My friend is jobless and he is trying to apply centrelink (newstart) since june. Because he has a IP (below $160,000 and highly geared) and a few companies and trust(but inactive), centrelink keeps delaying because they have to go thru all the documents.
He's been waiting since June, and said each time an officer takes over the assessment of his trust/company, the officer will disappear. Although they say "it takes up to 2 weeks to do the assessment", each time they make him wait about 1 month, and when he calls to complain, only to find out that officer is on leave and his file is just left on someon's desk untouched. He even had officers admitting that they do not know what is a 'hybrod trust', hence probably why they just leave the file aside and do the easier ones first. And when a new officer takes over the file, they say the same "it takes 2 weeks to do the assessment". And then after 2 weeks he hears nothing from them again.
So until now, after 5 - 6 complaints to centrelink, and after the file was passed to the 4th assessment officer, finally they say ok, they're done (after 4 months wait - supposedly to be a 2 week process initially). But then, now they say they lost one of the document, and request that my friend refill out anohter document!
Is this the Centrelink standard? I thought Australian government agencies have a better standard than this? My friend says the standard of service is as bad as 3rd world government agencies.
So all the time my friend has been raking up his credit card, borrowing from family, while centrelink takes their sweet time. And my friend's got to pay all the credit card interest etc....
Is there an outside institution or agency that he can complain to against Centrelink's incompetence?
My friend was paying the higest bracket tax as his salary was very high. So the ATO takes the tax money happily, and there is a penalty if you file your tax late. But there is no penalty for Centrelink to delay the application and just let people go broke and hungry and loan money from credit card and loan sharks?
He's been waiting since June, and said each time an officer takes over the assessment of his trust/company, the officer will disappear. Although they say "it takes up to 2 weeks to do the assessment", each time they make him wait about 1 month, and when he calls to complain, only to find out that officer is on leave and his file is just left on someon's desk untouched. He even had officers admitting that they do not know what is a 'hybrod trust', hence probably why they just leave the file aside and do the easier ones first. And when a new officer takes over the file, they say the same "it takes 2 weeks to do the assessment". And then after 2 weeks he hears nothing from them again.
So until now, after 5 - 6 complaints to centrelink, and after the file was passed to the 4th assessment officer, finally they say ok, they're done (after 4 months wait - supposedly to be a 2 week process initially). But then, now they say they lost one of the document, and request that my friend refill out anohter document!
Is this the Centrelink standard? I thought Australian government agencies have a better standard than this? My friend says the standard of service is as bad as 3rd world government agencies.
So all the time my friend has been raking up his credit card, borrowing from family, while centrelink takes their sweet time. And my friend's got to pay all the credit card interest etc....
Is there an outside institution or agency that he can complain to against Centrelink's incompetence?
My friend was paying the higest bracket tax as his salary was very high. So the ATO takes the tax money happily, and there is a penalty if you file your tax late. But there is no penalty for Centrelink to delay the application and just let people go broke and hungry and loan money from credit card and loan sharks?