State Govt runs out of Gambling Revenue! Counselling services forced to close!

Oh GREAT!

The State Government has decided to rationalise the free counselling service it offers via church based community centres. This means that if DH wants to continue to receive this counselling, she will have to go to Hornsby. HORNSBY!!! And she lives in Rozelle.

DH has a great counsellor who really has been one of the cornerstones of her stability.

This service is actually paid for out of revenue gained from GAMBLING. Casinos. Pokeys.

The State Government doesnt make enough money from gambling to support a few lousy counselling services for gamblers???

Where is the money going then?

DH is not a gambler BTW, nor does she drink, smoke or take drugs, stereotypes abt housos notwithstanding, but ended up in this service because she needed financial counselling.

Later on DH will explain just how Centrelink and DOH's combined mercies leave people without family support to live off credit cards.

Want to know how come the Lucky Country has huge levels of credit card debt? Look no further than this diary. With incomes dropping and every single formerly-free public service now on the gouge, how else do families make ends meet?

Anyhow, this is a huge blow for DH, because there is no way she can afford to keep seeing her counsellor privately.

There is a medicare fund for low income earners for 6 sessions a year. A YEAR!!! And all you get back is abt $30 - $40 dollars a session. Heaps of read tape and forms to fill in. A joke.

And HCF, (another great little contributor to bankruptcy in this state, I bet) to whom DH pays $100 dollars a month, gives NOTHING for counscelling.

ESPECIALLY hard as DH need her counsellors independant support more than ever now that she is in unemployment free fall.

Centrelink moves goalposts on Carer's Pension

When DH went back to work she was told that she wouldnt have to reapply for the Carer's Pension unless she worked for longer than 6 months.

But wouldnt you know it, they've gone and moved the goalposts again!

So now she has to reapply. Reapplying means filling out a swatch of forms, and having a medico fill out a detailed form listing the criteria for disability that Centrelink currently recognises.

Centrelink's idea of disability is either physical, intellectual or "psychiatric", whereas DH's child has a neurological disorder (Asperger Syndrome) which doesnt easily fit the criteria but is every bit as stressful to family lifes. So establishing the claim is always difficult.

But nevertheless DH can handle filling out the forms despite the tedium.

But going back to the shrink means more $$$. The young one has a neurological disorder for heaven's sake! It's not going to change in 6 months!

The Liberals were supposed to stand for less Government. But their real agenda is to turn us into a nation of accountants.

A resentful nation of whipped dogs, more like it, remade in the image of nasty little Johnny Howard.

Eeeeeuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

First stop Centrelink to re-register for Carer's Pension

DH learned a bitter lesson last time she stopped work. She was exhausted and didnt register for two weeks on the assumption that natural justice would prevail, and her pension would be backdated to the date she finished. Foolish mortal! The tender-hearted Liberals believein the letter of the law, not the spirit. DH lost out badly and since she live from week to week it was quite a hit. So she is off to Centrelink like a shot today to notify her intention to regain the Carer's Payment.

Lose-Lose Housing Dept "Reforms"

WELCOME TO THE POVERTY TRAP, which just got worse thanks to Labor's Reforms.

Well, DH was on a good thing with the contract. But then NSW Labor in their never ending quest to outdo the Liberals when it comes to bashing the poor came up with a corker of a plan.

Deprive Housing Dept Tenants of their BMW.

Put up their rents.

DH's rent was going to go up to $400 dollars a week!

For a glasshouse facing west, that is too hot to inhabit in summer. That has walls so thin, that her neighbours are threating to take out a contract on her if she plays the Moonlight Sonata one more time.

This would leave DH, on a contract wage of $1350 a week (not so wonderful if you remember that she doesnt get sick leave or carer's leave or holidays) only abt $80 a week better off than shs was on the pension.

For the most boring pointless job on earth developing telcom products for a mobile phone market oversaturated with bewildering choice as it is.

So now DH gets back to doing what she loves - working in community groups and being a relayer of information on the web.

The new rent hike is financially a lose-lose situation for both motivated tenants and the State Govt alike. This is a massive disincentive to study and work.

In DH's case, the state loses the $290 a week rent she was paying before.

And there's NO HOPE whatever of her ever saving anything to get out of this place.

There is NO WAY she can jeopardise the only secure accommation she has ever known by accepting a well paid job.

Well, at least the Federal Government will pay for her increasing reliance on anti-depressants. But for how long?

Unemployed again!

Well, there went the lucrative 6 month contract. DH will be back on the Carer's Payment if she's lucky, or the tender mercies of Newstart if the worst happens. She'll definitely have to sell the BMW now.