Centrelink changes ‘still confusing’
A week out from the July 1 Centrelink reforms and gay and lesbian couples are still confused and misinformed, welfare rights groups have reported.
But two education campaigns launching this week aim to alleviate those concerns.
Both the Welfare Rights Network and ACON will launch education campaigns about the changes that will see gay couples treated as de facto partners.
An estimated 1500 people have reported their relationships, according to Centrelink figures, below the anticipated 11,000.
Welfare Rights Network president Maree O’Halloran said she was not surprised by the lack of response.
Centrelink really needs to step up its education campaign, she said. I’m not surprised by how few have declared their relationships, based on people’s calls to our centre. There’s a great deal of fear and confusion.
I’ve had a lot of older people who are in their 70s and have made retirement plans based on the fact that they were treated in this society as singles. Others are concerned the government might change, so while it might be okay to declare your relationship now, people who have been discriminated against in the past are fearful they might be the target of homophobia in the future.
The Welfare Rights Network has released a facts sheet, Declaring Your Same-Sex Relationship to Centrelink, outlining who may be affected, how payments could change and investigation methods used by Centrelink to determine a couple’s status.
The campaign has been endorsed by the ACON-led Community Coalition, which also took steps this week to contact Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin and Human Services Minister Chris Bowen to push for an extension of health care cards for same-sex couples and request that a series of possible scenarios for same-sex couples be published in the Social Security Guide.
Bowen responded that consultations with customers and gay and lesbian community groups about the reforms will continue into the future and from July 1 Centrelink letters, forms and publications will be updated to reflect changes to the way Centrelink recognises same-sex relationships.
ACON committed itself to informing those affected, as part of their overall law reform education campaign which will start this week.
The $350,000 campaign will seek to help people understand the effects of the changes.
The Community Coalition has established an advisory board to develop and implement education strategies, including a comprehensive website, national advertising campaigns and a series of information sessions.
Australian Coalition for Equality president Corey Irlam was appointed national campaign officer to oversee the campaign and said that it would be key to use a variety of measures to inform the community.
We need to ensure the same-sex law reform education campaign is relevant to all the states, and we’ll need to ensure there’s a range of media employed, including pod-casting, online Facebook access, Twitter messages, posters -” these will be the sort of things that the project group will discuss and start creating over the coming weeks.
info: acon.org.au/samesexlawreformor email [email protected].
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I’ve been on a Disability Pension for 10 years. My partner and I are in the process of an Interdependency Visa application so unfortunately we have no option but to declare our relationship to Centrelink.
As with all of our ‘coupled’ friends, we have been financially independent up ’till now. After declaring our relationship to Centrelink, I now get NOTHING and will have to rely on my partner to pay for everything I require for living expenses, medications etc.
Centrelink have tried twice before to kick me off the Pension through their medical doctor reports.
Well done Centrelink – third time lucky!!
Peter – we are not stupid queens – the reason that gay relationships were not recognised by Centrelink before the 1st of July 2009 has not, to my knowledge, been officially declared and neither has the reason for change in policy which now recognises gay relationships.
Now that the policy has changed we will deal with it.
Peter – go fuck yourself
To Peter,
We do not have equality and that is the point. The Government has decided like Steve and others say to choose they will half accept where they like, with no basis. Who chooses where will be accepted by the government? Do they have a secret GAY Force that decides? Perhaps Kevin Rudd throws a coin in the air sometimes. Better still may the Liberals email each other but fake it!
PS I think you’re server time is still set to Daylight Saving Time.
Letter in today’s SMH:
“Same-sex relationships
I would like to clarify concerns about same-sex couples advising Centrelink of their relationship (Letters, June 25).
From July 1, customers in a same-sex de facto or registered relationship will be recognised as a member of a couple for Centrelink and family assistance purpose, and will be required to advise us of their relationship. This is the same as the requirement for opposite-sex couples. People sharing a house with a person of the same or opposite sex, but who are not a couple, do not need to notify Centrelink.
While many people will have their rate of payment reduced as a result of these reforms, some may be eligible for a higher rate or for entitlements not previously available to them.
Centrelink staff have undergone training to help them appreciate the impact of the same-sex reforms. Training reinforces Centrelink’s strict privacy and confidentiality provisions. Those affected may contact us anonymously to help address concerns about declaring their relationship.
Hank Jongen
Centrelink general manager, Canberra”
Whats so confusing? At least now therell be less welfare cheats and less pocket money to go out cruising.
