CHRISTINE receives the blind pension. She was about to begin a tertiary degree course so she rang the Department of Social Security and asked about what help she could get. None, they said.
Christine struggles on with the blind pension and shoulders the extra burden herself while doing the first year.
She then discovers she would have been eligible for the pensioner education supplement which would have been worth $1290.
She seeks back payment. The department applies the rules. It says it has no duty to provide information about other department’s schemes.
Christine appeals to the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman finds files notes saying departmental officers should give good advice.
The department refuses to relent, saying the file notes were not mandatory.
Christine gets nothing.
Source: annual report of the Ombudsman tabled in Parliament last week.
Julian is a Minister in the Howard Government. He claims $34,000 tax free travel allowance at $320 a night for 108 nights spent at his wife’s Melbourne house. The Department of Administrative Services pays.
After Opposition and media scrutiny Julian at first says, “”each and every claim is accurate and verifiable and paid correctly. My records are complete.”” He then admits doing a round trip to and from Sale in one day, but claiming travel allowance for a night in Melbourne and Canberra each end. He admits the claim is wrong and repays $420.
Julian admits that the plane charter was really for a national party function, not a ministerial one and repays $1600.
After topping the ministerial travel-allowance list at $58,000 tax-free (on top of his ministerial salary) he voluntarily repays $9,200 to avoid media criticism.
The department does not scrutinise whether it is appropriate for someone to claim travel allowance for nights spent in a spouse’s home.
Source: parliamentary debates and question time last week.
Sylvia was 63 working part-time as a shop assistant. She lodged a claim for the old-age pension in February 1994.
The department did a strict calculation of her small wage income and added to it deemed income from two work-based superannuation funds and ruled that Sylvia was over the limit to get a pension. She got the standard letter telling her about her appeal rights.
In November her financial adviser noted that one of her two funds should have been treated as exempt from the income test. The department admitted its error but refused to pay arrears because Sylvia had not exercised her review rights within the three-month time limit.
Sylvia went to the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman found the department did not tell Sylvia that there was a possibility that some super funds were exempt. Sylvia had relied on departmental advice and had no reason to question it.
The department has refused to budge. It says its defective administration was not particularly special or unusual enough for compensation to apply.
(The annual pension is about a tenth of Julian’s originally paid travel-allowance claim.)
Source: Ombudsman’s annual report.
Parliament, September 4. John Sharp: “”I thank the honourable Member for Fisher (Peter Slipper) for his question. Like those of us on this side of the House, he is very concerned about the inefficiencies and the rorts that have existed on Australia’s waterfront for a long time. Like the member for Fisher, we on this side of the House recognise that those inefficiencies and rorts are costing ordinary Australians their jobs. . . . .
“”Wharfies can earn up to $120,000 a year. (Slightly less than Ministers).
“”On Sunday night in the 60 Minutes program, we also saw not only these people earning these extraordinary wages but the old “”nick-off” system . . . We saw people leaving many hours before their shift was due to conclude and, of course, taking the full pay for the shift in the process . . .
people who earn these extraordinary wages and who do not work the hours in order to earn those wages.
The secretary of the ACTU, Mr Kelty, stands for . . . the elite. It is this government which is prepared to stand up for the unemployed, to stand up for the battlers and to give those people a chance of a job — a job that has been denied by the inefficiencies and the rorts on the Australian waterfront.”
Source: Hansard.
September 24, Parliament, after it was revealed that Sharp had claimed $29,205 for 144 nights away from his Goulburn home, amending it in May to 97 nights and repaying $8740, Prime Minister Howard: “”I have accepted their resignations (Sharp and Administrative Services Minister David Jull) and I believe that their resignations are appropriate because, firstly, given the magnitude of the adjustment that was made, it ought to have been disclosed at the time and, secondly, given the magnitude of the adjustment, there should have been a pursuit of a more detailed formal explanation for the reason for the discrepancy.”