Australia: Lesbian claims Centrelink asked her to pay back $7k after SSM vote

A TASMANIAN woman was left shocked after Centrelink allegedly ordered her to hand back over her welfare payments following the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Australia. The unnamed woman married her wife overseas in 2016 and says that, because of this, Centrelink claimed that she wasn’t entitled to any of the family payments she had received over the past year and requested that she pay back $6600 in welfare she had been given. The woman’s partner is not an Australian citizen and lives overseas and the couple do not share finances. This meant that they did not satisfy the Centrelink requirements for a de facto relationship, which is why the Australian woman was claiming family tax benefits.