Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

You know when you sort of wake up and think: 'Just how disastrous is this government? What's next?' I think a lot of people would think, 'Seriously, can the government have spent $430,000 on an American based consultant to try to investigate why it is Centrelink aren't answering the phones?' But guess what? They actually have. Rather than directly employing people to answer the phones, they've spent money on a consultant who presumably has just said exactly what the rest of Australia has: you need to employ more people to answer the phones.

Just how bad is it in Centrelink, and how hard is it on the hardworking staff of Centrelink? Last financial year alone, there were 55 million unanswered calls where people got the busy signal—55 million unanswered calls. The people making these calls are constituents in all of our electorates. It's quite easy for this government to fix this: stop wasting money on consultants, as you've done in this case, and spend it on directly employing people to work in our Smart Centres. We have a Smart Centre Centrelink agency in Bendigo. There is one in Cairns. They are all over regional Australia. Here is a really good way to create good, secure jobs in our region: directly employ more people in Centrelink so that we can get the phones answered and get the support for people when they need it.

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