Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

Let me thank the member for his question and his great interest in service delivery in his part of the world. We all recognise many Australians have had a difficult time as a result of COVID-19, and many—over a million—have sought assistance from government for the first time. In the face of enormous challenges, service delivery has been of primary concern for the Morrison government.

Right the way through the pandemic, all 327 Centrelinks have been open. Every Centrelink in Victoria is open today. Can I thank the various state police services who have helpfully visited 220 times to check that all regulations are being followed, as they are. I welcome them to continue to visit. Our digital channels have been operating, and 300,000 concurrent users is the current capacity. It's being upgraded to 500,000 concurrent users as we prepare for the COVID-19 vaccination rollout. In terms of daily myGov and digital channel sign-ins, 12 months ago an average of 570,000 Australians signed in, but at close of business yesterday there were 2.8 million individual log-ins as Australians embrace the use of digital to receive services from government. As a note of interest, in July last year was our busiest day, with four million individual log-ins seamlessly. As an authenticated platform, myGov now has the largest capacity of any platform in the country. It has been modernised. You can go now to myGov and see where government is taking this, as a world-leading platform.

In terms of customer reference numbers, there's no need for Australians to go into a shopfront. It can all be done online. Last week we crossed over to two million digital identities now being created by Australians. All this has meant we've been able to provide services to Australians quicker and faster.

Right now there is only seven days, in terms of the majority of processing for social services and welfare. In terms of claims on hand, social services and welfare has five days worth. Health processing is three days. Child support is eight days. We're routinely answering over 110,000 calls a day. The average speed of answer is circa five minutes. I hear those on the other side mocking, but 10 years ago those opposite hung up on 40 million Australians in the 2010-11 financial year. Unfortunately, our number is 469 for this financial year. Our average speed of answer is circa five minutes. In 2013, when this nation put this government across the other side, finally, to the sword, it was a 90-minute wait. That was the legacy those opposite left. This government is getting on with service delivery.

See this speech in context