Welfare Tricks People Play.

Some people claiming to be homeless [especially those with a Drug addiction] wanting to gain a financial advantage of getting free rent while still getting a welfare payment will do so by leaving their safe accommodation and go to a welfare agency wrongly claiming they have been assaulted or fear they might be assaulted were they live or a women would use excuse of sexual intimidation by others in the house.

The welfare agency will have to believe the story and provide emergency accommodation paid for by the welfare agency in a nice motel or other refuge while they try finding them alternative accommodation. In the meantime the pension and rent assistance would keep getting paid to the homeless person and if overpaid to the former home would need to be refunded. This might go on for two weeks or more and the homeless person still getting the pension and until recently the rent assistance too, but the current govt has woken up to the rort and cancels the rent assistance as soon as they advise they moving in order to stop Centrepay deductions going to a landlord. This churning occurs more often during the summer months when they can more easily get free but comfortable accommodation in the parks than during the freezing cold winters months and it is not unusual for some to more around often in one year with plenty of excuses to make the story sound genuine and sometimes by being evicted for causing a serious disturbance would help their cause if the police or cat team might result in getting a free holiday in a government Mental Health Hospital with full board and lodgings.

I believe the Federal Senate is currently considering a Bill to stop payments to people under government care and if it is passed by Senate it would save the Federal Budget some unknown amount,

Another rort involved Rent Assistance payments which had been awarded to applicants pretending to be homeless when still living at home would go off to a welfare agency claiming Domestic Abuse to get assistance to find accommodation get two weeks rent free payments and then get that all important Rent Assistance Certificate signed by the Rooming House landlord to enable them to get an extra $126 per fortnight. Project achieved they would then disappear back home sometime during the first two weeks but not change the address on their Centrelink forms so we would continue to receive their mail in our letter box.....some of the smarter ones would get a mail redirection organised or others would come pick up the mail on the expected dates and yet others did not bother at all... id imagine they would just ring Centrelink and claim someone was stealing their mail when the knew the review time might be coming up .

Centrelink Fraud staff were never interested claiming it was not their job to police such issues, but obviously one smart conscientious cookie in Centrelink management decided to do something about the rort last year and must be saving a fair bit but i'm sure they not discovered all the other older rorters still collecting rent assistance while still living with their parents.

I urge readers to watch the HOUSOS serial on TV just once to see a not so exaggerated example of what Public Housing tenants on welfare do to rort the welfare system.