Scramble to de-register relationships
Couples are attempting to de-register their relationships with Centrelink after being misinformed about welfare legislation criteria.
A number of couples who registered their relationships may not meet the criteria used by Centrelink to determine couples status, Welfare Rights Centre director Maree O’Halloran told Sydney Star Observer.
She has called on Centrelink to offer these couples status reviews and to take a more diverse approach to how couples are defined in future.
“The criteria for being a member of a couple are very specific, so without a lot of information, some of our clients have gone down and declared and then realised that not only is there a dramatic loss in income, but they don’t really fit those five factors Centrelink considers,” O’Halloran said.
“A good example is people whose relationship is really a caring relationship. In the past, say 15 years ago, they were in a sexual relationship, but they still consider each other to be family and one looks after the other.”
O’Halloran said most couples were not provided with a facts sheet outlining Centrelink’s criteria, unless they sought out the information.
“From March 30, Centrelink began an information campaign to ensure those who might be affected were made aware,” a Centrelink spokeswoman responded.
“The fact sheet was freely available from the Centrelink website for download and distributed at community events. Customers were encouraged to contact Centrelink if they were unsure.”
“There are so many Centrelink staff and I think most of them in their head think ‘Oh, the old marriage-like relationship for opposite-sex couples, we’ll just apply the same rules’, ” O’Halloran said.
“What we’re trying to say to them is, diversity is important, relationship diversity is important. It may be that people have a strong, recognised relationship that doesn’t fit quite into your mould, and those people shouldn’t necessarily lose more than $100 a fortnight as a result.
“A possible solution could be to change the welfare system to consider everyone an individual.
“Taxation is done primarily on an individual basis. We’re starting to come to the view and push forward that we need to recognise complex, diverse, unique relationships and that perhaps people need to be treated as individuals for the purpose of these payments.”
This is a long-term goal, but in the meantime, O’Halloran wants Centrelink to “allow these people to re-consider and don’t make it difficult for them to do that.”
info: Visit www.centrelink.gov.au
I think you all miss the most important point. Centrelink actually raises something sensible when they say we should all be treated as individuals.
The whole idea of legally recognised relationships (marriage, defacto, civil unions) belongs in a past era. Hardly any relationship formed now will last forever. Women no longer rely on men to provide for them or even take their husband’s name. There is no shame in being born to an unmarried woman or couple or raised in a single parent home.
That gay people are fighting to be included in a dead or dying institution is quite bemusing to me!
I also get the feeling they are put out because alot of elderly or people live together as friends, therefore bills are cheaper, last time i did check its not illegal. Perhaps to them its easier to say your in a relationship Blehhhh
Lex well if it is our money fine, if it is your money and my money well then no.
Also this is very 1950’s Black vs White, Nimby revisiting us again. Remember the problem with centrelink is they have a one policy suit all regardless of lifestyles. They have a register fine if you want to register do it, but stop with the witchhunt.
I am so glad this came up, the variables involved are all so different, like Maree said gay relationships are not like Hetrosexual ones, theyre may have been sex involved once or twice, and yet continue as a caring friend. It is as not straight forward as you live together. Centrelink need to realise this. I mean sure if you are buying a home together, joint banks fair enough, but in the gay community one which the hetrosexual would find very odd, there may have been sexual encounters way back and not now. Is centrelink going on sexuality alone here or what?
OK DreamOn,it seems that our rights and needs under the social welfare system should be of a lower priority? Is it possible that you aren’t personally dependent on anything that Centrelink has decided upon?
Basically no one is saying that the other groups in society you mention should be left out in our favour (the aged, single parents etc), although something that you may have forgotten is that gays and lesbians are a part of these needy groups, rather that the government can and should be inclusive of gays and lesbians receiving equal treatment to others in Centrelink’s “Welfare net”. There shouldn’t be a “priority list” that leaves equally needy gays and lesbians on lower or no benefits.
It’s simple, if your on the dole or any benefit for whatever reason and you live with your BF or GF and you dont want to lose $$ in benefits, just dont tell them your a couple. It would be extremely difficult for them to prove you are.Only an idiot would tell centrelink the truth, howver people shouldnt get to huffy and talk about their rights, if you need more $$ get a job, or a second one, centrelink benefits are there to help you when your down & out, it is not a means to live up your life at the expense of the tax payer. If ou are genuinely in a loving relationship and your hubby has a good job and your a benefit recipiant then it is only fair you loose a ittle bit of your spending money, hetros do it all the time in single income families, it’s part of being in a relationship, it shouldnt be his money or my money, it should be our money. People, including gays and lesbians should be grateful they even get what they do, their are alot more people worse off in the world. If homo’s really want equality then get off ya bums and lets create our own political party, come up with policies that benefit the whole ountry and kick the 2 major parties out or at least have influence over the major parties just like the christian freaks do.
thousands of gay couples are avoiding centrelink!
Dream0n, so we should just take a backseat whilst our rights are trampled on again? When do OUR priorities move up the list to be the ones they deal with? I’m all for helping out the ageing population, but not at the expense of us!
