To Desire Autonomy: How Centrelink Will Punish You For Living With Your Partner

Many (if not all) Australians are well versed with the failures of Centrelink as an institution. Tasked with providing Australia’s most vulnerable citizens with fortnightly income payments, Centrelink is notoriously known for the downfalls of its management, its hours-long wait call times, and its tendency to use the threat of criminal records as a way of keeping welfare recipients accountable. Yet what could be deemed Centrelink’s most colossal downfall, is the binary nature of the laws that govern its operation, which fail to cater to individual recipients’ circumstances. Instead, recipients must obey unmalleable terms, or risk losing their entire income. 

Jemima and Charlie (who will remain under pseudonyms for anonymity) sat down with Vertigo to share their experiences of having their Centrelink payments reduced due to living with their partners. The Social Security Act 1991 (Cth)—which governs Centrelink’s operation—determines that when couples live together, they are considered to be in a de-facto relationship. As a result, their income streams are treated as one, regardless of whether the couples are pooling their finances. Both Jemima and Charlie expressed their discomfort at being characterised as in a de-facto relationship; a term often applied to those in a marriage-like commitment. Both also disclosed that in reality, they lived with their partners as they were unable to afford housing in the current market on their own, and chose to cohabitate with their partners instead of strangers.

It is important to preface that in some situations, couples who live together would share their finances. In this scenario, Centrelink should have the authority to treat a couple’s income as one and to calculate their payments accordingly. However, there are no avenues available for couples to prove financial independence from one another, resulting in Centrelink recipients being forced into positions of financial dependence. Such was the case for Charlie, who moved in with her partner when both of them were unable to afford individual tenancies. Charlie disclosed to Vertigo, that her Youth Allowance payment that assists her during her full time studies was reduced from $770 per fortnight to roughly $200 per fortnight, depending on how much her partner earns each week. In order to receive her payment, Charlie must lodge her boyfriend’s payslips each fortnight, in addition to her own. Charlie admitted to Vertigo that this situation has placed unnecessary strain on her relationship. 

“The way this outdated system is set up means that my boyfriend is in a place where he now has to feel like his income is ours, with the Centrelink system indirectly assuming that your partner must be providing for you. It also made us question our decision to tell the truth about both our relationship status and living situation, which creates serious problems and inconsistencies within the system, as it essentially becomes an external force working against you and not with you.”

Charlie continued that it is not just the reporting process but also the application process that was invasive. She admitted it forced her to legally define her relationship before she otherwise would have. 

“I came to a seemingly dead end in my application, where to move on with it, I had to decide whether my boyfriend and I were a registered relationship, de-facto or married. I’m only 22 years old and don’t feel like I want to be considered in any of those boxes, let alone be forced into one of the three. While jumping through hoops with many different Services Australia representatives, I was told that yes, I am independent but that yes, if you co-inhabit with a partner you are automatically de-facto and his income will be considered with yours. What a contradictory sentence.”

The danger underlying this scenario is that the National Institute of Justice tells us that specifically women are more prone to abuse when experiencing economic stress and hardship. It also notes that women who lack financial independence are more likely to remain in abusive relationships, as they are not equipped with the economic means to remove themselves from danger. So if we are placing welfare recipients—who are already experiencing socio-economic hardship—into situations where they are dependent on the income of their spouse/partner, is that safe? And how could this exacerbate their vulnerability or leave them prone to abuse?

While both Jemima’s and Charlie’s partners chose to bear their financial burdens alongside them, both of them expressed their distress at how vulnerable they were made to feel by their experiences with the welfare 'assistance' system. Jemima in particular, is forced to rely almost completely on her partner’s income. 

Jemima applied for Centrelink payments in 2018 after contracting severe glandular fever, which (unbeknownst to her at the time) developed into a chronic illness. Throughout 2020, Jemima’s conditions worsened. She was in her final year of university, whilst fighting unrelenting fatigue, brain fog which made cognitive tasks difficult, and physical bouts of pain such as burning and aches across her entire body. 

At the end of 2020, Jemima fled her home due to domestic violence, seeking refuge at her boyfriend's house. The physical and mental stress of the domestic violence and the sudden departure from her family home worsened Jemima’s chronic illness. 

“Some mornings, I would be so sick that I would wake up and go to get myself a glass of water from the kitchen. The act of doing this would leave me so depleted that I would have to go back to bed afterwards.”

After leaving home, Jemima was living off JobSeeker payments, however upon receiving a diagnosis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) and later Fibromyalgia, Jemima acknowledged that she would likely be unable to work regularly for the foreseeable future, and that her best option was to attempt to get on Centrelink’s Disability Support Pension (DSP). 

To do so is a very long, expensive and intrusive process. However, if her application was successful, Jemima would have a reliable source of income, and discounted rates for her incredibly expensive specialist appointments and medication. Jemima slowly began to work away at completing the steps necessary for a successful application, all the while managing her delipidating symptoms. 

“To be granted the DSP, you have to have a paper trail that proves you have tried everything available to cure yourself. You have to show that you’ve tried it and that it hasn’t worked,” Jemima told Vertigo.

While preparing her DSP application, Jemima was living with her boyfriend and was using her JobSeeker payments to pay for the necessary medical appointments to support the application. Jemima noted that she underwent the following medical tests and treatments purely to satisfy Centrelink’s strict eligibility criteria and create a strong enough ‘paper trail’ for her application. Jemima noted that due to the cost of these appointments and her state of health, it took her two years to complete the following treatments: 

• Cognitive behaviour therapy

• Formal diagnoses of her conditions from immunologists, GP and her psychiatrist

• Sleep studies

• 8 week graded exercise program

• Iron infusions

• Vitamin C infusions

• Numerous pain medication trials (which often inflamed other symptoms of her illness)

• Numerous sleeping medication trials

• Lymphatic draining

• Massage and acupuncture

• Light therapy

• Blood, stool and hair follicle tests

• X-rays

• Gene testing

After her formal application was submitted, Jemima had to sit through four face to face interviews with Centrelink/mental health representatives, who at times would ask questions contradictory to her application in order to test the truth of her claims. Jemima recounts that she found the interviews incredibly challenging as she had to complete them whilst experiencing exhaustion, pain and brain fog, which was made worse by the stress of the process. 

