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

I rise today on a matter of public importance which affects thousands of Australians—people in every one of our electorates. The government's mismanagement of Centrelink is hurting many of our fellow citizens. Despite the way those opposite talk about it, Centrelink is not just the agency that deals with cheaters, bludgers and leaners. It is an agency responsible for looking after our welfare safety net. It serves some of the most disadvantaged, vulnerable and marginalised in our community—people who desperately want to find work, who live with long-term disabilities or who care for sick family members, often with enormous stress and sacrifice. Our community will be judged on how it treats those most voiceless and least enfranchised—precisely those people who rely on our social safety net. Imagine if you were in those shoes. Those opposite see this safety net only in terms of the budget bottom line. On this side of the House, we see it in terms of people.

The government's mismanagement of Centrelink and its deliberate punishment of those who are doing nothing wrong is unconscionable. The Minister for Human Services has enacted policies which do not just seek to make the system harder to exploit—and of course we condemn those who try to exploit the system—but the minister seeks to make the lives of those who rely on Centrelink far more difficult. Yesterday the Prime Minister was questioned by the member for Bruce, who is in the House, about one constituent receiving the disability support pension who was asked to go through an onerous and expensive review process. That constituent's disability was so self-evidently debilitating that his specialist wrote to Centrelink managers noting that the review was a total waste of time, and the minister knows this because the minister intervened. It was traumatic for the constituent and for his family and, as the minister knows, it was totally unnecessary. This is not just a one-off story; it is the story of thousands. Do not look at the floor, those on the opposite side. You know these stories in each of your electorates. If you had any gumption and if you had any honesty, you would tell those stories today.

I wish I could say this was an isolated case, but, as I say, every member here knows these stories. Indeed, according to figures released late last year, of the 5,000 people taken off the disability support pension only 70 were subsequently able to go back into the workforce. Are we to believe that the other 6,300 individuals were just lazy? We do not believe that. One man who has approached my office was forced to wait months—after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and being made redundant—to receive the disability support pension. When he asked whether he could claim Newstart allowance in the interim he was told he would have to wait months for that too!

It is not just people with a disability who are suffering as the result of the Minister for Human Services' failure. People have been left in limbo while being assessed for the disability support pension, with no idea of what their future contains. I have seen age pensioners who have been forced to wait months—not just one or two months, but many, many months—for their applications to be assessed. They have had to rely on emergency assistance. These are people who have contributed for 65 years of their life to the Australian economy, and they are told they have to wait. There are thousands of these people. What about students? We know about students who have applied for the student payment and have been left to wait for up to six months. I know of one case here in Canberra where a student had to wait so long he was forced to sleep in a tent because his family did not have the means to help support him. Let us talk about farmers who have applied for emergency assistance. Those of you in the National Party know these people. They have been waiting months and months for any support, and they are the farmers of this country.

Centrelink cannot continue to stumble from disaster to disaster. It is too important for too many people. People do not choose to have a disability; people do not choose to have to care for relatives who have become sick; and, for the most part, people do not choose to be unemployed. If the government are not deliberately punishing Centrelink customers then they are doing a shocking job of managing the department. Thirty per cent of customers who call Centrelink wait so long on hold that they have to hang up. Then there is the fabrication of wait times. Wait times are the biggest furphy. The triage might be 10 to 12 minutes but the waiting time for some decent, proper advice from someone who understands the issue is over one hour in most cases. For some people this is not just about patience. If you are unemployed, the cost of a phone call, in particular one taking that long, can be prohibitive. Even if you manage to get through and talk to someone at Centrelink, you still face months of waiting for your application to be assessed. That could mean months without any income. I say to the Minister for Human Services, who is in the chamber: put yourself in those shoes.

The services provided at shopfronts are no better. According to the department's last annual report, complaints are up almost 20 per cent and customer satisfaction is continuing to fall. In fact, customers who visit Centrelink service centres are now being told at many centres that they cannot lodge Medicare claims, and they are also waiting weeks and weeks for those claims to be assessed. The claims are being sent off into the never-never and we really do not know what is going on there. I suspect the minister does not either. If he does, we would like to hear him explain why it takes three or four weeks for a Medicare form to be processed.

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