Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Let's have a look at the service standards from Centrelink today. That was indeed what the shadow minister was largely referring to in terms of how people are dealt with when they are applying for a Centrelink benefit, when they are having their process claimed and they are on the call centres and the like.

I point out to begin with that the Department of Human Services met over 86 per cent of its KPIs last year. These KPIs are generally-agreed community standards. Many of them were actually set underneath the Labor governments, and we are delivering upon those, by and large. The average wait time when you go to a Centrelink office around the country is about 10 minutes. That is the average wait time when you go to a service centre office. Typically, if you go to a GP clinic or another type of service, that is not an unreasonable time to wait. The average call wait time at the moment is 11 minutes, when the KPI is 16 minutes.

I admit that that figure is an average so of course you have a curve. Some people are waiting a shorter amount of time; other people are waiting a longer amount of time, but the average is 11 minutes. We are always looking to bring that figure down, and obviously that comes at a considerable cost.

Do you know when the call wait times did actually blow out? They actually used to be—and the shadow minister is, I know, a relatively new member to this parliament—but the call wait times actually ballooned out in the Labor years. And the Australian National Audit Office found that between 2010-11 and 2011-12 the call wait times went from three minutes and five seconds out to 11 minutes and 45 seconds. That occurred under the Labor government, and that is the Australian National Audit Office who found this.

Do you know why this occurred, why those wait times ballooned out? Because the Labor Party ripped out at that time 1,100 staff in order to do that, and that is when those call wait times ballooned out.

Ms Burney interjecting—

I appreciate that the member for Barton is a very new member to this parliament but I think it is probably incumbent on her to know a little bit of the history in relation to that as well.

Let me go to what we are doing overall, and this is the big system transformation that we are now referring to. Unlike the Labor Party when they were in government for six long years, we are investing a billion dollars to upgrade the welfare payment system. When this system is upgraded, it will make it so much easier for individual citizens to be able to interact with the Centrelink office. In many cases—and indeed we hope in most cases—they will never have to go to a Centrelink office, they will not have to call a call centre and they will not be waiting for their claims to be processed because they will be seamlessly done.

Let me give you an example of how this might occur in the not too distant future. I will give the example of student processing. The member opposite mentioned the student claims—if you are putting in a claim for youth allowance or for Austudy and the like. At the moment, and certainly this was the case under the Labor Party when they were in government, they would put in a claim

Ms Husar interjecting—

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