I was listening to a spokesperson from Centrelink being interviewed on ABC702 Sydney this morning (around 8:45) and the impression that came across was that all gay couples have to notify Centrelink of their relationship. I rang the ABC straigtaway and asked that they clarify this to mean clients of Centrelink. As I write this (10:47) they still haven’t done this.
All this talk of ‘sensivity training’ for staff just made me laugh: sensitivity is not a concept Centrelink understands particularly when you have very young counterstaff dealing with older people. I feel sorry for gays in country centres where the right to privacy is harder to maintain.
I’m all for the changes to the law, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that the Centrelink ones should have been ‘grandfathered’. What I really hate is the hypocrisy of the govt in leaving the one major area of discrimination alone – marriage while patting themselves on the back over the law changes.
Sensitivity training? I mentioned my partner worked a few hours a week as a school crossing supervisor and got a joke about licking my lollipop lady in return. I would have complained but you know, they control my means of survival.
(not to say I haven’t made the joke myself amongst friends)
All other changes that affect people’s lives and economic planning are given a proper period of adjustment. The way this has been handled as a rush job is indicative of the low esteem in which gays and lesbians are still held by officialdom.
All the so-called sensitivity training in the world for Centrelink staff doesn’t change thjs simple fact: the government cherry-picks which “rights” they will give us and which ones they’ll withhold, based on what suits them not what is fair for us. Orwell understood it decades ago: we’re all equal but “some are more equal than others”.
If I was in the position of those older G&L couples I would lie and feel completely justified.
I have been fighting for legal recognition of my relationships since I was in my teens. For over 30 years I have known that a downside for our community would be losing the only real advantage of being queer in our society, single centrelink benefits.
Of course I didn’t expect to be on a Disability Pension but I am. I sucked it up and reported, I even joked with the centrelink person on the phone that it was great that now I got to be treated as badly as everyone else. I will be losing money. I had thought they would let me know how much before July 1, in fact I thought that was why I was reporting early. No details have appeared despite receiving a letter thanking me for providing the information.
So much for planning ahead.
Whats next???? pink triangles from Centrelink – because they would know who is gay – what ever happened to privacy??????????. I did not march in the Mardi Gras for centrelink to “snoop in on our relationships and to peak in the bedrooms of the nation”, I was in the Mardi Gras because of privacy of our relationships – IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENTS BUSINESS!!!!!. I lobbied and lobbied very hard for NSW to equalize the age of consent from 1997 to 2003 and still in 2009 in Queensland (the out-dated anal sex law is under section 208 in the Criminal Code).
I as a 46 year old gay activist, I must say “what have we really achieved”???? – WE STILL CAN NOT MARRY!!!!
I agree with Steve – NO MARRIAGE FOR GAYS, WELL THEN NO DISCLOSURE TO A GOVERNMENT THAT HATES US, UNTIL WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO MARRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Such a Beaurocratic, Radical suffocating world we live in.
Straight mates of opposite sex flat together. Some of them even have sex with each other (the term Friends With Benefits is a straight term). Straights even have F.Buddys, and straights have Threesomes, and also sex parties involving Wife Swapping.
There is nothing “precious” about gay sex- our sex lives & relationships are just as diverse & complex as straights, & deserve to be treated equally.
What’s not good though is gays still having government sponsored discrimination in place yet expected to abide by 100% equal Responsibility.
im not telling them i just cant live without my shopping sprees .so ive set up a prop room in my house for when they come to perve on us and how we functshway around in our gayness. thats sticken it to yas
“the GLRL and the other lobbyists have still not revealed why the reform package was accepted at all”
It’s not a matter of lobbyist “accepting” a Government offer. They put demands to the Government and the Government gives us what it bloody well pleases. The Greens asked for the legislation to be grandfathered quite early in the process but that fell on deaf ears.
“So it is possible that even a heterosexual male living with another heterosexual male in Australia will be harrassed”
If you’re gay and have a female housemate or are a heterosexual male and female friends sharing a house together Centrelink already “harrassed” you to prove you’re not in a heterosexual relationship.
Having had a few friends who’ve been through the process this means little more than signing a form that says you’re just housemates and friends.
Generally they wont even ask you unless you’ve lived at more than one address with the same person. During a period of unemployment I got my mother (who uses her maiden name) to co-sign a lease as a guarantor on a one bedroom property I moved into. They had copies of this lease and yet they never bothered to ask me to prove that I wasn’t in a relationship with the different surnamed person on the document.
