Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak about how the Labor government is modernising service delivery through digital transformation. This service delivery, particularly by Services Australia, has been crucial to many Australians over the past three years through the pandemic and through natural disasters, which, sadly, are continuing today as we speak. In the budget, I was pleased to see that after years of cuts Labor will bolster Services Australia staffing numbers to better deliver emergency support in the wake of increasing natural disasters, including the recent floods through eastern Australia. Services Australia staff were also crucial through the pandemic, when we saw thousands of workers who suddenly lost their jobs and were forced to line up in long queues for hours outside Centrelink offices for financial support.

That included the Centrelink in my electorate, in Braddon—the only Centrelink in my electorate, which the previous government closed. The way that my constituents found out that that Centrelink office was being closed was that an ad for the office space just happened to pop up on my Facebook page. We noticed it, and we said, 'Isn't that the Centrelink?' We wrote to the minister, and indeed it was the Centrelink. They were going to close the Centrelink, and that was the only way people found out.

Services Australia staff have been crucial through the last few difficult years. We have the Public Service to thank for working very hard through those tough years to make the policy and to deliver the services to make sure that Australians had the support they needed. Whether Services Australia staff work in contact centres, in service centres or out in the community, a number of digital tools are making their job easier, and we are aspiring for a future where customers benefit from a simplified digital service experience.

As an example, our Health Delivery Modernisation Program is focused on transforming health experiences and outcomes for health consumers, healthcare providers, government and staff. Services Australia is actively engaging with these groups to provide insights that will inform the design and construction of new digital products and services into the future. Over recent years, intelligent tools, including voice biometrics, digital assistants and push notifications, have helped users to complete more actions digitally, connecting them with staff when they need them most. We're also working to improve digital wallets, modernising our correspondence and looking for more personalised and simple ways that Services Australia can assist customers.

Our government is also committed to auditing myGov. The myGov user audit and enhanced myGov and other related digital initiatives that our government has committed to will help to improve user digital experience to access government services and payments. We are delivering on our election promise to audit myGov and expect the report by the end of the year. This audit will clear up the Morrison government's legacy of confusion and fragmentation in digital service delivery, where they created myGovID, a completely different facility to myGov that was confusing for users. The audit will chart a path from this confusion into a world-class service.

MyGov supports more than 25 million active and linked accounts, with more than 80 per cent of these customers having signed into myGov once in the last 12 months. It averages more than 1.1 million sign-ins per day, so it's critical that it's working well and is user friendly. The enhanced myGov program is focused on delivering a range of tangible improvements to create a more connected, intuitive and personalised digital experience for customers. New functions will create a simpler digital experience. A myGov app will deliver a more modern, connected and seamless myGov experience. A customisable dashboard with information about upcoming payments and tasks will be provided, as well as a more secure environment that protects customer information and privacy.

These improvements will rely on a range of new underlying capabilities which expand significantly on the traditional capability of myGov. We are moving from the traditional role to providing a single sign-on for government services such as Centrelink, Medicare, ATO and NDIA, an inbox to receive electronic mail from member services and a 'tell us once' service, which allows users to share updates to their name, address and contact details with other member services.

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