Miles moved to Braybrook in the 1950s

It is horrible. I worked and I know what it's like to have money coming in. And I know what it's like to go Rosetta Stone Language to the theatre or the Arts Centre,'' Hardwick says. Three years ago, when her eldest daughter turned 16 and shortly afterwards moved out, the girl's Centrelink payments no longer contributed to the family budget. So Hardwick got her first credit card. ''Food, bills and schooling, that's all,'' she says. ''Sometimes clothing or shoes for the kids.'' Soon the card hit the limit, $5000. ''You wake up in the morning and it's hanging over you. I suffer from depression It is very humiliating. Very. Humiliating. You basically have to bare your soul every time you tell your story.'' But she refuses to bow to it. A debt collector once tried to bully her, but she rebuffed them, and is struggling but managing to find $50 a week to repay the credit card.. As hard as it is, Hardwick is one of the better off, because she is managing it ''in blocks''. ''If you don't look at it in blocks you'd go absolutely nuts. You'd stay awake all Language Learning Software night every night.'' Steve Miles STEVE Miles leans on a shovel surveying the pumpkins and chillis growing in the Braybrook community garden. He is proud of what he helps to grow here. Miles moved to Braybrook in the 1950s when it was still paddocks, and spent his working life, 45 years, in its meatworks and factories. He thought his last job, at metal perforators Richardson-Pacific, would see him through until retirement. He didn't leave the job; it left him when the factory shut down last year. At 60, he is on Newstart, and wife Deb is on a carer's pension because they have three sons with mental disabilities. Including both pensions and the board paid by the children, they receive $94 per fortnight and pay $6rent from that for their public housing. What's left over is precious little for six people, but Steve and Deb Miles have both made use of the one luxury welfare allows - the ability to borrow money, interest free, from Centrelink. Deb used her loan to buy Christmas presents for the children, but her pension is $38 lighter each fortnight until she pays it off. Steve used his to send the youngest son, who is at a special school in South Melbourne, to camp. That costs $50 a fortnight from his allowance. ''I had to get $500 because I never had any money and he wanted to go to camp and it broke me heart, you know?'' Miles still hopes he will get a job as a forklift driver when a huge new Woolworths distribution centre, currently under construction, opens on nearby Ballarat Road. In the meantime, as an older man on Newstart, he is able to avoid the need to repeatedly apply for work if he does his voluntary work in the garden. It's an exemption Gillard is reportedly looking to scrap in her get-tough approach. But for Miles, the volunteer work has other, less tangible rewards. ''I love it there. You sit back and relax and listen to all the birds and the people come in and talk to you and pull out a few weeds and that,'' he says. ''It makes Greek Learning Software me feel good that I'm doing something for the community. And I get praise from everyone that I'm doing a very good job.'' Rose Peterson's and the Hardwick familys' names have been changed.