Latest news with #WAAPA
Daily Mail
06-08-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
The little-known Centrelink hack that allows some Aussies to get free flights
A university student has lifted the lid on a little-known Centrelink hack to help those studying away from home. Lea Šimić, 20, left her family in Sydney to study at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth three years ago. Although she was determined to go to the world-renowned school, which boasts alumni like Hugh Jackman, she was worried about being separated from her family and the high cost of flights across the country. However, she couldn't pass up the opportunity to study at WAAPA—especially as it offered a directing component to undergraduate students, a rarity. Fortunately, last year she discovered Centrelink Fares Allowance. As Ms Šimić receives a Centrelink allowance, she can claim the cost of flying to Perth at the start of the academic year, back to Sydney at the end, and a return flight in between. The allowance is available to those who receive Youth Allowance, Austudy, or the Pensioner Education Supplement for more than three months a year. 'To have the option to see your family and a reminder of why you're doing these programs, I think it's really beneficial,' Ms Šimić told Yahoo. Those who receive eligible Centrelink payments less than three months a year can only claim two flights, one to their place of study and one home. Ms Šimić recently used the Fare Allowance to claim back a $600 flight from Sydney to Perth. While she tries her best to book flights in advance, she said one-way fares across the country can cost more than $1,000. Services Australia will also reimburse the cost of standard luggage fees, in addition to 'the least expensive and most available' transport. That includes people taking public transport back to their university. It could apply to claiming the cost of a train trip from your home to the airport on top of the airfare. It could also be used to reimburse the cost of taking a train from Sydney to Bathurst, a nearly four-hour trip. Ms Šimić is glad she accepted her position at WAAPA as it opened 'so many avenues and opportunities' and is still able to regularly see her family. 'Being able to come back and forth was really vital for me, because I have a very close connection to my family, and they're part of the reason why I want to create a very specific art,' she said. 'Centrelink has definitely helped me out in that regard.'
Yahoo
05-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Little-known Centrelink perk offers these Aussies free flights: ‘I claimed $600'
A university student in Western Australia has lifted the lid on how she scored free flights back home to see her family on the other side of the country through Centrelink. Crossing back and forth across the country to balance your education and connection with loved ones can come at a significant cost. Lea Šimić was worried about applying to the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) because it was going to be so far away from her home in Sydney. But the 20-year-old told Yahoo Finance she discovered a way to drastically reduce those costs. "I found out about it last year through a mate at uni who was also trying to claim flights back to Melbourne... we were just looking at ways to be able to go see our family while we were studying here in WA," she said. RELATED Centrelink update on little-known support for Aussies in crisis ATO warns workers after tax return estimate promises $3,442 refund Commonwealth Bank reveals LMI home loan changes for borrowers WAAPA is an internationally recognised institution that has had the likes of Hugh Jackman, Frances O'Connor, Marcus Graham, Lisa McCune, Lucy Durack, Eddie Perfect, and Tim Minchin attend as students. Šimić said one of the big drawcards for her to apply was that it offered a directing component, which she said was very rare for an undergraduate course in Australia. "I was very interested in that," she said. "And now that I've been in this course for three years, so many avenues and opportunities in the actual arts industry are shaping out." Because the 20-year-old was on a Centrelink payment, she was able to tap into the Fares is Centrelink's Fare Allowance? This is available for those on Youth Allowance, Austudy or the Pensioner Education Supplement and it permits you to get a refund on your flights if you study away from home. "It's a really great program that I think should be extended to more people," Šimić said. "To have the option to see your family and a reminder of why you're doing these programs, I think it's really beneficial." She recently took advantage of this offer and was able to claim back a $600 flight from Sydney to Perth. The performing arts student said she usually tries to have her flights booked far in advance to keep costs low, but flying across the country can cost upwards of $1,000 one way. How does the Fare Allowance work? If you're on Youth Allowance, Austudy or the Pensioner Education Supplement as a tertiary student for three months or more a year, then you'll get up to four flights to claim each year: One flight from home to your place of study at the start of the study year One flight back home at the end of the study year A return trip between your place of study and your home during the study year If you're on those Centrelink payments for less than three months a year, you are only eligible for the first two flights. If you study online or by distance and have to travel for tertiary study, you can get one return trip between your permanent home and your place of study for each course per year. Services Australia will reimburse you for your flight, along with the cost of standard