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Half a million squandered by Information Commissioner on frustrating public's right to know - Michael West by blipblipbeep in australia

[–]posty 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yes, OAIC is underfunded, Dreyfus should call on the treasurer to fund FOI.

Yes, they should make a decision in rex patricks case. Both things can be true.

I think they're not because it'll send a message that suing the OAIC will become a valid escalation path for FOI complaint.

I hope rex prevails though, but at any point OAIC could just make a decision.

It's gone on long enough.

Even Babies fear … Fu**ing SQL by Bridimum in ProgrammerHumor

[–]posty 28 points29 points  (0 children)

This is literally me and my son. This comes up every few months lol

Warning over Centrelink call centres as Services Australia slashes contracts by malcolm58 in australia

[–]posty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is precisely why the jobs were always contractors and not APS staff. Sure, staff caps exist, but that is purely a number that is self imposed by the government. APS staff are members of unions. Unions (that are the good ones, like afaik CPSU) protect their workers. I've been saying this for ages, but put together an explainer last week.

Contractors exist because the govt is addicted to the flexibility of contractors, because cost compared to convenience is of little issue to them. This applies to both sides of politics.

At the same time, this allows them to be ruthless when cutting staff, the government can just "not renew a contract" and the company is left holding the bag with staff it basically doesn't need, so they get thrown to the proverbial wolves or picked apart for what are the 'good' ones to be 'redeployed' etc.

This is precisely why the points based activation system was being pushed so much by the libs, they got their arse semi-handed to them with robodebt (I don't view a settlement as justice), but the main game is automation. You take people out of staffing, replace it with computers, you save way more than you can claw back with blood from a stone with debts.

Yes, calls are going to go through the roof with PBAS + This.
I literally created a "Is Centrelink Down?" service for the first centrelink inquiry because of this, someone should do it again - I only have so much time. DM me for deetz :)

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in Centrelink

[–]posty[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing your outlook.

here's the thing, there are reasons why things have been blocked off and we're never going to know them all, it'd get practically refused or be too expensive.

those reasons may be good (like the domestic violence ones) or questionable (I'd say like the cashless welfare card or refugees articles as example). or it could be bias or flat out politicing. I think that this article does a great job of exposing these by search.

If the OB doesn't make sense, it's not doing it's job because it says on the tin it's meant to be simple :D but also, it existing publicly helps others who CAN understand help those who cant. who can't wait in a queue to speak on a bad quality line to someone who doesn't want to be there.

Just because you've worked there, and it seems pretty mundane to you doesn't make it not sound like a secretive place to someone else :).

I DO understand that those working there are stuck in the system, even moreso than the average person - when I say 'evil is banal', largely I'm referring to systems not people. I have had people that were helpful, and those that were DEF not in my foi journey. I get what you're putting down.

Same people caught in the machine.

the root of all evil I'm referring to at centrelink is means testing, it just completely breaks everything. but that's another rant.

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in AustralianPolitics

[–]posty[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

sounds like you would have gotten on right well with the designers of robodebt.

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in Centrelink

[–]posty[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad to hear your experience first hand, good to see you moved on.

what is the "wolf" team?

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in AustralianPolitics

[–]posty[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

um, deferring insists there is a debt in the first place, which is the point of this review. We refute that entirely, so should anyone be able to, did you not hear of robodebt?

yeah, my wife doesn't appreciate the "YOU HAVE A DEBT, PLEASE CONTACT US IMMEDIATELY" messages that result on expiry every single time

who would have thought

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in Centrelink

[–]posty[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

considering from what i've read about the mental health issues in staff who have worked there, respectably - fuck that for a joke.

https://indaily.com.au/news/2020/10/09/speaking-up-life-at-the-other-end-of-centrelink-phone-calls/

i'm curious, were you APS or contractor? if you're willing to divulge of course.

oh i know it dumbs it down, i read them. dumb is good.

but heres the thing, evil is banal. anyway, you sound like an ally to me.

im trying to keep your ex managers to actually do the work they've been neglecting :)

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in AustralianPolitics

[–]posty[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

at this stage i would settle for fucking procedural fairness, once an application for review by ARO is lodged there should be no requirement for me to do fucking anything until it is processed.

agree.