In her interview with Vertigo, Jemima cried across the table as she recounted that when her application for DSP was approved in 2021, she was able to move out into her own shared house, and was for the first time, completely financially independent. 

“I cannot explain the feeling I felt when my application was approved. I was for the first time in my life, financially independent. I could finally choose where and how I wanted to spend my money. That first year on DSP, I was able to buy all my friends and family Christmas presents with my own money. It was beautiful…. But more than that, I felt seen. The biggest hurdle for those struggling with a chronic illness is that they feel like a burden on their loved ones and on society. For the first time, someone had acknowledged that my illness and the pain that it brought me was real, and allowed me to be independent from it.” 

In 2022, Jemima decided to move in with her boyfriend. Continuing to live in her share house was no longer viable, as constantly having to climb up and down the stairs of the multi-level home caused her exhaustion, and the mould and cold temperature in the house were causing her health to deteriorate. Jemima also noted that she longed for basic help around the house that she knew her boyfriend would be able to assist with. 

She called Centrelink and was advised by a representative that given the facts of her case, it was unlikely that Jemima and her partner would be deemed de-facto in the eyes of Centrelink, and that her payment shouldn’t be affected. In light of this, Jemima and her partner chose an apartment based on the rent accrued by their joint income and moved in, signing a 12 month lease. Jemima notified Centrelink about her changed living conditions as required, and her payments continued as normal. 

After a couple of months, Jemima’s rental assistance suddenly stopped. Upon calling Centrelink, she was told it was because she hadn’t updated her living circumstances. She informed them that she had done this when she had moved. They then said she needed to fill a form for her partner about the nature of their relationship, which she did. The restrictive structure of this form, Jemima explained, meant that she was essentially forced to claim that herself and her partner were de-facto, despite having completely different assets and not owning anything in their home together besides their fridge. 

In January of 2023, Jemima’s payment was changed from $1,200 per fortnight to $200 per fortnight, and she was told that her partner's income would need to be lodged as her own. This left her once again financially dependent. Her new payment did not cover her share of the rent, nor did it give her much money to contribute to bills or food, let alone any of the medication or appointments she required to bear the physical and mental burden of her illness.

A few weeks later, Jemima was contacted by Centrelink, and told that she had an outstanding debt of roughly 15 thousand dollars. This was the amount she was overpaid by Centrelink between when she initially moved out with her boyfriend, and when her payment was reduced. She explained that she had no other source of income, and was unable to work due to her chronic illness, yet this was not taken into consideration. They also did not take into account the fact that Jemima had reported her changed living conditions correctly, and that the overpayment was an administrative error on their part. 

Since the reduction of her payment, Jemima’s boyfriend works every single day of the week to support them entirely, and pays for their rent, their food and Jemima’s medication and appointments. Jemima is unsure how she will repay her Centrelink debt, and admits that she waits in extreme anxiety for the day her debt is formally handed to her from a debt collector.

Jemima and Charlie’s stories are just two of many injustices felt by Centrelink recipients. They are not the only ones who feel that crucial details and nuances of their situations have been overlooked, and that there is little means of assistance when attempting to fight the hand that feeds them. 

We know from Robodebt—a scheme introduced under the Morrison government which used a flawed income averaging algorithm to calculate debts owed by Centrelink recipients, only to falsely charge individuals with thousands of dollars of debts—that when welfare recipients are placed in situations such as debt, they are prone to serious mental health concerns and can display suicidal tendencies. 

The media and our politicians continuously work to make welfare recipients feel like burdens on their loved ones and on the state. Forcing someone into becoming their partner’s financial responsibility is a cruel way of amplifying that feeling.

Jemima and Charlie’s stories show clearly that the current way of evaluating individuals' financial needs is unfair, unsuccessful and unsustainable. The neo-liberal rhetoric that ‘everyone should be financially responsible for themselves’ is not viable when you lack the resources to succeed that everyone else has. Such rhetoric is what causes people to fall through the cracks. We know this—that’s why Centrelink exists: to help our most vulnerable. Don’t forget that we are talking about our students, our single parents, our elderly and those suffering with disabilities here. 

Centrelink exists, because as a society, we have chosen to preface equity over equality. But are we offering equity, if our system fails to protect an individual’s autonomy in all scenarios? 

Doesn’t everyone deserve the freedom to choose to live with their partner—to seek the security, support, and joy that cohabitation brings? 

Our welfare recipients shouldn’t be punished for wanting what for most, would be a decision they wouldn’t be questioned for. 

If you or someone you know is experiencing any form of violence, abuse or harm, please seek help using the following support services: 

NSW Police: 000

The National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line: 1800 373 732

www.1800respect.org

NSW Domestic Violence Line: 1800 656 463

Relationships Australia: 1300 364 277

eSafetyWomen: esafety.gov.au/women 

If you require support due to the confronting content of this article, please access help using the following resources:

If you are an onshore UTS student, you can access the UTS counselling service for confidential support. Find out more details including contact information here: https://www.uts.edu.au/current-students/support/health-and-wellbeing/counselling-service-and-self-help/contact-us

Lifeline national crisis helpline: 13 11 14

Kids Helpline (free, confidential service for people aged up to 25): 1800 55 1800