Formal Complaint #2 against SERVICE NSW 2021 COVID-19 grant ‘audit’

March 8, 2024

The NSW Minns Ministry (since 5th April 2023) and its Service NSW umbrella super-department need to pull their bureaucratic heads in and immediately abandon their ‘indian-giving‘ grant clawback mentality targeting innocent small businesses.

Email date: 11-August-2021, after our submission of 1st August 2012, ten days prior. (Service NSW approval was NOT automatic).

An approved and paid out grant is an approved grant. So, thanks for the government compo for the government’s own stuffs ups. End of story!

But that a few fraudsters cashed-in illegally was a fault of the government’s own quality control grant approval process. Though by far, the vast majority of grant applicants have been legitimate small business owners severely directly impacted by the government’s mandatory pandemic lockdowns, who applied for the grant and were deemed, at the time of approval, properly eligible for the compensatory financial grant.

Our Blue Mountains tour business, Nature Trail, is one such local small startup business that was catastrophically impacted, and we accounted for our eligibility well over and above Service NSW grant’s stringent guidelines and terms and conditions.

Some two years hence, we consider Service NSW’s subsequent so-called ‘audit’ out of the blue to be excessive, above and beyond the necessary proof of our grant compliance.

Rather this ‘audit’ action by Service NSW we consider to be a desperate contrived and witch hunt by Service NSW’s contracted debt collectors to intimidate vulnerable micro businesses still struggling to make ends meet and trying to rebuild.

Service NSW’s grant audit process and methods are unconscionable.

Let me remind you of the original email we received from Service NSW nearly two years after our grant approval.

11th April 2023 (out of the blue) we cop this:

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Angela (no surname, no position title, no address, no contact details) – threatened me from Service NSW initial communication, before any audit process:

SERVICE NSW: “If we do not hear from you, or if you do not provide the requested documentation by 26th April 2023 this matter will be referred to Revenue NSW to begin funds recovery.”

Services NSW HQ are bastards in bullshit castle. | Location: The McKell Building, Level 2, 24 Rawson Place, Haymarket in Sydney’s CBD.

Service NSW grant ‘audit’ is a repeat of ‘RoboDebt’

Yet Service NSW has been let off-leash since the Minns Government came to power and gone feral against legitimate local micro business owners like myself.

It has acted on bad consulting advice by disgracefully embarking on a fabricated debt-collection campaign copycatting CentreLink’s notorious (2015-2019) ‘Robodebt’ grant clawback debacle.

Centrelink’s Robodebt Background?

Centrelink debts were artificially raised by targeting the most vulnerable individuals in our society between July 2015 and November 2019 under CentreLink’s contrived Income Compliance Programme, nicknamed by the media as ‘Robodebt’.

The programme was later deemed to be unlawful because it relied on income averaging, and also because of its disregard for rule of law principles requiring procedural fairness and contestability.

Centrelink lost a multi-million dollar legal class action by firm Gordon Legal.

In addition, a Royal Commission into the Robodebt scheme was established on 18 August 2022 to inquire into the establishment, design and implementation of that scheme.

Why does Service NSW repeat Robodebt?

Yet stupidly, its seems that Services NSW’s senior management extending to CEO GReg Wells and right up to the Minister of the current Minns Government, Jihad Dib MP, clearly do not read the news and appear arrogantly hurtling down a similar illegal Robodebt unconscionable pathway.

READ OUR FORMAL COMPLAINT TO SERVICE NSW #1 (18th May 2021):

Service NSW COVID-19 Micro Business Grant – CEO Greg Wells an immoral ‘indian-giver’

Heads up!

Back during COVID-19 (2020-2022), Service NSW offered, assessed and dispensed its COVID-19 Micro Business grant funding to eligible adversely impacted businesses during the government’s imposed pandemic lockdowns.

Yet two years later, the NSW Government unconscionably thinks it has some justification to try to claw back that paid out grant funding years later!

Is this simply because the current NSW government may be running out of taxpayer funding, and so desperate for cash it targets the most vulnerable again – those that used up the grant funding to pay to survive the crisis and are on the breadline trying to make ends meet and get back on track?

Seriously, Premier Chris Minns?

As a taxpayer for over forty years, its not my business’s fault that the government(s) plural stuffed their quarantine mandate to curb the pandemic, let alone failing catastrophically to put out the previous bushfires!

The rest of us copped the government failures and incompetence. Government compensated the adversely impacted with due eligibility vetting at the time of the grant. Government needs to move on, have a strategy shake up and get back to governing properly!

As a micro business, totally impacted by the widespread bushfire emergency declarations and pandemic lockdowns, we refuse to be treated by government like mugs.

