I'm trying to finish my uni course and look for work at the same time. This is already a stressful time, so to start repaying a debt (still waiting for a reassessment..) just before Christmas was horrible. And it was up to me to first notify the Centrelink staff (who were very helpful) about where the issue came from.
I stupidly just ticked 'yes' to confirm the ATO's data, not realising that it averaged my income over a period from November - May, when I infact only worked there from November - March. My final payslip confirms this, and is the date I started receiving Youth Allowance. All I need is the opportunity to confirm this, but it's taking far too long. We shouldn't be having to repay these debts while there's an active dispute/reassessment.
All debts should be suspended whilst a proper investigation is carried out.
And politicians defending the system based on official complaint stats is ridiculous. Most of us don't have the time to bother writing a formal complaint while we deal with the reassessments (which don't seem to be counted as 'official complaints').