Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to this motion, and, listening to the minister, it is like an episode of Fantasy Island. The government's mismanagement of Centrelink is hurting millions of Australians. And it is important at the outset to state, Minister, that it is about the government. I will have no part, and we will have no part, in bashing public servants. Collectively, they do important work, and, in a civilised society, a decent society, we need great public services and great public servants. And citizens have a right to expect efficient, effective service.

The Centrelink workforce, as we have heard and as we know, is under terrible stress. Under this government, it is 1,000 days, Minister, and counting, since you have had the decency to have an EBA for your staff. And you can tell a lot about a government—and a minister who turns his back on the debate—by the way they treat their staff. I have spoken to people in my electorate about the threats to pay and conditions. That is a two-year wage freeze, Minister, largely falling on women—people with caring responsibilities, in this carers' week. But the most disgraceful part of your EBA policy is to remove the rights to wages and conditions and job flexibility for your own workforce—that is right: to remove the right to flexible working conditions for people with caring responsibilities. And I know; I have been there. I have lived, at times, as a single parent. I know the importance of being able to leave at 3 pm as an industrial right, not at the whim of a management that is able to direct you to work on the other side of town, Minister. This is serious stuff for people in your agency, and this is your government's policy. You really can tell a lot about their response.

So we see the cuts. We see the empty desks. We know the impossible workloads.

For the community, we know what this means. It does mean extra waiting time. It does mean claims being lost. And you know who bears the burden when claims are lost; it is the recipient, going to the back of the queue.

I was speaking to the member for Longman earlier. She recounted the story of a constituent in her electorate with terminal brain cancer. He was diagnosed as having four to six months to live, or perhaps a little longer. His wife quit work to care for him. Four months in—no carer's pension. No carer's pension, Minister. In two months, the prognosis is, that man will be dead, still waiting for his wife to receive a carer's pension.

But it is not just bad administration and cuts and mismanagement. There is a deliberate government policy, a cruel policy, of picking on the vulnerable. I refer to the debate which has emerged—and it has certainly hit a raw nerve across Australia—in relation to your government's policies around the Disability Support Pension reviews. I fear it is the tip of the iceberg.

You are aware—because I know you spoke to the media—about this case that I have raised. I wrote to you. We tried with Centrelink. Nothing happened. But then, when The Age journalist got onto you, all of a sudden it was, 'Nothing to see here; no, no; we'll sort it out.' Well, your welfare crackdown on fraud is a fraud.

I would like to mention just some of the responses we have had in relation to this case. Margo said: 'My brother, a thalidomide victim, had to provide medical evidence that his arms had not magically grown back'! James said: 'I had a friend who had his leg amputated and suffered some other serious health problems after an accident and was refused a DSP as Centrelink told him his legs will grow back.' Of course, you may think these folk stories. But then I received a message from another constituent who recounted a tale to me of one of your colleagues, the member for Deakin, publicly denying, at a public meeting, that these amputee cases are even happening. That is right—at a public meeting on housing and homelessness, one of your government's members denied that these cases are even happening.

Minister, I have been overwhelmed—and I have had no response like it before—by the response from the public in the last few days to these cases. And I agree with you, having been a public servant: not everything is perfect, and sometimes mistakes are made. They can be honest mistakes, and they can be rectified. And some of the complaints, which we all get, as to Centrelink, need to be fixed. They are not fair. You cannot pick on the staff; they are working in impossible conditions.

But the government's policy in directing these reviews to the most vulnerable in the community—and causing hurt and fear to the families across Australia who are sitting there waiting for their turn to come to have to try and get to the doctor, and to find the out-of-pocket fees to see a specialist, to prove the bleeding obvious—has to stop. I draw the attention of the members of the House to an inquiry. In my capacity as the deputy chair of the parliament's Public Accounts and Audit Committee, we ticked off last week and it was announced yesterday that in November there will be a public hearing into the Auditor-General's report that you referred to—a public hearing into the Disability Support Pension and your department's administration of it. And I look forward to submissions from everyone across Australia, from every disability and advocacy group, so we can get to the bottom of this.

See this speech in context