Laura's story

It was in 2012 that I divorced my husband after 21 years of marriage, I bear the scars of psychological, emotional and physical abuse, and it has been really difficult justifying my decision to leave the marriage to some people,  who can’t and don’t recognise the existence of these forms of abuse and who can’t understand how I can choose to live the way I do now.

I am a 46 yo solo mother of two teenagers. I do not receive welfare benefits of any kind including FTB. This is because I was accused of failing to report and fulfil my obligations to CLINK as well as hiding the names addresses of purported 'tax dodgers'. CLINK's words.  I was left with a debt to CLINK. FTB was cut off when I resigned politely from Newstart .I was transferred onto  NS  from Parenting Payment during a government review of welfare payments. I survive on $800 pm child support plus whatever I can earn in a low employment rural area. I do not own a car and live 17km from the town and travel up to 60 kms a day by bicycle to get work. I have $19.88 to my name as i write. Frequently it is less than this. I own my home outright but have difficulty paying for rates and mortgage repayments and expenses on an investment house that will not sell post divorce.  He owns half of it. I did not fight for his superannuation, inheritance and the other house we owned so I have nothing in savings or for the future.  I do not expect to gain anything from the sale as it is expected to sell at a loss. I have no insurance, no super, no health card and I am struggling with health issues  that affect my ability to do the physical work that I do. CLINK requires me to see a doctor for confirmation of this but I cannot afford the fees. I am not supposed to lift heavy weights. I also have an $2000 dental issue I cannot afford to have fixed.

On the day that I 'resigned' from Newstart  I was concerned about  the treatment of NS recipients in terms of their common rights as a result of my  relatively brief experience with CLINK arrangements re Newstart. It is a system that purports to give the needy a helping hand, but once you are part of it you are wound up in a sequence of obligation and invasive scrutiny that I suspected far outweighs any benefit of the money received. If you have any consciousness of your absolute natural human right of personal freedom you feel oppressed. The money you receive is a paltry financial bandaid. It's true that in my present circumstances I would do well to be on the dole but I cant bear the reality. I do not want to have to sit with disinterested staff doing their talking about the intimate details of my traumatic divorce,  be required to prove my medical condition , or my mental state by entering into an arrangement with an approved psychologist/practitioner. I object to being subjected to surveillance like scrutiny of where I have looked for work in a rural low employment and socio economic region and  who I work for - their addresses, phone numbers and names .

The latter issue disturbs me on several levels, and raised the most eyebrows at CLINK when I refused to divulge all details, except for the sums of money earned and the dates I had earned it.  Some employers for their own private reasons do not want to be scrutinised and as far as I am concerned their financial business is their business, not mine. It isnt a question of not being able to do what you want, rather it is one of feeling that you are under constant surveillance and anything that you are doing is likely to be in contravention of your jobseeker status. All my adult life I have been looking for work and all of my  adult life I have found it on my own.  I dont need a middleman to tell me how or whether I'm good enough or qualified enough. I am adept at picking new skills up and  get along well on inspired thinking to do things very well. Most people can.

The most insulting statement made to me by otherwise polite and efficient? male staffer was a response to my asking to be taken off the books . He looked at me as if I had lost the plot, and said along the lines of "you are not managing your life well or your finances, and you are fool not to accept CLINK payments. It's free money. It's free money..." I understand his attitude.  It's that of a rationalist. He is seeing a thin, stressed, tired, desperate human being in front of him who from his POV has lost control of everything and doesnt have much of a life. He IS trying to help.  He thinks $203  a week will solve ALL of my problems, or that it is enough to run a household and support two boys and pay a mortgage etc. , when actually what he has on his hands is someone who has survived alone for years without welfare  and knows how to manage quite well despite the odds doing all of those things. Most of us are managing whether on welfare or not. That is the most incredible thing about human beings, that no matter what the circumstances, we manage. 

There isnt conflict per se, I mean no arguments,  raised voices or verbal abuse. My natural response to situations that threaten me is to be  polite, quiet and outwardly calm. Inwardly i am shaking like a leaf and trying very hard to think clearly. I'm not that great under pressure.   I tend to go quiet like I'm hiding. I do not raise my voice or lash out verbally. I try to understand their POV and fit my realities to it. They are people too. I have no right to make my complaints about the system, personal.  I respect their integrity even if I do not agree to the rules of a system that they are in their own way bound up in like slaves on wages. It must be hard to deal with some clients.   It is the system I am in conflict with, the higher 'they', the rule makers who have no concept of what it is like to be standing in those queues. I am generally well treated by local CLINK staff whoare reasonably well acquainted with me although by no means on a personal level. It is a small town with lots of underprivileged and disadvantaged people. Perhaps my politeness is a little different to that of others who go there. I communicate well. They know me by my first name.

