Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity this evening to look at the appropriation bill in a little bit more detail. The minister has delivered a very nice, sound assessment of some of his programs but he has not even come close to explaining why his department is failing on so many customer service standards. Earlier in the House of Representatives we had a debate about these standards.

A good welfare system needs to be accessible but, increasingly, ours is difficult to negotiate and treats those who need assistance with absolute contempt. Falling service standards are a key feature of what we are seeing of the system. According to the last available figures, 30 per cent of customers hang up after being left on hold for far too long. Complaints are up 18.8 per cent and customer satisfaction is down almost 10 per cent. Whatever the minister wants to spin, these are his own figures.

People cannot get hold of customer service operators let alone get access to much needed support payments in a timely manner. People are waiting months—absolutely months—for the aged pension, months for disability support pensions and months for youth allowance. That is too long for the payments they need to support themselves. One thousand jobs have gone in the last budget alone. I have come from the state government and I know about service delivery.

How is this about service delivery? These are not the actions of a government that wants to solve problems. For all this government's talk of welfare reform, only one thing is clear: clients are receiving worse services and declining access and declining standards. Staff are being treated with contempt. This cannot all be the result of poor management. It is a deliberate strategy for this government that sees welfare only in terms of the budget bottom line.

Not only are these service standards falling but the services provided to clients are being slashed, starting with this government's No. 1 target: Medicare. No longer will individuals be able to make Medicare claims at their local Centrelink office. The offices that do still accept paper forms will simply ship them off to a processing centre, where they will sit in a rapidly growing backlog. And we know what that backlog is. The minister knows this because his government does not like Medicare and it cannot stand the welfare system. These people are just leaners to them. With this in mind, I call on the minister to explain to this chamber a couple of things.

Minister: pay attention. Firstly, I want to know why call waiting times continue to be out of control. Is the minister addressing the fact that on the last available figures 30 per cent of calls made to Centrelink were abandoned by callers, and can the minister explain how cutting 1,000 staff is going to address this? If people on welfare cannot get through, if they only have a mobile phone with credit to a certain level, how are they possibly going to hang on for over an hour? And please do not tell me that it is a 10- or 15-minute wait. It is not. Tell us the truth about this.

Secondly, can you provide any explanation as to how the removal of face-to-face processing of Medicare claims and forcing people to wait four to six weeks for payments can possibly deliver better outcomes for some of the most disadvantaged in our community? I am talking about people that are unwell. I am talking about people that are elderly. I am talking about people that do not have access—as we do in this room—to the sort of technology that you think is the answer.

I agree with the Prime Minister and I agree with you that people that cheat and take advantage of the welfare system have to be dealt with. But you know and I know that most people, the majority of people, do not fall into that category. I find it offensive that this government paints people on welfare as leaners. These people are people that rely on people like you and me to provide them with a hand up.

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