I can only imagine the stress & anxiety that others are under

Firstly to clarify:

To say 'Yes & I won' would be formally incorrect as the most recent letter I received from Centrelink about this debt situation states ambiguously & Verbatim : "Your employment income has been reassessed
Thank you for completing an online reassessment and providing the required documentation. We 
have considered the information you provided and decided to not change
our original decision. This means that you have a debt of 
$0.00 " 

The 'original decision' was- as far as I can comprehend- to charge me an incorrect debt and claim that I had to pay it back immediately or else face jail. So I don't understand why the letter states that they have 'decided not to change their original decision' or what that even means...

I selected 'Yes & I won' NOT because it has been made formally clear to me by Centrelink/mygov- but because the amount I now have to pay back is $0.00 when it was previously the above. And only after multiple phone calls I made to Centrelink and the DHS in which I had someone finnally clarify for me- for the final time after receiving my most recent letter- that I had proven correctly that I did not receive any money from my employer at the time Centrelink claimed, and thus the debt had been cleared from my record. However on my mygov/Centrelink account it still states my case as being under review- so I am obviously confused & concerned. The last lady I spoke to from DHS- who quietly said she could confirm for me that I did not owe any money and that I had been cleared- refused to give me a receipt number for the phone call (Which every other person from DHS gave me upon request)- She could not provide me a reason for this, but her English was very poor and I gathered that she may have been speaking from another country.

Now, to the questions, I have an anxiety disorder which I am seeing someone for on a semi- regular basis. I am not on DSP, New-start, or any sickness benefits. To receive this letter just before Christmas made me feel worried, stressed, isolated, confused, and afraid for my already very tight financial situation. I am a low income earner with casual employment trying to upgrade my employment status through further education. A rough calculation of the time I spent on the phone/website to Centrelink/DHS and my past employer would be approximately 10 hours in total. This does not take into consideration the considerable stress, anxiety and frustration that went with the 10 hours. What was sadly ironic is that at the time of this mess, I was offered hours by my casual employer before the Christmas break- which I wanted very much to do as I need the extra money. However, I found myself in a quagmire of Centrelink/DHS phone calls and mygov website problems when I should have been focused on the real work at hand with my employer.

It was very difficult for the primary school I had been working at over 5 years ago to provide me payslips because it was the last week of the year/term and they were obviously very busy. I felt guilty and very annoying, constantly reminding them to please provide me the payslips from over 5 years ago- as I know the stress they were already under, having myself worked there previously at the end of year. But they managed to provide me all documentation I needed just in time.

Not only was it impossible for me to upload the required documents onto the mygov website ( I had to have someone from DHS on the phone to clarify whether or not the documents had been successfully uploaded- after many failed attempts) but the people I spoke to at both Centrelink and DHS seemed entirely clueless about why I had been asked to pay back debt and why they couldn't update the system on their end once I had finally managed to upload the Payslips/letter from previous employer- and it was utterly clear that I had not received any money from my employer for the period Centrelink claimed that I had. I spoke to around seven or more different people from centrelink & the DHS on different days over a week, and each time they said someone would get back to me- they didn't. I had one man say to me that he would personally take control and authority over my case so I wouldn't have to re-explain to a new DHS worker. But I never heard from him again and I had to call back, wait on hold and explain the whole thing to a new person each time, again & again. It just seemed to go on and on. One particular day I was placed on hold by a Centrelink worker who didn't have any idea of how to help. I stayed on hold for an hour and twenty minutes. Then, when someone finally answered- they said that they also had no idea and I was placed on hold again for another half an hour.

What was also very concerning to me was that some of the people I spoke to from DHS and Centrelink seemed to encourage me to pay back the debt- even though it was clearly obvious that I was in the right. It seemed like they had been trained to consider the person on the other end as guilty and to coerce them into paying the debt now and to ask questions later. (this was not true for all). I got the overall impression that something had changed on the DHS end and they no longer had any control or say onto a persons case- when they perhaps previously had. It felt like it was now out of their hands or jurisdiction. They honestly seemed as clueless as myself about the entire process or what was happening and why I had been asked to pay back money I didn't owe.
I don't have the luxury of that kind of money at my disposal so I had no choice but to keep with it and not back down. And as it stands, I now have a debt of $0.00 (I think).

I can only imagine the stress & anxiety that others are under as a result of this which is why I am providing my experience so that the relevant MP's and authorities can get to the bottom of this and find out what is actually going on