If something pushes my buttons i look at why that is happening in me rather than outside for causal factors and the resultant blame cycle. i.e. CLINK staff have a job to do. Their positions are dependent on them doing that job according to a rulebook put together by a higher 'they'. Some CLINK staffers are very good at being people persons, as well as abiding by the rules and getting the job done. Some aren’t, or they have had a bad day or they hate their job. They are inelegantly but beautifully human behind the uniforms and officious language. I respect that. If i am questioned I like to discuss the matter with equanimity and patience. I learn something that way and they have a few moments off dealing with bad mannered people

Until I worked out that I was always going to be cash challenged and accepted it as a way of life ratherthan an end to life, I felt derogated as if as a single mum I was somehow cadging off the system, or it was my entire fault.  I was already feeling downgraded as a result of the marital abuse. When you are that far down you tend to keep going down with every difficulty. Empowerment I think comes from believing your place in the hierarchy of humanity is undeniably where you stand in the present, the now, holding onto that position and being proud that you are there at all, instead of wishing you were higher up. Noone wants to be lower down, but people on welfare get shoved under by a sort of complacency that the welfare system wants us to believe in. If you go into a CLINK agency you sit down under palm trees on comfortable lounge chairs and watch bright smiling people just like you being successful at collecting various benefits or getting excellent jobs and living happily ever after as charming CLINK staff wave them off cheerily. Around you are the diversity of people who dont look anything like the smiling colourful ones on the tellie. We're all quiet ordinary. I dont believe anything I see on tellie so I dont watch the darn things. Ads have one purpose - hard sell of a fake world. Nothing as they say comes for free. I've simply taken a step sideways out of the linear ideologies of the economic rationalist world into a chaotic one that is surprisingly giving and generous and beautifully anonymous. To do that I had to have no fear.

While I am having a tough time I must reassure you that I am also a happy person. That's sheer will at work and a lot of change in terms of how I live my life. It is about accepting that I have only one life and no matter how bad it might appear I can make the best of everything that I have which is my boys now growing into young manhood and a home and my wonderful supportive community. Other than pain, I am healthy. I always remind myself that others have it a lot worse than I do. I do my best to help them whenever I can. I’m a great believer in giving everything you have to life.

As for employment I am a diversely skilled woman though I lack the essential pieces of paper that supposedly qualify me for positions in the workforce. I survive by using my skills as a market gardener, orchard worker, home handy woman and builder, welder, blacksmith, draftsperson ( Unfinished CERT 4 due to affordability issues also lack of local employment positions), arborist, chainsaw skills and tree grower. I have tried many things like tofu making and organic vegetable growing but transport, distance and power issues I('m on stand alone solar) limit  my capacity to make these self employment opportunities work for me.

In the end it is the diversity of skills that enables me to eke out a living that is far below what most people could function on. I do not regard my living standards as low despite my financial poverty because my resourcefulness is my greatest strength along with creativity and imagination.  The people who employ me soon see that I am useful to them and I have a reasonable reputation locally for good work. However that will never be recognised by employers as I put up with constant rejections of my resume with its lack of qualifications and what looks like long-term unemployment.  Due to being a wife and mother and casual worker, as with so many women, I  lost my foothold in the work force and in the race for ‘success’ while my ex-husband gained all of his qualifications and a work history enabling him to obtain a high management position post divorce. This continues  to disadvantage me in the normal work force.  IAt 46 I am hard pressed and not courageous enough to take on any more stress or the huge debt of a university education to gain only an outside chance of a ‘real job’ in my 50’s. In weaker moment it feels as if I have sacrificed something essential for a man who in the end didnt care about his family's welfare or financial security, but I refuse to let that eat at my soul. I am on my own and so I have to find a way to be financially independent and if poverty is the name of the game then so be it.  I will learn to live with less reliance on money and be happy without it. And I find that I am.

During my short stint on Newstart, I was not helped into a job by the employment provider who was supposed to be on my case. I found my jobs by word of mouth and community connection. This is how it has to be in a small community like this where unemployment is high and a lot of people are in a similar pickle. When I failed to report for fortnightly and pointless progress reports at the employment providers, my Newstart was suspended.  I failed to report because I just got sick of the pointlessness of the exercise.  I am no simpleton. The system isnt one I want to fit not for love or money. Even the provider staff agreed that the system was failing. I can never fault their kind treatment of me and often I found myself counselling them on a personal basis about mothering issues for a working mother, health issues for a person who suffered from migraines caused by the office air-conditioning and swapping stories about abuse with  a gay man who was the office manager.

