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A disabled teacher whose Centrelink payments were cut after he won the lotto was on a pension after being held hostage by convicted murderers.
Craig Hill, 61, scored the modest $60,000 win in the lower division on Oct. 14 and will be paid $5,000 a month by The Lott’s Set For Life game for a year.
However, he was shocked to learn that his $821.20 fortnightly disability pension would be reduced to $328.20 because Centrelink considered him a “professional gambler.”
Mr Hill was on retirement after suffering serious psychological damage when he was held hostage by Townsville inmates in 2019.
Craig Hill, 61, won The Lott’s Set For Life game which pays $5,000 a month for a year, but because they are regular payments and not a lump sum, Centrelink will lower its biweekly payments from $821.20 every two weeks to $ 328.20
He was teaching hardened criminals literacy when a riot broke out in most of the prison and his nine students threatened him with their pens.
“Normally they behave quite well, but one of the guards thought it was funny to tell them that I was a former prison guard and that I was spying on them,” he told the Daily Mail Australia.
“That had quite the opposite effect, these guys are serving life sentences for murder for a reason, they’re not super smart.”
Mr. Hill said the inmates blocked him from leaving the room and told him, ‘If we have to kill someone because you’re an ex-prison officer, you’ll be the first.’
The inmates used their pens as knives and threatened to stab him to death for the hour he was trapped in the classroom.
‘A pen can do a lot of damage if you insert it into the carotid artery. I knew, OK, this is serious, it terrified me,” he said.
Mr Hill (pictured with his family) was on retirement after suffering serious psychological damage when he was held hostage by Townsville inmates in 2019.
Two prison guards were stationed outside the room, but seemed unaware of what was going on inside, allowing Mr. Hill to draw on his prison training from decades ago.
“I managed to talk my way out of it by telling them that even if they had life sentences for murder and thought they had nothing to lose, they were really willing to give up their lives?” he said.
“Because the unwritten rule is that if you harm a hostage, you won’t get out alive.
“Although I was afraid, I could not show fear, if you show fear, they have power over you.”
After a terrifying hour, the inmates gave up and went back to their cells, leaving Mr. Hill unharmed.
He flew straight back to his home in Brisbane but was dragged back over the past five days under threat of prosecution for breach of contract.
Fortunately, there were no more problems, but he was extremely stressed from spending more time in prison.
Mr Hill already suffered from PTSD and schizophrenia during his three years working as a prison guard at Goulburn Prison, which was diagnosed ten years later in 2003 and the hostage situation worsened to the point where he can no longer work as a teacher
Mr Hill said he was also horribly bullied by other prison staff, most notably an officer whose harassment began immediately.
“He told me that teachers don’t earn meals and would be forced to eat their lunch in the computer room,” he said.
“He told us that teachers were ‘non-persons’.”
Mr Hill had already suffered from PTSD and schizophrenia during his three years working as a prison guard at Goulburn Prison, which was diagnosed in 2003 ten years later.
He said he was being held hostage, his PTSD worsened and prevented him from continuing as a teacher and barely able to leave the house.
“After a few weeks I couldn’t concentrate, I have a lot of stress and anxiety, I get panic attacks, especially when I leave the house,” he said.
“Once a month I have a good day and I can go out, maybe to the local pub for trivia, but after a few hours I have a panic attack and have to go home.
“I have nightmares about prison, I wake up sweating.”
Mr Hill was approved for WorkCover just 18 days after applying for it after Queensland Corrective Services resolved it, but it ran out after two years.
Since then, he has been living on his pension and his wife’s health care allowance, as he depends on her to deal with the outside world.
Mr Hill claimed that after asking for a review, Centrelink agents also cut his wife’s health care allowance (pictured with him) by about the same amount as his pension.
So when he won the $60,000 prize, he thought he’d finally taken a break, only for Centrelink to cut his payments immediately.
The Australian tax office confirmed that his winnings were not taxable income, as is the case with all gambling payouts to average gamblers.
Mr Hill claimed that after asking for a review, Centrelink agents also cut his wife’s health care allowance by roughly the same amount as his pension.
“I did the right thing and contacted Centrelink and they told me that because it was paid monthly it counted as gambling income,” he said.
“So I asked if I could deduct all my gambling losses from the past 20 years and they said no, you don’t become a professional gambler until the day you win.
“Had I won $600,000 on the Powerball it wouldn’t affect my pension, but because it’s paid monthly, I’m a professional gambler, that’s ridiculous.”
Since his WorkCover has ended, he has had to live on his pension and his wife’s health care allowance, as he depends on her to deal with the outside world
Mr Hill claimed Centrelink officials had told him he could take the dispute to the Administrative Tribunal but that his full pension from the past seven years could then be checked.
“There’s a culture in some of these departments where they see customers as the enemy, but if they didn’t have customers, they wouldn’t have jobs,” he said.
Mr Hill said he was far from a professional gambler, only playing Powerball when the jackpot got high and buying Set For Life regularly since 2015.
“I don’t bet on the horses or go to the casino, maybe the poker machines bother me from time to time,” he said.
Mr Hill, a former vice president of the Australian Democrats, said Public Services Secretary Bill Shorten was able to intervene but his office was not cooperating.
He also asked The Lott if the winnings could be cashed out in one lump sum to avoid the issue, but he claims the company refused and gave no reason.
“Everyone has the capacity to solve the problem, but nobody wants that,” he said.
He does sporadic administrative work from home which he reports on a profit and loss statement that he submits to Centrelink every three months.
The Lott’s Set For Life lottery has a top prize of $20,000 per month for 20 years. Mr Hill won a lower division paying $5,000 a month for a year
The Social Services said that, unless specifically exempted by the law, few income amounts were excluded from social calculations.
“Lottery winnings received periodically, for example on an indefinite monthly basis, are assessed as income for the period to which they relate,” it told the Daily Mail Australia.
“This is consistent with the principle of targeting aid to those who need it most. Winning a lottery periodically is a continuous source of income that can be used for a person’s own livelihood.’
The department admitted that if Mr Hill had received the payout as a lump sum, it would not have been assessed as income.
However, any assessable assets purchased with it are, and any current income — such as real estate rent or bank interest — would be.
Mr Hill said he was far from a professional gambler, only playing Powerball when the jackpot got high and buying Set For Life regularly since 2015
The fact that the lottery winnings were tax-free had no bearing on whether they could be classified as income.
“The social security system measures a person’s need for income support and their ability to contribute to their own livelihood,” it said.
The department said Mr Hill’s wife’s informal care allowance was affected because the pension income test uses both partners’ gross income even if one partner does not receive a pension.
“This is based on the principle that couples can pool their resources for mutual benefit,” it said.
‘That is why the income of each member of a couple is assessed in the context of the social security income test.’