We have been having a conversation with a Centrelink assessor person from the Adelaide office regarding our pension claims, which was confusing at best, but his last comment was that he had what he needed and would send his findings to the process people to put up on the system. Surprise surprise, we both received a request this morning for more information, all of which we have handed in at least twice to date. Not to worry, you can't buck the system so we had to go find the local library and use their computers to access the web and some of my files and print it all out again.
Then off to Centrelink where they suggested we might like to come back later. So after lunch and a shop we turned up again at 2pm, documents in hand and took our position in the well used lounges. Finally we get the call and a nice man goes through our accounts (you never get to see them, so you are flying blind as to what they actually want), looks at our documents, and declares all is well.... except - your heart sinks - he reckons that we also have to produce a statement from AMP concerning our last super-fund. Our pleas to him to look through the actual documentation already submitted. But remember, you are not allowed see what they can see on the system, so your arguments are dismissed out of hand. It's almost as if you, the supplier of all the documentation could not possibly know what any of it contains. I even showed him the document in question on my laptop. No dice. There is nothing for it but to go and get a fresh copy of the statement and then there was a surprise: you can actually access the internet from the public computers at Centrelink, something they never told me at Woden. That would have saved me heaps of time in the past, but now we are focussed on getting the requested statement. He was very nice, firm but nice. He gave us a hand written note with his name and suggested that when we had the document, to just ask the lady at the front door to pass it to him.
Our mood lifted, we printed the document and approached the lady.
'I can't give documents direct to a specific officer', she says with a cold hard edge to her voice.
Everyone in the entire office (it's like a fish bowl and nobody has anything better to do than watch other people's dramas play out) could see the confusion and distress in our faces, even the nice little man. But the law, is the law and would we please take a seat and wait to be served. Now, in a Centrelink office you get a split-second to conform to any directive or the security officer starts to move toward you. You can't even stand up and wait. So you meekly take your seat as close to the nice man as possible and eyeball him. He is with another customer and it becomes crystal clear that rule #2 is that they must never interact with more than one customer at a time, even though he had to get up, walk past us to the printer and back.
Finally he calls us over and checks the document against something on his screen and declares that it is adequate, stamps the document and adds our Centrelink number to the top. He is dismissing us when we demand that he double check both our accounts and confirm that we are not in arrears in responding to there demands in any way. He agrees and after a few more minutes clicking and flicking he declares all is well and we are free to leave.
The day now being well and truely run, we retire to the van. I for one need to let of some steam so I headed for the beach for a nice long walk.
I took some snaps which I'll put here to lighten the mood of this blog.
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| Looking north, nice and sunny. Geraldton WA |
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| Looking south, they have been telling all day it was going to rain... Geraldton WA |
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| Looking east, the Moore Point lighthouse, the oldest steel lighthouse in Australia, erected on this spot 1877. Geraldton WA |
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| Looking west. Hard to see, but the boiling water in the foreground is a bunch of bait fish being rounded up by a dolphin for its dinner. Geraldton WA |
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| As we are looking west, may as well grab a snap of the setting sun. Geraldton WA |
Suitable expunged of all ill-feeling, I wander back to the van and settle down for the evening.
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