Unfortunately the weasel Howard stacked right wing conservatives in every decision making authority in the land over the 10 years of his regime. How quickly we forget how the banal prudish reactionary right had derailed our country and eroded our civil liberties. Kevin Rudd also an openly christian conservative, is in no hurry to un-conservatise the machinery of government. Embarking on a massive health care reform agenda and the legacy of the “liberal-voting-bankers GFC” will kep the current government busy for much of this term and probably the next.
Gay marriage is way down at the bottom of the agenda. Centrelink support for Aboriginal Australians, refugees and single parents with children have much higher priority in my opinion.
Australia has an extremely generous social welfare and health system that an ageing parent of mine gains benefit and comfort from.
Its too precious that gay “couple/singles” can bang on about being hard done by.
Good old smelly Centrelink stealing the rug from underneath us. This is what happens when we elect a Labor Government every time!!! Labor only recognises gays because it suits the Government (for example it saved them cash) – not us at all. Gay men and lesbians who have partners just like me should not have to be “forced to come out” – fuck off Centrelink out of our lives!!!!!
Read my lips Kevin Rudd the dud: – WE WANT MARRIAGE AND WE WANT IT NOW NO DELAYS!!!!!!!
Thanks to a bloody incompetent and stupid Labor Government I have to pay 23 more “new taxes” as a citizen and we as a nation are in 134 billions dollars in debt. I vote liberal from now on!!!!!!!
I read the SMH and finally this man with the same values as I do came up in that paper on September 22, 2009 “Proud to be gay, the Liberal with an eye on the safest of seats”. Simon Berger (the gay liberal), I will vote for him thats for sure – he’s cool!!!
http://www.smh.com.au/national/proud-to-be-gay-the-liberal-with-an-eye-on-the-safest-of-seats-20090921-fylp.html
“Labor party as homophobic”. In the late 90’s the Labor party was very pro-gay, but from 2004 onwards the pressure to be “conservative” with the launch of Family First into politics changed the landscape- it resulted in the following homophobic actions by Labor (not just “attitudes” but real actual actions):
– voting in the marriage ban introducing extra new discrimination moving the pendulum in the wrong direction in one giant step (a ban that is now being interpreted even further to now even ban mimicking marriage),
– stomping on the ACT ceremonies one day after the urging of a frantic high pressure press release from the Australian Christian Lobby “forcing” them to do so.
– at a state level, Carmel Tebbutt banned anti-homophobia training in schools after pressure from screaming headlines in the notoriously homophobic Daily Telegraph. It was a very sad day. Many of us have been bullied in school & it was a slap in the face being hit by this new tide of winding back of government support. We had so many gains to finally get anti-homphobia training in schools in the first place- why now just suddenly wind it back because the Daily Telegraph/Australian Christian Lobby say so?
Overall, Labor has been fantastic over the many years, but from 2004 onwards we face new seemingly homophobic actions based on Australian Christian Lobby policy enforced onto Labor. And it has no sign of stopping. (even the de-facto laws were given “blessing” by the ACL, as they thought it would shut us up as a compromise, whilst cementing their goal of keeping us completely invisible as far as ceremonies. The maximum we can say about our relationships is “hey we’ve just been de-factoed!”. Well, except for Centrelink couples- they get a national civil union register with exclusive maximum recognition…. to cut thier payments).
Ben you are wrong.
State Labor has delivered significant reforms while gays and lesbians return an indepedent to parliament (Clover).
And Federal Labor did deliver 58/08.
To deny their has been any change over the long term is to deny our own history.
The reforms are slow…they don’t go as far as they should…but they do happen.
Lets keep the label of homophobic to those people who have demonstrated they deserve it – Fred Nile, Bill Heffernan and John Howard.
The Labor party tolerates us because of our vote while occasionally passing some chicken-feed to placate the easily satisfied amongst us. Those of us with a longer-term view of things see that things have not really changed that much despite there being plenty of opportunity for changes to occur.
They dislike and are against it because some part of them fears it (fear and love being the root of all emotions). Homophobic is the appropriate term.
Seems to be a great stretch to me to even vaguely consider the Labor party as homophobic !!! This is a very tired and much abused description in fact, and contrary to your usage means fear of ..,not dislike, or against, as your comment would suggest David W.
I would be interested to hear your view as to how the LGBTIQ community reached the degree of acceptance and recognition it has today, ( even having their relationships acknowledged as such ), if not for the hard work that the Labor Party have put in over the years…
Bollocks – straight married couples made a lifetime commitment.
Well said David W
I’m sure straight people are very diverse too. Straight people can be in caring relationships, straight people can have f..buddies, or friends with benefits, and diverse households, and turn from lovers to friends. Yes, these are valid points in this story, but they are not gay-specific.. straights can be just as diverse as us.
The real issue is about equality- something we DON’T have yet. So we are left with a situation where Centrelink recognise “marriage like” relationships that “mimick marriage”, yet on the other hand Kevin Rudd is hell bent on banning anything that “mimicks marriage” by homophobically banning the A.C.T. civil union ceremonies. Something does not add up.
This whole Centrelink “national civil union register” needs to be scrapped until we really do have equality.