Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For the information of the member for Petrie, let me share with him what happened to a gentleman named David McIntosh, of Holland Park, when he actually did submit his paperwork 13 weeks in advance as suggested. He waited for his money for a further 10 weeks. He waited for a letter to arrive. It did, eventually, informing him that he was ineligible because of his assets. Four visits to his Centrelink office and six weeks later it was approved. He said:

It seems the assessors couldn't add up the information I had provided, and each time they came up with a different total.

Not that hard to add six numbers together—

but apparently for Centrelink it was problematic.

Time and time again our pensioners have received nothing but chaos, cuts and attacks from the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, and time and time again Labor has fought every one of those LNP government cuts. First there were the Abbott-Turnbull government's changes to the age pension. Labor voted against these changes to the pension assets test, but unfortunately the Greens and the Liberals did a deal to cut the pension. Then Labor blocked the Abbott-Turnbull government's cuts to pension indexation in the 2014 budget. Those cuts would have seen pensioners lose $80 a week over 10 years. Then Labor blocked the Abbott-Turnbull government's attempts to reset the deeming threshold rate, a change that would have seen half a million part-pensioners made worse off. The out-of-touch LNP government also tried to reduce the pension for retirees who go overseas for more than six weeks—too bad if you had family to visit.

On top of that there was the Turnbull government's unfair plan to axe the energy supplement, a payment designed to help vulnerable Australians with the cost of energy. The LNP voted three times to cut it, and Labor fought that every step of the way. Then there was the most ridiculous of them all, when the out-of-touch LNP government tried to increase the pension age to 70. This change would have meant Australia had the oldest pension age in the world. How out of touch could LNP members be to think that a builder, a concreter or a farmer could work until they were 70?

The Secretary of the Department of Human Services, Renee Leon, conceded:

Our models about how we plan and staff for the workload are not quite working for age pension when we get that six-month delay …

These major delays are simply injustices to older Australians and a result of the systematic mess the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government have created. The No. 1 issue raised with my office is from constituents who have major issues because of the significant delays in accessing their pensions. Imagine going to a Centrelink office to try and get your pension sorted, be delayed time and time again and then be told: 'When you're down to $1,000 in your savings, come back and see us. We might be able to help you.' It's simply not good enough.

A female constituent applied for the age pension in April 2018 but has heard nothing. She's been waiting almost nine months. My office contacted Centrelink, who advised that the application was being processed but were unable to provide a time frame. A male constituent applied for the age pension on 17 February this year and was given an estimated completion date of 7 April 2018. This constituent phoned the hotline on 16 May 2018 and was informed no progress had been made and all the required documents had been uploaded. He was advised there was a backlog of claims for age pensions. After waiting six months, he attended the Centrelink office on 13 July, when it was confirmed that no progress had been made. The gentleman made this point very clear to my office: he said that even though there are significant delays the staff at the office had spoken to him very respectfully and were helpful. He said, 'It's not the Centrelink staff's fault.' We know it's not the fault of the Centrelink staff. This government has put staff under incredible pressure by making severe cuts to staffing and through the use of outsourcing and privatisation by stealth, using labour hire workers.

Last financial year 48 million calls to Centrelink went unanswered. How on earth could the government respond to that? They cut a further 1,280 jobs from Centrelink and outsourced 1,250 jobs to labour hire. Prime Minister Scott Morrison was the architect behind these cuts—let us not forget that. He signed off on them when he was the Treasurer, and he continues to support job cuts, outsourcing to labour hire and the significant delays in accessing pensions for thousands of older Australians. (Time expired)

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