baggage fees. But this isn't just confined to flights. You can use the Fare Allowance to pay for "the least expensive and most available" mode of public transport like ferries, coaches, trains, and buses. If you caught a bus or train to the airport and then flew from Perth to Sydney, you could claim the flight and the public transport. Or if you needed a train from Queensland to Mt Isa, you can use it for that too. "Where it's not practical to use public transport, you can travel by private transport, though you need to explain why public transport couldn't be used when you claim," a Services Australia spokesperson told Yahoo Finance. Centrelink cash boost a 'game changer' There's no denying that some university students struggle to make ends meet, especially if they're studying away from home. Students can fork out a significant part of their cashflow on rent while trying squeeze in a part-time job that keeps food on the table. That's all while attending lectures, tutorials and trying to finish off assessments. This is why Šimić believes the Fare Allowance is such a "game changer" as it eliminates the financial burden she would have shouldered qover her three-year course. "I was very fortunate that I got into this course straight out of uni," she told Yahoo Finance. "A lot of people usually do another degree to get in. I was fresh 18. "But being able to come back and forth was really vital for me, because I have a very close connection to my family, and they're part of the reason why I want to create a very specific art. "Centrelink has definitely helped me out in that regard."Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data
The Age
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Perth dancer's renaissance after horror knife attack pirouettes to the big screen
It was the dawn of the new millennium and 22-year-old Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts dance graduate Floeur Alder was on top of the world. Alder had just returned from a dream four-month study trip to Europe that she hoped would set her up for a brilliant career and was tripping lightly down Mary Street to her Highgate home in June, 2000. Then, without any rhyme or reason, a man emerged from the darkness and plunged a knife deep into her face. He said nothing and disappeared back into the night. Alder managed to make it to her home and pull out the knife before dragging herself to a Greek restaurant in Beaufort Street, blood spurting from her neck. The owner called an ambulance and Alder was rushed to Royal Perth Hospital where she endured six hours of surgery and two blood transfusions, with the knife narrowly missing her jugular. While a skilled plastic surgeon managed to repair the surface damage, Alder spent the better part of the decade dealing with the trauma and healing a body that should have been gracing Australian and European stages. 'I was full of anger and rage,' says Alder. 'I was looking at people coming out of WAAPA and comparing myself to them. 'It made me mad. Their lives and careers were progressing while I wasn't going anywhere.' Adding insult to injury was the fact that Alder is the daughter of Perth dance legends Lucette Aldous and Alan Alder. Hanging over her entire life was the expectation she would match her parents' achievements. In particular, Alder was constantly compared to her mother, the New Zealand-born, Perth-raised prima ballerina who was the resident dancer of the Australian Ballet and who achieved icon status performing with Rudolph Nureyev in his famed production of Don Quixote. 'When mum was 21 she was at the Royal Ballet doing Sleeping Beauty with Margot Fonteyn. When I was her age I was in a hospital bed recovering from the attack. It was so ironic and painful,' Alder says. 'All my life I was dealing with people expecting so much of me. And I had those expectations of myself. 'So when I was recovering from the attack and barely able to move it was very hard for me to take. I was angry all the time.' That frustration and rage, and her gradual understanding that those emotions were not just because of the stabbing incident but spewed up from a deeper, darker place, is the central to a new documentary by Perth filmmaker Dawn Jackson, En Pointe: Dancing on a Knife, which is premiering this month at the CinefestOZ film festival in WA's South West. What began as a modest hour-long account of the trauma suffered by a young dancer and the way in which she used dance to rebuild, blossomed into a deeply moving feature-length documentary about a high-profile artistic family and the impact of fame on its youngest member. 'People used to have firm opinions about me and my family. I feel I've laid that to rest.' Floeur Alder Jackson moves between Aldous dancing in Sleeping Beauty and her daughter's convalescence during what should have been her golden years, weaving a tale in which Alder gradually comes back to life as a dancer and a choreographer, culminating in her directing her parents in a piece called Rare Earth (2004). The making of the documentary became a significant part of the recovery process, something which both surprised and unnerved Alder. 'I was much more involved in the film than I ever thought I would be. I certainly didn't think I would be narrating it,' Alder says. Jackson says there were plans for others to narrate the film, 'but we realised it had to be Floeur'. 'It was her story. We had to have her voice.' Loading The reason for the closeness of Alder to the film is that Jackson herself was training as a dancer in the mid-1980s at WAAPA while Aldous and Alan were teaching at the celebrated West Australian 'Fame' school. 'I remember Floeur being there [at WAAPA] all the time, sitting on the floor and eating snakes,' Jackson says. 