We refer to us taking a democratic stand against Service NSW as soon as we copped an anonymous call wanting money. It turned out to be Service NSW back on 11th April 2021 emulating scammers – actually they are scammers one in the same!

On Friday, 17 November 2023, our business get’s another email from Service NSW, telling us that Service NSW “is temporarily pausing compliance audit activity in relation to
your grant application.”

Whats that bloody mean? An indefinite audit to last how long? We are now 3 years after the grant application. How many more years of this intimidation and harassment by Services NSW Mr Jihad Dib?

Overburdened portfolios? Just incompetent? Just ambivalent? We’ve read Jihad Dib’s dismissive reply letter to our expressed concerns to our local member of NSW Parliament. A waste of space?

This is Service NSW’s latest official email to us:

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By February 2024 and nothing heard from Service NSW, we tried contacting Service NSW to no avail. So we consulted our solicitor and then wrote the following letter to the meathead CEO at Service NSW.

Note: Our first letter of 7th February 2024 by registered mail had been addressed to Service NSW current head office address (Greg Wells, Chief Executive Officer, Service NSW, Level 2, 66 Harrington Street , THE ROCKS NSW 2000) per its website. But it was returned to us by post with the words ‘Moved On‘ hand written on our registered envelope.

Not deterred, we immediately phoned Service NSW and were advised its postal address, to which we re-sent our letter to the CEO (on 12th February 2024) attention this time ‘To whom This May Concern‘ – whomever acts in the CEO’s chair that week, and whatever the current transient location he/she happened to be at, and via Service NSW’s current postal address that week.

At the time of writing this blog article, it is Friday 8th March 2024, and thus far we haven’t received a Return to Sender note again, so we reasonable presume by now our letter has reached the CEO of Services NSW as well as the copied-in parties responsible.

Our letter: Formal Complaint #2 against SERVICE NSW

Wednesday 7^th February 2024 [re-posted Monday 12th February 2024)
Chief Executive Officer
Service NSW
GPO Box 7057
SYDNEY NSW 2780

To Whom It May Concern

RE: MY FORMAL COMPLAINT #2 AGAINST SERVICE NSW 2021 COVID-19 GRANT ‘AUDIT’

RE:
Grant Title: 2021 COVID-19 Micro-Business Grant
Service NSW Reference number: COL-8718f31-MBS
Grant Applicant: Nature Trail
(startup Blue Mountains Tour Operator since 2019)
Application Lodgement date: 2021-08-01
Grant Approval date: 2021-08-11 (ten days later)
Grant Payment period: 2021-08-11 to 2021-12-10 (by a total of 12 instalments)
So-called ‘audit’ period: 2023-04-11 to current

[Service NSW “temporarily pausing” since 17 Nov 2023]

***********************************************************************

I refer to my formal complaint letter dated 16th April 2023 (copy attached) against Service NSW so-called ‘audit’ addressed to you as Chief Executive Officer, Service NSW, Level 2, 66 Harrington Street , THE ROCKS NSW 2000.

I note receipt of a reply, not from you, but instead from Karen Ballantyne, “A/ Director, Business Customer Service”, Service NSW dated 19^th May 2023 (copy attached). Ms Ballantyne failed to address the specifics of my formal complaint, notably that Service NSW emailers have wrongly and despicably accused me of fraud from day one of this so-called ‘audit’, even before I had a chance to supply the extra records they have sought from my business.

Ms Ballantyne in her reply, proceeded to reiterate the 2021 COVID-19 Micro-Business Grant Guidelines and its Terms and Conditions to me, of which I was/am fully familiar with and complied with at the time of my grant application lodgement on 1^st August 2021.

In her reply email, Ms Ballantyne did not want to deal with my audit case, instead referring me back to someone called ‘Nicole’ who I had been corresponding presumably with a staff member of Service NSW in its audit matter, yet not at any time did ‘Nicole’ provide a title, or contact details.

In good faith I continued to correspond by email with ‘Nicole’ as instructed by Ms Ballantyne. However, I point out that I have many different people contact me in this matter claiming to be from Services NSW, namely, in order: (1) ‘Jacinta’ (2) ‘Angela’, (3) ‘Sam’, (4) ‘Nicole ’and (5) ‘Dewey’; none of whom has once provided their full name, nor their position title, nor contact details. They each come across to me doing what anonymous scammers do. Phone and email scamming is rife these days! I attach my email record of some 17 email replies to Service NSW dated between April and June 2023, which was the period of the audit being initiated by Service NSW to Nature Trail.

