During my third year at uni I went and sat the commonwealth public service exam. This exam was used as the recruitment process for future public servants. I must have done ok as I was offered a job before the end of the year - The Department of Veterans' Affairs was growing as a result of the fact that old soldiers don´t always die... they just get old and become eligible for pensions - old age pensions and disability pensions. The department was also bringing in a new benefits computer system and wanted young bright things to help implement it..... So on December 23rd I had my first day at work... we had a 2 week induction - where 14 of us taken into a classroom and taught all there was to know for base level service pension officers.
I was with the Department for 3 and a half years - I met an amazing bunch of people - and made friends that would remain with me till today. I also fell in love, so traumatic.
I started as a base level clerk class 1 quickly got up to a 2/3 and I think that I had become a 4 just before I left.... I had applied for a level 6 job - and didn´t get it - got a tad pissed off.... even though I was told that I should not expect to get such a big promotion in less than three years of working in the PS. Whilst there I was secretary of the social club - boy did I enjoy that! That's when I realised how much I enjoy having fun and helping other people have fun.... as Perth is so remote from the rest of Australia our branch hardly ever took part in the interstate sports carnival.... During my time as secretary we set up a netball team (which was actually an offspring of our mixed team called DV8) we sold nuts and raisins, had quiz nights, bake sales and all sorts of other fund raising activities in order to help us make it to the carnival - which was being held in Adelaide in SA (the state next to ours - please note: for non Australians Adelaide is around 2.000kms away from Perth). What a blast that was!!!!
Other fun things included the job itself - our clientelle ranged from veterans of the first world war (it was 1983) WWII, the korea/malaya conflicts and the vietnam war. As well as having one position which was a liaison officer for the British War Pensions Office - a job that I often got to sub in, whenever the British Pensions officer went on break I took on his job - lots of fun... the Brits really know all there is to know about public service and paper work.... The vietnam vets were a special bunch of people - finally a database was being set up especially for them due to the disability claims that were being lodged - the effects of agent orange were being recognised, IBS - irritable bowel syndrome was a recognised disability related to war stress and so many other conditions that I never knew existed.
The disability payments went from 10% to TPI - totally and permanently incapacitated - these TPI people could be either physically or mentally damaged - all disability pensions were tax free - as were war widow pensions (you became a war widow if on your husbands death he was a TPI) children of TPI and war widows could get special grants and pensions from the department to pay for their education - also tax free. The delegates that handled the claims were non medical - but got advice from doctors - both departmental and external about whether what was being claimed could be attributable to the war service of that particular individual... they had to prove without a reasonable doubt that the injury/condition was not attributable... hence the onus was on the department to prove that the condition could not be attributed to war service - you can imagine that this is a difficult thing to do. I really really liked this system... ofcourse there may have been people milking the system - but as far as I am concerned - if you have to take up arms (the draft was in place for most wars that Australia participated in), you deserve to be paid well - especially if you have something that you think is because of your service.
Sometimes the clients were a tad upset (especially when the assets test came in for the old age pensioners), but most of the time they were really really nice and did appreciate the fact that they were with the DVA and not with the Department of Social Security. Our service was much more personalised and as we kept the same initials in our client base - I think mine was N-T or something like that. So, you started to get to know a few of them quite well. The waiting room was also like a bit of a reunion centre for the diggers.... they would come into the office to fix something or report something about their current situation - meet other mates and then head off down to the pub...
Good times.... I left DVA in July 1986.... I had had enough - (didn't get the promotion I wanted, the lover thing wasn't going in the way I wanted it to and basically I needed a change)... where did I go and what did I do....Go back to Iceland ofcourse - to the loving arms of my cousins and a job in the Agricultural bank of Iceland - Austurbæjarútibú to be exact.......
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