 To put the boot in further as a self employed contractor I was required to give CLINK details of my earnings, employer contact details and rate of pay. It gets technical when you are self employed with different arrangements  with your clients. I sometimes have to negotiate below award rates of pay to get a job. I also swap my labour for services or goods that are useful to me such as food and at the time some of the expensive counselling for which I received no subsidies from CLINK because the counsellor I chose did not qualify under the schemes that are available. Believing myself to be insane as a result of years of verbal abuse from my husband, I put myself through a free mental health programme at the local hospital. I was politely and compassionately told I was in perfect health mentally and told to go home and rest.  ( hah ha, funny people!). Nothing was wrong with me at all. Reassuring I guess, but I knew differently and my counsellor generously exchanged my labour on her house building project for some of the counselling sessions I am so grateful for.

I refused the private details of 3 of my client/employers but honestly gave my earnings and dates they were earned.  It is none of my business what my clients are doing with their money. I get paid  for a job well done and that's all that matters. I explained when questioned about my community service obligations that I needed flexibility for my children and because I ride a bicycle which can triple the time that it takes to get to work.. On my income it i impossible to afford a vehicle let alone maintain one or feed it. That's when CLINK sent me a rather officious letter stating that  was hiding the details of tax dodgers and not fulfilling my obligations as a Newstart client. The letter also stated that I had incurred a $500 debt after I resigned politely from Newstart with the managing officer at CLINK telling me that I was a not a good manager of my life or the 'free' money I could have received. The letter rather nastily warned me that he debt would be forcefully obtained from my bank accounts, via Court order or by a debt collector. When it becomes personal like that it is time to rethink your strategies in life.  I promptly walked out of that office vowing never to go back and beg for  the few dollars that my 30 hours of community service obligations "cleaning  park benches and public toilets:" would earn me.

There was confusion about my work place arrangements. Being a freelance multi-skilled worker I have differing arrangements with each client. On one farm I was essentially a contractor paid on a negotiated hourly rate less than the award. The job gave me flexibility with regard to hours and autonomy ( there is abuse of worker's rights on many local orchards due to cost cutting measures so it is important to me that I choose the way in which I wish to work) but it was not clear if I was covered by their insurance. I have never been able to afford my own. My wages were listed as a farm expense, not wages and taken out of petty cash. In my opinion that side of the owner's business was none of my business. I had none of the normal conditions like insurance ( I work with chainsaws), safety gear ( I have had to supply my own) or superannuation. It was difficult to categorise my work arrangements since they are so varied and somewhat eccentric based on other lifestyle choices. Try explaining 'living with less reliance on money' to CLINK!  Try explaining that part of your living wage is the gift economy that you operate in that doesnt attribute value to work done and goods exchanged. 

( read 'The Moneyless Manifesto, Mark Boyle and Google 'beyond growth sustainable economy'). Sometimes I swap my services for someone else's. Sometimes a friend brings a basket of zucchinis and I gift her a basket of greens and jam. The zucchinis get swapped for meat and part voluntary labour on a neighbour's farm.  It builds community. It builds friendships. CLINK wants to put a value on that but cant. You cant count love.

But Centrelink  said, "We dont need to know those things. We just need to know what you've earned, the dates on which you earned that money and who you earned it from and whether it was wages or money earned as a contractor. If you cant tell us those things you arent fulfilling your mutual agreement contract and you are hiding tax dodgers. if you volunteered we need to know who with." Oh bla bla bla.

That was the employment opportunities I faced. I have a rich and varied work routine and I do not believe I would be happier under Newstart. I would like to have FTB because although it is only a small amount of money I feel as if I have a right to it as every other low income parent does. Nor does it carry the same obligation as Newstart. It would help greatly. Repeated attempts to register have been met by website shut downs, refusal by staff to help me, I cannot afford to phone a 1300 number and wait for up to an hour and a half that it has taken only to be refused access. I dont know what else I am supposed to do.

Such is life in the lower ranks of  a classless society. I did not expect to find myself in this position, ever, but that's the way it goes.

I've heard some pretty bad stories from others but most people seem to put up with it or are more proficient at using the system. The general rule of thumb and advice you get is "Dont tell them what they dont need to know." Unfortunately I dont have the knack for that. I work with facts not fictions and subterfuges. CLINK is a very tight ship these days. My strong preference is to have nothing to do with them and other than a feeling that I'm making things harder for myself in some ways I'm sure relying more on my resources  rather than a paltry government allowance will deliver positive benefits one day. I guess I fear becoming complacent and dumbed down more than  my socially perceived poverty. It is up to me to keep my standards ( as opposed to those that others might think I should be attaining) no matter what the outcome. I regard my kid's opinions and state of mind as the bench mark for personal achievement as a Mum and provider. If they express love, are healthy and never lack for anything essential ( I mean essential) and are happy then we are doing ok.

