ANGELO LANZA and SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS

[2009] AATA 891

Administrative Appeals Tribunal

DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2009] AATA 891

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL      )

)          No 2009/3884

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE  DIVISION		)
Re		ANGELO LANZA

Applicant

And SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal Mr B H Pascoe, Senior Member

Date19 November 2009

PlaceMelbourne

Decision The Tribunal affirms the decision under review.

(sgd) B H Pascoe

Senior Member

SOCIAL SECURITY - newstart allowance - four participation failures within 12 months - whether reasonable excuse - decision affirmed

Social Security Act 1991 s 629

REASONS FOR DECISION

19 November 2009 Mr B H Pascoe, Senior Member    

1.      This is an application to review a decision of the Social Security Appeals Tribunal (SSAT) which affirmed a decision of the respondent to impose two eight week non-payment periods of newstart allowance as a result of participation failures on 10 June 2008, 30 October 2008, 15 April 2009 and 22 May 2009.

2.      A hearing of this application was originally listed on 26 October 2009.  The applicant, Mr A Lanza failed to appear.  When contacted by telephone, Mr Lanza said that he was unable to attend as a result of the death of a family member.  The Tribunal adjourned the hearing to 17 November 2009 and gave notice of this date by letter posted to the address provided by Mr Lanza.  Again he failed to appear and, when contacted by telephone, said that he had not received the notice.  He agreed to speak to the Tribunal via telephone.

3. The facts of this matter are set out fully in the decision of the SSAT and need not be set out in full here. It is not in dispute that Mr Lanza failed to attend appointments with his job network member on the four occasions set out above. On each occasion he was advised of the appointment and the consequences of a failure to attend. Each failure constituted a newstart participation failure and section 629 of the Social Security Act 1991 provides that newstart allowance is not payable for a period of eight weeks if three participation failures are committed within 12 months without a reasonable excuse.  Any further participation failures within that 12 months result in another eight week non payment period.

4.      Before the SSAT, Mr Lanza said that his reasons for non attendance were either a reluctance to travel the distance of some seven kilometres by public transport or forgetting the appointment.  Before this Tribunal, Mr Lanza said that he had car problems and the public transport was running late so he could not arrive at his appointments on time.  He was unable to be specific and it is difficult to accept that, on each occasion, the public transport involved with its frequent services on the days and times of the appointments was running so late as to make it impossible to travel to those appointments.  If it was so, it would have been expected that the job network member would have known of the problem and/or that Mr Lanza would have contacted the job network member by telephone explaining his inability to attend.

5.      For the same reasons as set out in the SSAT decision, I am unable to accept that Mr Lanza had a credible excuse for his failures to attend much less a reasonable excuse.  It follows that the decision under review should be affirmed.

I certify that the five [5] preceding paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for the decision herein of

Mr B H Pascoe, Senior Member

(sgd):  Leah Berardi

Clerk

Dates of Hearing  26 October 2009, 17 November 2009
Date of Decision  19 November 2009
Self-represented Applicant          Mr A Lanza
Advocate for the Respondent       Mr T De Uray, Centrelink Legal Services Branch