The only time Centrelink are going to send someone to your door is if someone has given them good reason to be suspicious that you’re committing some kind of welfare fraud.
If you’re receiving a Centrelink payment and don’t own your own home, they ask you for personal information all the time. It’s just a fact of receiving welfare in this country.
If people are planning to not reveal their relationship to Centrelink, for it to be believable they must already be living in a two bedroom home.
Ray Cook – “that’s true Jason, we’ll be vilified on those current affair shows at 6.30 too. There will be good gays and bad homos, it’ll further divide our communities, and they still don’t have the right to marry”
Yeah and they will probably put a spin on it to make it seem that we only want “special rights” as we want to keep recieving a pension higher than a straight couple but yet we want discrimination removed. Prepare to be villified at the highest level, and we will just let it happen.
So it is possible that even a heterosexual male living with another heterosexual male in Australia will be harrassed, vilified and attacked by Centrelink for payments – well I must say it is high-time that I move to Sweden!!!!!
We register cats and dogs and now gay people? The Federal Government does not give us protection in equal opportunity, does not recognize our relationship by not allowing us the right of marriage, but expects us to recognize them? A single gay person is not even counted on the census but a Catholic is. When the government starts to respect me it may well get some respect back. If my partner is injured in hospital it is up to me to prove I have a relationship before I can see him. Centrelink is very perverse in its view of us as some sort of animal.
The Mr Rudd still does not get it. Respect needs to happen both ways in order to have a good relationship.
and the GLRL and the other lobbyists have still not revealed why the reform package was accepted at all without the protection of older gays & lesbians … so excited by the benefits to the young that they forgot about anyone over 40 perhaps.
that’s true Jason, we’ll be vilified on those current affair shows at 6.30 too. There will be good gays and bad homos, it’ll further divide our communities, and they still don’t have the right to marry
“An estimated 1500 people have reported their relationships, according to Centrelink figures, below the anticipated 11,000”
Expect a front page article in the Herald Sun stating -“GAYS Welfare cheats” on Thursday 2nd July.
I see a backlash coming! All you gays who demand to be equal with heterosexuals only to scream foul when you get it. Welfare payments are based on your financial situation, living arrangements and/or health, not marital status. A couple living together is a couple living together whether they’re married or not, so same-sex marriage can’t be used as a bargaining chip. It makes us look extremely small-minded to want the symbolic rights before (or even without!) the practical responsibilities.
So if i’m having sex with my flat mate does that count?
I have to say, if I was gay and in a live-in relationship with a bloke I think I’d also be telling Centrelink to get stuffed.
Bugger off Centrelink!!!!, I will say this again – NO DISCLOSURE OF OUR RELATIONSHIPS, UNTIL WE HAVE THE CIVIL/LEGAL RIGHT TO MARRY!
It would be a very bad choice to not report your relationship to centrelink.
Reporting your relationship may reduce your payments but not reporting that you are in a relationship may attract a penalty.
That penalty will have a social stigma. It will categorise you as a ‘Welfare Cheat’.
Society hates welfare cheats and it may make it more difficult for you to find employment if you have a conviction for breaching the regulations.
You cannot hide your relationship. We all know the heterosexual community cooperates to maintain surveillance of all gay people, ‘to protect the children’.
Your straight neighbours, work colleagues, you name it, will all gladly dob you in.
So few people have declared their relationship status to Centrelink because they resent it deeply. It will place a great deal of strain on the most vulnerable in our communities. It’s containment, assimilation not acceptance
Those that want to get married still can’t, yet the highest maximum form of federal relationship recognition, in the form of a FEDERAL “civil union” REGISTER is being thrust onto poor Centrelink recipients.
They have the maximum federal recognition available & even go onto a federal government centrelink civil union register, while those who are not on centrelink can’t get their relationship registered at all on a federal level, & in many cases not even at a state level.
Something doesn’t add up- this is why we should have always pushed for access to full equal civil marriage first for those who are ready right now to choose, and then defacto & centrelink recognition to come into effect LAST.
Face it, Centrelink is treating homosexuality like its taboo by secretly trying to educate same-sex couples on there new entiltements. Its like Centrelink is too scard to publicly revel to the general hetrosexual public that they now reconise same-sex couples but they dont care, afterall who cares about GLBT people. Its seriously a joke at how its been handled.
Of course savvy gays won’t report their relationships – I know many who playing dumb and even now saying they r not in a relationship. Duhhrrrr!