Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services and Digital Transformation) Share this | Hansard source

The shadow minister is interjecting at the table and saying, 'That's rubbish.' There are three more Labor speakers in this MPI debate, so let's give them a chance to put on the record that they won't be sacking these 2,750 people—put it on the record when you get the opportunity, because that's your stated policy. They don't believe in employing contractors. Labor's plan instead is to hire an extra 1,200 permanent public servants. That means there'll be a deficit in the workforce of 1,550 people. That's their plan to improve service: to throw 2,750 Australians out of work, for the crime of working in the private sector, and then employ 1,200 permanent public servants. That is a deficit of 1,550 workers.

I work very hard to make sure that the service experience, when Australians contact DHS, is as good as it can be. Customers claiming the age pension often have complex tests that they need to satisfy—income tests and assets tests—and they require supporting documentation and, sometimes, specialised assessments. A range of factors can cause delay but, normally, about 50 per cent of the delays that occur are because people haven't submitted all the required documentation with their initial application. This occurs in about half of the cases. It requires my department to go back to the person and seek further information so that their claim can be processed.

Notwithstanding the complexity of age pension claims and the fact that we do require that information, according to our legislative requirements, it did become apparent to me through anecdotal evidence and the metrics that the department has kept that, at about the middle of the year, we were accumulating a backlog of people applying for the age pension. We consistently measure our service. I meet with my department every week to go through how our service provision is going. When it became apparent to me in July that we were getting a backlog in age pension processing times, and processing times were therefore creeping up, I instructed the department to set up a task force to ensure that age pension applications were being processed as quickly as possible. As a result of that task force, the department put an extra 100 staff into claim processing and I'm pleased to say that they are making excellent progress.

The backlog that existed in July has now been eliminated. We processed 4,000 pension claims last week—we usually get about half that coming in on any given week. That's a 70 per cent increase on the processing of age pension claims on this time last year. The total backlog has been eliminated, and the people who are applying for the age pension would have noticed a very significant improvement to their service. We also continue to encourage anyone who is applying for the age pension to apply up to 13 weeks in advance, before they become eligible. That way, we can make sure that the appropriate paperwork is provided and we can process claims before applicants become eligible, which includes a seamless transition onto the pension.

We are proud of our record in making sure that the Department of Human Services has the resources it needs to do its job. These contracted workers, 2,750 people, who are proud of what they're doing, who are working very hard and who are getting results for the government and the people whom they serve, are people who the Labor Party are going to throw onto the scrap heap. That's not surprising, because their record in government was completely woeful. Almost 5,000 people were cut out of the Department of Human Services, resulting in a tenfold increase in the time it took for people to get their phone calls answered when they called through to the department. Don't believe me; look at the ANAO report from Labor's time in office. (Time expired)

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