Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We live in difficult economic times. For the first time, more than one million Australians are out of work and the government expects this figure to rise by Christmas. More people are dependent on a strong social security framework than ever before, and people who have never accessed welfare before are finding themselves waiting in lines at Centrelink or on hold on the phone as they attempt to navigate the department's complex systems. I hear truly terrible cases that come before my electorate office on a daily basis. There are cases of people being made to feel like criminals, people being intentionally forced between the cracks and people left behind by a social security system that has been designed by this government to make people just give up. From the outset, I want to make it clear that the staff at Centrelink do an amazing job. In particular, I want to acknowledge my office's truly incredible liaison at Centrelink for the work that she and her team do. However, staff at Centrelink are being let down by the government that oversees them.

Under this government, the effectiveness of our social security system has been severely eroded, and people are waking up to this fact. As I said, people who have never before accessed supports through Centrelink are experiencing the government's inhumane and laissez faire approach to providing so-called human services, and they are rightly outraged by the way the coalition has been treating fellow human beings for some time. Just this month, I was approached by a constituent who should be treated far better than he is by the government. This person clearly has an intellectual disability. He has very poor literacy skills. In fact, he can't read. His dealings with his assigned job service provider have been nothing short of shocking. The lack of attention to detail and the department's—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 16:14 to 16:25

Before the break, I was relating a story about a constituent who had an intellectual disability. He couldn't read or write. His payments were cut off because his job service provider was sending him written notices about appointments that he didn't read and couldn't attend. When he contacted them, they kept him waiting on the phone for two hours before he eventually just gave up.

Another constituent contacted my office. She'd come from Queensland to care for her very elderly parents, before they went into residential aged care. She couldn't get back to Queensland because of border closures. Notices of appointments were sent to her address in Queensland, which, of course, she couldn't keep, even if she wanted to, and she was cut off from her payments. This is absolutely shocking, and this is not the way our social security system should work. It should be supporting people with the most disadvantage in the worst situations. We must do better. Common sense has to prevail in this very difficult time, and it's time the government listened to the difficulties that people are having addressing their social security issues through Centrelink.