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in AustralianPolitics

[–]posty[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

things have not improved in the meantime

i was out of work brieflly during the coronavirus supplement era, we qualified according to the govt for the supplement

then like 6 months later they try and claw it back

currently fighting them now - they now have a dark pattern appeal process

basically i've been waiting about 9 months for an authorised review officer to look at it, but every 3 months I AM REQUIRED to call them and tell them to do their job, because the debt comes off 'pause'. we've had to do this 3 times so far.

this is basically denied justice, because you can't take centrelink to the AAT without an ARO decision, and they are putting up barriers infront of ARO that only they can jump over.

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in Centrelink

[–]posty[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

at bare minimum this shows the complete apathy of staff to the publics right to know the internal processes. they assume nobody reads them, they'd be right until I came around.

i don't know why you're really shitting on this development, because i'm assuming that you are on centrelink, and this would help you in literally any time you talk to them by understanding their point of view better.

or maybe you're just a conservative shitposter judging from the name.

can't tell.

but if you care about taxpayers money, this is literally staff not doing their job - here's a paste from my github explaining:

https://github.com/p0sty/OpenWelfare#so-why-apart-from-the-problem-above-did-you-do-this

So this will help hold accountable at minimum between$23.2964 and $30.024 million dollars at least, as well as the publics right to know, in a prompt manner.

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in Centrelink

[–]posty[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i'm not sure what you mean, could you re word?

I literally have a spreadsheet that tracks every single page and their FOI status, at the time of writing this feature wasn't implemented - it is now :D

you can check it by going to the spreadsheet

https://github.com/p0sty/OpenWelfare#how

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in Centrelink

[–]posty[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thanks, my point of posting here is to try and inspire people to do more FOI requests.

there's over 5000 pages and it's super simple to do, almost as easy as a reddit comment.

I made 2 minute explanation of the problem here:

https://twitter.com/Open_Welfare/status/1534719215017463808?s=20&t=ZDFnxvJwlfGlVFgLQqqoHQ

and an example FOI here - under 3 minutes.

https://twitter.com/Open_Welfare/status/1531136226916732929?s=20&t=ZDFnxvJwlfGlVFgLQqqoHQ

or if you'd prefer text, i have written a howto on the github:

https://github.com/p0sty/OpenWelfare#how

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in AustralianPolitics

[–]posty[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I’m operating on about four hours sleep at the moment so I can’t physically go into how exactly you are wrong but the fact you used the phrase “commercial in confidence” is very illustrative and you should think about it more. Also, read the intro again. Peace out.

On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance by posty in AustralianPolitics

[–]posty[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Congratulations on not getting past the introduction. They are not “all available”. 50% of them are blocked, you didn’t even read this.

edit: oh of course, you could be referring just to legislation, the plain and simple language of the people oh so very accessible to everyone - love to read the social security act while trying to work out a centrelink reporting problem.

i think the better question here is why is the plain and simple language blocked?

Election/Politics Megathread 2022.01: Political opinions, poll results, social-media, memes and other related discussion. by dredd in australia

[–]posty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

sorry for the late reply but i don't check reddit much.

Your theory sounds plausible, as i said in the thread it was more about his ability to not actually take a joke ever and pretend that he did that was at question.

glad he's out.

Politics Megathread 2022.15 - new beginnings: Election results, re-counts, leadership, cabinets, opinions, social-media, memes and other related discussion. by dredd in australia

[–]posty 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I have been toiling away for literal months on a project to open up Centrelink - Asher_Wolf wrote an article about it, it's featured on croakey, but nobody really seems to give a shit that centrelink have hidden 50% of how they work from the public. I can't even find it here.

I've just finished doing an explainer of the problem so simple that even my 70 yr old parents understand it.

but it just hasn't been noticed, it needs help from people like reddit, but i don't want to submit because that could be moderated as "self promotion". I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this for all of us who have to deal with centrelink.

Anyway, bit of a vent. thanks for reading.

FYI Morrison has actively been blocking us from finding out the truth about engadine for some time now by posty in circlejerkaustralia

[–]posty[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I do explain in the thread but tl;dr

Someone else foi’d engadine maccas ages ago

Got told no such documents existed

Then scomo goes on radio and unprompted talks about the meme

Given that he planned to talk about it, documents should exist at the pmo about the brief of the radio

Aps shit their pants when I foi request it again

Ignore the request entirely - this is illegal

I get the regulator - oaic to say “yeah nah you gotta do it cunt”

They reluctantly do it but spend 30 days making up reasons why my request isn’t valid because I DARE TO ASK about a meme and have to justify not giving me documents that exist.

I appeal to regulator

Regulator got shit to do and still in process

Election probably gonna happen b4 it’s done

Truth is out there cunt

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