The mobile saga

I am not telling it all because I cant type fast enough and it is to frustrating. Comms being fraught and none of the hire companies banks etc that I deal with in Aus being able to contact me on my English mobile I bought an Aussie phone. in TAS apparently only one works Telstra. Opened the box turned it on blah blah blah and you need to register (every Aussie I have spoken to seems to find this a revelation so why I am caught up in it is beyond me) . IT wont work for calls and texts til its registered. All went well until proof of ID 2 options do you hold an Australian driving licence ? Yes / No I ticked no , from there on it would not move on. It wouldn't let me enter an international passport number , or my Medicare number. I phoned the help desk an endless stream of recorded questions then it went dead. tried again turns out they are not there by 6. I phoned at 8. I got a bloke who did not speak English. In fact it was worse he spoke chinese English and I could not understand him. he had not heard the name martin , or the name Douglas .(Moutern was his best shot)  he could not type in anything I spelt for him correctly , I couldn't understand him when he read it back , I still think he said 2 not 3 . It was like a Benny Hill Sketch. . He had never heard of England , the UK , or great Britain. he couldn't find them on his database. I gave him the Medicare number. he said it had expired. I told him I got it last week , he said it expired. I told him it was valid to 05/12/16 he said it had expired . 90 minutes of this. I asked to speak to someone else. Got the supervisor. She said nothing matched on their system , not my passport not my name , and my Medicare had expired. She put me through to Medicare because they would not give her the info for security reasons. 30 mins waiting for Medicare (your call is important to us) Finally I got through just before I was due to vacate the Hotel room! I told the girl what the problem was gave her my details and she said it was all OK. I said but Telstra  say it expired she said it hadn't it was valid to 05/12/16. I asked for the permanent NUMBER she said I had it . I said Telstra didn't agree she said they were wrong. I hung up. The Telstra supervisor was going to monitor the call and call me back when it ended she didn't . I have a phone I still cant use, except google think its me and have downloaded all my pictures , apps contacts and the picture of sue on my startup screen perhaps they should take over from the Aussie government and Telstra who plainly cant walk and talk at the same time...