'All of the students became really close to her. Her parents were busy teaching and she was an only child so we became her family. I even used to babysit for Floeur.' Around the time Jackson pivoted from dance to filmmaking, she caught a performance of Rare Earth and realised she had a great story to tell, one that had the appalling attack at its heart but opened up into other issues, such as Alder's struggle to come out from her parents' shadow. 'I was struck by Floeur's willingness to embrace her legacy after spending so much of her life grappling with it,' Jackson says. 'When she was at WAAPA the gossip was that she was getting all these great parts because of her parents. But she was getting them simply because she was bloody good.' Financing the film proved difficult and dragged the process over a decade. But it meant Jackson was able to document closely Alder's physical and emotional healing and renaissance as an artist, with her subject playing a greater role than normal for this kind of project. 'The long process gave me time to record my mother's history and her work, which became part of the film. This is not just a film. It is part of the story' says Alder. Her parents are both interviewed extensively in the documentary but did not live long enough to see its completion. While Pointe: On a Knife's Edge has all the stuff of an edge-of-the-seat crime series or podcast — we even get to an emotional meeting with the policeman who dealt with the case back in 2000 — Jackson says it is different because the story is told from the point of view of the survivor. 'So often when we watch these crime series it is about the perpetrator or the police trying to track them down,' she says. 'This deals with what Floeur went through — the attack and her healing and her fight to re-establish a career that was derailed when a random stranger decided to take out his anger on her.' Jackson also sees her film as an important contribution to the growing body of knowledge of trauma. 'Trauma was not as well understood when Floeur was attacked as it is today. It separates you from yourself,' Jackson says. For Alder, the documentary has allowed her to finally tell her story. 'It is my truth. It is nobody else's. People used to have firm opinions about me and my family. I feel I've laid that to rest. This is my story,' she says.
Sydney Morning Herald
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Perth dancer's renaissance after horror knife attack pirouettes to the big screen
It was the dawn of the new millennium and 22-year-old Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts dance graduate Floeur Alder was on top of the world. Alder had just returned from a dream four-month study trip to Europe that she hoped would set her up for a brilliant career and was tripping lightly down Mary Street to her Highgate home in June, 2000. Then, without any rhyme or reason, a man emerged from the darkness and plunged a knife deep into her face. He said nothing and disappeared back into the night. Alder managed to make it to her home and pull out the knife before dragging herself to a Greek restaurant in Beaufort Street, blood spurting from her neck. The owner called an ambulance and Alder was rushed to Royal Perth Hospital where she endured six hours of surgery and two blood transfusions, with the knife narrowly missing her jugular. While a skilled plastic surgeon managed to repair the surface damage, Alder spent the better part of the decade dealing with the trauma and healing a body that should have been gracing Australian and European stages. 'I was full of anger and rage,' says Alder. 'I was looking at people coming out of WAAPA and comparing myself to them. 'It made me mad. Their lives and careers were progressing while I wasn't going anywhere.' Adding insult to injury was the fact that Alder is the daughter of Perth dance legends Lucette Aldous and Alan Alder. Hanging over her entire life was the expectation she would match her parents' achievements. In particular, Alder was constantly compared to her mother, the New Zealand-born, Perth-raised prima ballerina who was the resident dancer of the Australian Ballet and who achieved icon status performing with Rudolph Nureyev in his famed production of Don Quixote. 'When mum was 21 she was at the Royal Ballet doing Sleeping Beauty with Margot Fonteyn. When I was her age I was in a hospital bed recovering from the attack. It was so ironic and painful,' Alder says. 'All my life I was dealing with people expecting so much of me. And I had those expectations of myself. 'So when I was recovering from the attack and barely able to move it was very hard for me to take. I was angry all the time.' That frustration and rage, and her gradual understanding that those emotions were not just because of the stabbing incident but spewed up from a deeper, darker place, is the central to a new documentary by Perth filmmaker Dawn Jackson, En Pointe: Dancing on a Knife, which is premiering this month at the CinefestOZ film festival in WA's South West. What began as a modest hour-long account of the trauma suffered by a young dancer and the way in which she used dance to rebuild, blossomed into a deeply moving feature-length documentary about a high-profile artistic family and the impact of fame on its youngest member. 'People used to have firm opinions about me and my family. I feel I've laid that to rest.' Floeur Alder Jackson moves between Aldous dancing in Sleeping Beauty and her daughter's convalescence during what should have been her golden years, weaving a tale in which Alder gradually comes back to life as a dancer and a choreographer, culminating in her directing her parents in a piece called Rare Earth (2004). The making of the documentary became a significant part of the recovery process, something which both surprised and unnerved Alder. 