Imagine you get a letter from Centrelink saying you have an outstanding debt of more than half your yearly salary. Oh, and it’s due in just over a fortnight.
Brisbane-based single mum Joy got a letter like that before Christmas. (Joy isn’t her real name; she’s asked Hack not to identify her as her debt is still outstanding.)
Joy receives, on average, about $540 a fortnight in Family Tax Benefits and a partial parental payment to help ease the cost of raising two small children on her own. She works three days a week and earns about $45,000 a year.
So it came as a rude shock in December when Centrelink told her she owed them over $24,000.
“I was really stressed and upset. I work in an open-plan office and was trying not to burst into te…
Read the full article at: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/facing-years-of-debt-from-centrelink-stuff-up/8158834