I have made clear to each caller and emailer that do not accept incoming phone calls which require me to provide personal information to identify myself. This is the tactic of scammers that Service NSW wrongly considers policy. It is a highly inappropriate practice by any government agency.

I have provided all the documentation that each of these emailers has requested, and more. It is clear to me that none of these emailers has a grasp of tax reporting nor of accounting, nor of the grant guidelines and terms and conditions, let alone trust tax reporting, as the Australian Tax Office requires from my business structure.

My experience in dealing with Service NSW is that the personnel (employees or contractors) are quite incompetent and accusatorial. They seem to be treating each grant applicant with the one-size fits all tar brush approach. Nature Trail was a new business in late 2019 (before the bushfires, landslips and pandemic), so it satisfied special criteria different to pre-existing businesses. Each caller/emailer seems to be isolated from the records I have already provided to Service NSW, and working from home and not communicating my previous supplied information with one another. They come across to me not as staff at Service NSW office but as outsourced debt collectors on commission.

I refer to my immediate subsequent email correspondence with ‘Nicole’ of Service NSW Micro Business Grant so-called ‘audit’. I provide a copy of merely one extract of considerable email correspondence I have had with Service NSW in this matter. This just my emails to one of Service NSW provided email addresses (see attached).

In addition, I have received emails purporting to come from Service NSW:

The most recent email I have received from Service NSW is dated 17 November 2023, (copy attached). That email I consider to be ambiguous and so confusing.

It states that:

“This email is to let you know that Service NSW is temporarily pausing compliance audit activity in relation to your grant application. This means that no further action is required from you at this time.”

“The pause will allow us to review the audit process and identify options to help make it easier for micro-business owners to participate. We will contact you again at the conclusion of the review to update you on next steps.”

“If you prefer to continue with the current compliance audit process, you are able to do so, and our assessors remain available to support you. If you would like to continue the compliance audit, or to discuss your grant application with us, please respond to this email or call us on 13 77 88 to book an appointment with an assessor.”

I have complained about this limbo status to my local NSW Member for Blue Mountains, The Hon. Trish Doyle, who has written to the relevant minister for Service NSW communicated ich has written twice to The Hon. Jihad Dib MP, Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government (Service NSW). The first letter is dated 4^th May 2023. The second letter is dated 21^st November 2023 raising the problem of this indefinite limbo status.

Finally, I hereby notify you as CEO of Service NSW and relevant ministers in the Minns Government, that in my view this ‘audit’ has gone on far too long (since April 2023, which is approaching one year.

The 2021 Micro Business Grant was approved to my business on 11 August 2021, two years prior and after 10 days assessment with checks made to me during the assessment process. It was not automatically approved, as the callers and emailers falsely claim.

I have supplied every record asked of me by Service NSW in this matter.

If any document is required of me then specifically inform me in writing, and I shall email it to CDEO Greg Wells at smallbusinessassistance@service.nsw.gov.au immediately .

Otherwise, I consider this audit matter to be closed and I demand written confirmation from Service NSW to this effect by the end of February 2024, after which I shall deem any further correspondence from Service NSW on this matter to be harassment and intimidation – akin to the ilk of a ‘robodebt’ mark 2. I shall refer such to my solicitor.

Attached Documents:

ATTACHMENT 1: (Dated Apr-Jul 2023) Nature Trail’s email record with Service NSW regarding the bushfire grant and the pandemic grant (17 emails)

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ATTACHMENT 2: (Dated 11-Apr-2023) Service NSW’s ‘Angela’ initial audit email to me unsubstantiated default accusation against me somehow of grant fraud;

ATTACHMENT 3: (Dated 16-Apr-2023) My Formal Complaint #1 to Service NSW CEO Greg Wells;

ATTACHMENT 4: (Dated 4-May-2023) NSW Member for Blue Mountains, The Hon. Trish Doyle’s representative letter #1 to The Hon. Jihad Dib MP, Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government (Service NSW);

ATTACHMENT 5: (Dated 23-Jul-2023) Reply letter from The Hon. Jihad Dib MP, Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government (Service NSW) back to The Hon. Trish Doyle MP;

ATTACHMENT 6: (Dated 22-May-2023) Copy of Service NSW reply email by Karen Ballantyne, A/ Director, Business Customer Service on behalf of Greg Wells;

ATTACHMENT 7: (Dated 17-Nov-2023): Service NSW email to me RE: “temporary pausing of compliance audit” by ‘Dewey’;

ATTACHMENT 8: (Dated 21-Nov-2023) NSW Member for Blue Mountains, The Hon. Trish Doyle’s representative letter #2 to Jihad Dib. (No reply yet received).

Sincerely,

Steve…
Tour Director
Nature Trail
Katoomba…