Australian Council of Social Service says ‘unconscionable’ case shows why mutual obligations system must be ‘replaced with a fair system’ for jobseekers
Mark says his medical certificate took several weeks to process and he was cut off from Centrelink payments before it could be approved.Mark says his medical certificate took several weeks to process and he was cut off from Centrelink payments before it could be approved.
with Services Australia, saying he had been unable to fulfil his obligations due to surgery to remove a brain tumour at a Melbourne hospital on 10 April. “Technically, I was in hospital, but I was homeless. I was staying in short-term accommodation,” Mark said. After hospital, Mark went to stay with his sister in regional Victoria while he recovered. She helped him contact Services Australia and apply for a medical exemption, but he said he“I think it’s overreach,” he said. “ haveHe says he is grateful for the medical exemption now, but when he needed support at the start “it just wasn’t there”.
“It is long past time to end this harmful practice. Mutual obligations should be suspended until the deeply flawed and harmful compliance and penalty regime is replaced with a fair system,” she said.The parliamentary review into the government’s flagship employment services program, Workforce Australia, last year recommended that automated payment suspensions should cease and that only officials at Centrelink should have the power to suspend income support payments.
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