy and not doing the right thing by him. My son was upset by his attitude towards people this man has never met. Eventually, the worker explained that my son is the one who will suffer, if he cannot prove by dint of a letter on his employer’s letterhead, how much he has been earning. My son is the one who won’t get a Health Care Card, and who will incur a debt to Centrelink and the ATO if his employers continue to refuse to provide him with payslips.
Is ‘Mum’ going to charge her son rent? I wasn’t planning to, but I haven’t been able to get a straight answer out of the Housing Trust as to whether they are going to charge my son rent, now that he is not my child anymore. I will need to fill out a form from the Housing Trust and send it back to them, awaiting a decision from my Housing Manager as to how my son’s new status will affect the amount of rent they charge us for continuing to live in our house.
If my son is charged rent, I will be his landlady. He will sub-let his bedroom from me. His income will be assessed as though he were independent. He will have to report all changes in his income to the Housing Trust. The amount of rent he is charged will go up and down accordingly, never rising above one-third of the amount he “earns” before tax.
I wonder whether I’ll be able to afford to keep him at home. I wonder where he will go, if I cannot afford to pay his rent, as well as mine.
Finally, we had to deal with the question of how much tax should be taken out of my son’s Youth Allowance to cover him at the end of the financial year. It was here that the seams of the fabric that hold our family together really began to unravel.
My son agreed that the Youth Allowance should be paid into my account, since he is my dependant, and since I pay for all his living expenses. The idea that he is liable to be taxed on this as though it were his income is something he finds difficult to swallow. Furthermore, Youth Allowance added to his earnings from work means he will now be “earning” above the tax free threshold.
At the end of the financial year, if he gets tax returned to him, it will be impossible to know which bits are from his Youth Allowance and which are from his job. If the ATO deems that he has not paid enough tax, he will be liable to pay this, whether the tax he owes is from his Youth Allowance, or whether it is from his job.
I tried to explain to my son that in this event, I will pay his tax bill. I tried to explain that all workers in Australia pay tax. I tried to point out that at least he is in a better position to earn money than I am. As a single parent, I am only allowed to earn $67 gross per week before Centrelink deducts 40% from my welfare payment. As a full-time student on Youth Allowance, my son is allowed to earn $118 per week before this starts happening to him.
None of this made him feel any better. I count my lucky stars that he and I still talk to one another. We have a fairly harmonious relationship. If we were already in conflict, this system could only exacerbate the issues.
Just what has changed in our family, for me as his mother, and for him as my son? He’s having a birthday. He is still my child, under my care. I still regard myself as responsible for sustaining him.
All of the money my son earns has been his. I do not charge him room and board. I do not count the number of telephone calls he makes each week. I buy him bus tickets, his school uniform, stationery and shoes. I pay his school fees and for his extracurricular activities. I drive him around. I still feed, clothe and nurture him. None of his circumstances have changed.
My 16 year old has been placed in the same basket as 16 year olds with very different life circumstances. There are 16 year olds who are independent, who have children, run away from home, leave school. My son has to be accountable to the taxation office and the welfare system because he happens to have been raised by a single mother.
Centrelink has designed this system not to cover all bases, but to enable 16 year olds to be penalised and taxed as adults.
Never mind the issues of how his new status is certain make life much more difficult for me. My heart aches, because of how my son is being affected. This system is cruel, discriminatory and unfair. It places unnecessary burdens on young people, and sets them up in opposition to their parents, their employers, the taxation regime and the welfare system. No wonder they feel the world is against them. No wonder they feel it would be easier to opt out altogether.
My son’s father yelled at me when I left him, that he would never pay me money to raise his child. I’ve done the very best I could, and I’ve had no choice, but to depend on Centrelink to help me. Now my son has no choice but to kowtow to Centrelink in his turn.
Happy birthday, kid.
