Yahoo Finance Outdated Centrelink rule lashed after Aussie denied $639 payment: 'Awful'
Uni students like Ashleigh Griffiths are being blocked from receiving financial support, despite supporting themselves.
An Australian uni student with two broken legs has been left stressed over the prospect of going months without income after her Centrelink claim was blocked. It’s a situation that more than 450,000 young Australians are facing, due to one “arbitrary” rule.
Ashleigh Griffiths was working as a cleaner to support herself while she studied medical radiation science in Canberra. But the 20-year-old was shocked to learn she is not considered independent.
Griffiths told Yahoo Finance Centrelink expects her - and anyone up to the age of 22 - to rely on their parents to support her after being forced to quit her job when she broke both her legs.
"It's a stress fracture so your bones crack from the inside out," she said.
“I’m a very active person and did sports, dance, gymnastics and participate in fun runs. I just think my body couldn't keep up."
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She has been "bedridden" and needs to use either a wheelchair or crutches to get around.
Doctors told her it would take another three to four months before she could put pressure on her legs and start walking again.
Working a physical job is out of the question, so Griffiths has been applying for desk jobs.
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But to make ends meet in the meantime, she applied for Youth Allowance to temporarily help her cover her medical and other expenses. Here's what went wrong.
Centrelink rule forces young Aussies to demand help from parents
Griffiths lives at home with her single mum and two younger sisters. She pays her mum $150 per week board and covers all of her own expenses.
That includes paying for her university courses upfront to avoid HECS indexation, which were $2,400 last semester. Her injuries have also meant she's been stung with paying medical bills, including MRI scans.
The 20-year-old has already had to dig into her savings to cover these costs and recently found out her Centrelink application had been denied because her mum earns too much.
She said this puts her in an "awful" position.
Centrelink currently considers people aged 21 or younger as being dependent. Because of that, their parent or guardian's income will impact their eligibility for payments and how much they can receive.
If they earn too much, like in Griffiths’ case, students won’t be able to get a payment at all — even if they don’t receive financial support from their parents.
Currently, parents can only earn $62,634 or less a year in order to receive the full $639 a fortnight Youth Allowance payment.
If they earn above this, the payment amount is reduced by 20 cents for every dollar over this amount.
Added ‘stress’ ahead of unpaid placements
Griffiths is now worried she won't be able to afford her upcoming unpaid placement, which she had been saving for before she broke her legs.
“I am going to do a total of 2,000 hours of placements in my degree and those placements are not covered by the government’s new payment,” she told Yahoo Finance.
“Those savings were for me to be able to afford to go on placement because in placement you pay for everything, your uniforms, your food, your accommodation.
“Eating into that for all my consultations is quite stressful … I still have to support myself and I still have my placements.
"With the cost of living, there is no way my mum or any parent can fully support their kid doing that in the average Australian household.”
Calls for change to ‘arbitrary’ rule
The National Union of Students (NUS) has been campaigning to lower the age of Centrelink independence from 22 to 18 years.
It found that more than 450,000 students are currently “locked out” from Youth Allowance payments because they are under 22 and therefore seen as dependent.
NUS national welfare officer Sabrine Yassine told Yahoo Finance the current rules were “completely removed from the actual reality of where students are at in their normal progression”.
“22 is such an arbitrary age. At 18, you can drink, drive, smoke yet you are still not considered independent by the government’s definition,” Yassine said.
“If you follow the normal phase of a student’s life. At 18, you leave school. Then you do a three or five-year degree and you are out by 22. So you’re only considered independent once you leave university.
“By all other measurements, that’s incorrect. At university, you are expected to be earning for yourself and most people, although not in this climate [anymore], start to live out of home.”
The age of independence was last reduced from 24 to 22 years old in 2009 by then Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Along with lowering the age of independence, NUS is calling for Youth Allowance to be raised to at least the minimum wage and notes the rate is currently below the Henderson poverty line.
The Australian University Accord report released earlier this year also recommended the parental income test limit be raised from $62,634 to $68,857 a year, which would allow more students to qualify for payments.
While Griffiths acknowledged she was in a privileged position and was “lucky” to live at home with her parents, she believes the rules need to change.
“For young Australians, there are [no payments] that fit for them. And they are the ones who are studying and they are the ones that need help,” she said.
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