During the 11/12 financial year, I was working full time as a teacher between July 2011 - January 2012. I took leave from my position to undertake further study full time and lived off my savings until I began receiving Austudy in April through June 2012. Because I knew I worked 1-2 days casual relief teaching between February 2012 and June 2012, I was unable to simply change my employment dates.
I was meticulous in my Centrelink reporting so I knew it was impossible I had done the wrong thing. Upon discovering what was occurring, I was incredibly frustrated. I approached Toowong Centrelink in person and was told I would need to get payslips as evidence (which I did not have and could not get a few days before Christmas) and that I should get a lawyer.
The timing of the initial letter (i.e. right before Christmas) has caused a significant amount of distress for myself and my whole family. I have been feeling extremely anxious about settling this debt, although I do not intend to pay this debt if I did it would cause financial stress for my family. We just recently purchased our first home after many years of saving and we have depleted our savings. The last thing we anticipated was an unjust debt in the mail from the Government.
I feel that the Government has handled this process with very limited understanding of the system itself.
Christian Porter was on ABC saying they were handling the process in an "organised, fair and procedural way, where if there is an explanation for a discrepancy that has arisen you can go online very simply and sort that out". This suggests that Christian Porter has no understanding of what the actual process is, and if he did he would know it is none of these things.