'I was much more involved in the film than I ever thought I would be. I certainly didn't think I would be narrating it,' Alder says. Jackson says there were plans for others to narrate the film, 'but we realised it had to be Floeur'. 'It was her story. We had to have her voice.' Loading The reason for the closeness of Alder to the film is that Jackson herself was training as a dancer in the mid-1980s at WAAPA while Aldous and Alan were teaching at the celebrated West Australian 'Fame' school. 'I remember Floeur being there [at WAAPA] all the time, sitting on the floor and eating snakes,' Jackson says. 'All of the students became really close to her. Her parents were busy teaching and she was an only child so we became her family. I even used to babysit for Floeur.' Around the time Jackson pivoted from dance to filmmaking, she caught a performance of Rare Earth and realised she had a great story to tell, one that had the appalling attack at its heart but opened up into other issues, such as Alder's struggle to come out from her parents' shadow. 'I was struck by Floeur's willingness to embrace her legacy after spending so much of her life grappling with it,' Jackson says. 'When she was at WAAPA the gossip was that she was getting all these great parts because of her parents. But she was getting them simply because she was bloody good.' Financing the film proved difficult and dragged the process over a decade. But it meant Jackson was able to document closely Alder's physical and emotional healing and renaissance as an artist, with her subject playing a greater role than normal for this kind of project. 'The long process gave me time to record my mother's history and her work, which became part of the film. This is not just a film. It is part of the story' says Alder. Her parents are both interviewed extensively in the documentary but did not live long enough to see its completion. While Pointe: On a Knife's Edge has all the stuff of an edge-of-the-seat crime series or podcast — we even get to an emotional meeting with the policeman who dealt with the case back in 2000 — Jackson says it is different because the story is told from the point of view of the survivor. 'So often when we watch these crime series it is about the perpetrator or the police trying to track them down,' she says. 'This deals with what Floeur went through — the attack and her healing and her fight to re-establish a career that was derailed when a random stranger decided to take out his anger on her.' Jackson also sees her film as an important contribution to the growing body of knowledge of trauma. 'Trauma was not as well understood when Floeur was attacked as it is today. It separates you from yourself,' Jackson says. For Alder, the documentary has allowed her to finally tell her story. 'It is my truth. It is nobody else's. People used to have firm opinions about me and my family. I feel I've laid that to rest. This is my story,' she says.
Sydney Morning Herald
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Conquering Tinseltown: The next generation of Nicoles, Russells and Cates
This story is part of the August 2 edition of Good Weekend. See all 14 stories. The bright young stars at tomorrow night's Logie Awards could only hope to emulate the Hollywood success of Nicole Kidman. Yet it was a 21-year-old Kidman who told 60 Minutes reporter Mike Munro back in 1989 that she was wary of fame and would rather be a 'hermit'. No such luck. For years, the names Nicole, Russell, Cate and Hugh needed no surnames when it came to Australians conquering Tinseltown. Today, while Milly Alcock, Jacob Elordi and Kodi Smith-McPhee have garnered star attention back home, plenty of others haven't – despite making a splash internationally. Like Sydney's Jess Bush (pictured). She has her own doll, thanks to playing nurse Christine Chapel on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) graduate Harry Richardson's breakout global role was in Poldark; he now plays wealthy New York heir Larry Russell in the lavish The Gilded Age, showing on Paramount+. Cody Fern, recipient of the 2014 Heath Ledger Scholarship, appears in the mega-budget AppleTV+ sci-fi series, Foundation. Loading 'Thanks to the internet, actors can audition anywhere,' says casting director Dave Newman. 'Many are now skipping the traditional route of 'overnight success' after spending years on a local soapie. They compete in a small pond here, which makes them resilient and creates a strong work ethic that's recognised internationally.' Take 2023 NIDA graduate Jack Patten, who's landed the lead in the upcoming, mega-budget TV series Robin Hood. Similarly, 20-year-old Sydneysider Joseph Zada has been cast in the next Hunger Games movie. Australia's acting exports are also starting to reflect our diverse ethnic make-up. For example, 27-year-old Korean-Australian Yerin Ha is set to play the female lead in the next season of Netflix's hit Bridgerton. Anglo-Sri Lankan actor Josh Heuston, 28, hails from Sydney's Baulkham Hills and got his start on Heartbreak High but is best known as the dashing warrior Constantine Corrino on Dune: Prophecy. Melbourne's Christopher Chung, 37, is of Irish-Chinese Malaysian ancestry. He was nominated for a 2025 BAFTA for his role in the AppleTV+ series Slow Horses and will soon play Harry Beecham in Netflix's remake of My Brilliant Career. Fellow Aussie and Sydney-born WAAPA graduate Hoa Xuande hails from a Vietnamese background. He played the lead in The Sympathizer, a 2024 big-budget HBO series opposite Robert Downey jnr. Aussies are everywhere in Hollywood, it seems – if you know where to look.