I have decided to be independent from Centrelink to lead an experientially rich life in effect removing the distraction of gross consumption that most of us are tied to to reveal the natural state of being human without necessarily losing sight of my living standards and ability to be happy and content.  CLINK dependency for me isnt an option. I will not swap the life I am growing out of ashes for that state of abject  and unquestioning abeyance under an authority I have little respect for. For some  people I'm sure it helps and I believe that welfare payments are a critical part of a well functioning  healthy society. I do not make any aspersions about their reliance on welfare support systems but unless I am injured or unable to find any way of earning a living, I wont need to be on NS ever again.  My freedom depends on me being able to explore the huge gaping holes in the societal , economic  and political fabric that is humanity to find the niches that afford me survival and when you start looking and building relationships with people based on the only things that you have, you find them everywhere. I have everything I need - a home, good health, a good mind, skilled hands, community around me. I dont need a shiny new car because I have two old bicycles that work very well. I dont need expensive adventures because I am tired out and thrilled by the ones I have every day that I discover something new about the microcosm of life scaled down to essentials. I dont need money saved in a bank account because I dont need that much money because I dont want the things that money buys. I have no desire for those things unless they are demanded by necessity.  This is a big question that takes many conversations to even begin to fill in details. 

I have been subject to debt collection and I felt intimidated at first then once I had reasoned why i had received such a letter, outraged. The debt was incurred because CLINK continued to pay me another fortnight of NS AFTER i had asked them to sign me off their books. I felt as if I was to blame for their technical mistake. I was intimidated by the officious tone of the letter which I was later told by an empathic and benevolent admin staffer on the phone was" not usually sent out to CLINK clients." She was able to mysteriously "disappear the technicality" because as she put it there were "100's of us on this side of the desk who understood where you are coming from cos we have been there ourselves." It was an extraordinary admission and an extraordinary gesture. I was never able to personally thank her since the phone call was anonymous. I hope she didnt lose face or her job doing that for me.

The treatment by officials reminds me of the abuse I suffered in my marriage. It's impersonal. It's dehumanising and it is about a governments's bottom line and unknown agendas and nothing about people's circumstances or ability to pay. I would willingly have paid the money back in community service or in small instalments but I was not given ANY options nor opportunity to negotiate a mutually agreed plan of action. I was just told that it would be reclaimed by those 3 methods: debt collection, court action or compulsory access to my bank account.

It is difficult to determine the state of poverty by  appearances. If i was to say I had only $19.88 in my bank account and $20 cash and someone looked in my fridge and at my home made house and second hand furniture, clothes  and lack of a car and other trappings of the good life they might by their own standards of having much much more determine that I am poor and perhaps make judgements accordingly. Sometimes my boys have to deal with peer comments about their uniforms and shoes which are neat and tidy but secondhand  but they know that appearances are more than a new school blazer or a new iphone.  I am not poor in a spiritual or resourcefulness sense and I do not live like a person who has only $19.88 or $7. 56 or negative $49.56 in her bank account.  I simply live as if that didnt matter. I dont define poverty by money alone. I think it is too easy to measure your success by how much money or the things you have instead of how kind you can be or resourceful with very little.

I live according to my means which is a garden full of good organic food, a self determined way of life that means my house is clean, comfortable, well appointed with the tools and accoutrements of 3 resourceful and creative human beings, I work where I can get to by bicycle and accept that whatever I earn is all I'm ever going to have and I utilise it well.  Money is for paying the rates and absolute necessities like.... ginger and cheese. Luxury is sitting on a rock with a friend drinking chai as the sun goes down. A holiday is spending time at home or having a cup of tea with a neighbour. Just because I cant afford an annual holiday in Spain doesnt mean I'm not living life to the full. My wealth is my heart and the collected hearts of my best friends.

I turned myself away from grief and  i began with everything I needed - home, life, love, my boys. I will admit to experiences of anger and frustration and sometimes even stress when convention interrupts my plans to rely less on money eg Council rates, bank fees etc but it is how I deal with those issue s on an emotional and practical level that is making  my financial poverty less of a negative focus. It is empowering to know I can survive for a month without needing to go shopping.

My boys have always been my focus. I identify as a mother first and foremost. Their welfare and healthful upbringing is therefore my responsibility in the absence of a father who has effectively abandoned his part of the job for the past 5 years. Focussing on being a mother despite adversity probably brought out my greatest strengths.

We (the people) need to be a fair bit more proactive about getting our voices heard. A change of government to one with a far more socialist agenda would be a start but I am not convinced that democratic governance is all that it's supposed to be. Anarchy isnt about being ruled over, rather it is the absence of rulers. We don’t need rulers. We need social consciousness that effects egalitarian and progressive humanism instead of totalitarian rationalism which is destroying the planet.  The catalysts for positive social change are already there. Just like a bushfire can restore native ecosystems to full health so could a total collapse of the convoluted and over regulated system that exists now do with some serious socially beneficial waking up.