Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Government Services. Will the minister please explain why 600 jobs of staff of up to two years experience were axed at the end of October across multiple Centrelink application processing sites—in Mill Park, in Dandenong and in Sydney—at a time when more Australians than ever before are struggling to find work?

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

I thank the member for his question. I'd say to colleagues in the House: when COVID-19 was running rampant in March, Services Australia expanded its staffing by 14,800 people. That's the amount we mobilised. Three thousand came from within Services Australia; over 3,000 came from other government departments. This included security guards from this place here, who went into a processing centre up in one of the alcove areas to process applications. Eight thousand extra staff were employed from our external agencies to assist us, and, as we've responded to the pandemic—including processing over one million claims in 55 days; an amount we'd normally do in two years—the staffing levels are coming down. So we used our service delivery partners to surge staff up when the crisis was in place and to surge staff down. Luckily the finance minister is not in this House, because we are still about 300 staff over ASL as we've come down.

Like a tale of two cities, we should compare the Morrison government's response to this pandemic to how Labor responded to the GFC, because, from 2009 to 2013, Labor cut staff by 4,800. Four thousand eight hundred staff over there were cut in response to the GFC compared to a plus 300 today. That's the tale of two responses. So this side will not have a bar of the member for Maribyrnong coming in and saying that, while we surge contract staff up, we shouldn't be surging them down as the requirement for processing has come down, particularly when those opposite, in response to the GFC, cut 4,800 ASL permanent public servants. And, at the same time, if you look at the processing and where we are right now, Services Australia has on hand JobSeeker applications that are actionable amounting to 36,000, which is just shy of two days worth. That's just two days worth of processing actionable claims on hand. That's what we've got.

So I say to the member for Maribyrnong that a 1,046 ASL cut in the 2010-11 budget—oh, that's the member for McMahon! That's awkward. There were 1,000 permanent public servants cut on that member's watch. Where is the member for Gorton? This is always a surprise, isn't it? The member for Gorton—2,381 average staffing level permanent public servants were cut in the 2011-12 budget. That's what the members cut. This side can be proud of what we've done.