Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for the question. It is well worth the opportunity to put the record straight on the position that has been put around by the opposition in respect of the call centre. The expansions of call centres in Coffs Harbour, Hobart and Launceston were promises made by the Liberal Party during the 2007 election year. They were made by the Prime Minister at the time, but the Prime Minister made that commitment without any funds tied to it. The Liberals know that. The promises made to these communities were not worth the paper they were written on. When Mr John Howard announced these promises he did not provide any funding—the Liberals’ promises were expected to be absorbed at the time by Centrelink as an operational cost. But the Liberal Party knows that Centrelink’s funding goes up and down depending on the total number of clients, because that was the model that it used in government.

What that meant was that the promise at the time by the Prime Minister was reckless and unsustainable; it was unfunded at the time. The people of Launceston went to vote in the federal election with an unsustainable and unfunded promise, and now the Liberals have leapt upon the disappointment of the families in Launceston and tried to turn it to their political advantage. That is shameful. You are playing politics with people’s lives and you should cease and desist. Centrelink said in its press release yesterday:

General Manager, Hank Jongen today announced Centrelink’s decision regarding the proposed expansion of its Launceston, Hobart and Coffs Harbour call centres.

“Like any business, Centrelink needs to respond to changes in its environment to provide a good return on taxpayers’ investment,” Mr Jongen said.

“Our primary source of Government funding comes from—

as the Liberals know—

delivering Newstart and other workforce age payments to customers, as this group requires more intensive one-on-one support from staff.

“However, this also means that while the economy is strong and unemployment levels are low, Centrelink receives a commensurately lower level of funding to deliver its services.

“As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to withdraw our plans to recruit additional staff at our Launceston call centre.

That is what the Centrelink press release yesterday said. It went on:

“Our budgetary situation also means that we can’t proceed with our planned expansion of our Coffs Harbour and Hobart call centres, although existing staff will relocate to new offices as planned later this year.

“I want to stress that this is a business decision based on a number of factors. It’s not something Centrelink has done lightly—we’ve only come to this conclusion after exploring every available option ...

“As a recruitment process for Launceston Call was already underway, we understand that the decision may be disappointing or upsetting to applicants.

We do understand that. We also understand that it may be upsetting to the Tasmanian government, but they should also be clear where the blame lies in respect of this. Of course, it is not the case that we would blame anybody. You need to then provide the facts of the circumstances, and the facts are very clear on this. The funding model used by the opposition when they sat around their cabinet table and agreed to this meant that Centrelink’s funding would be adjusted according to the unemployment rate. What that meant was that the Centrelink funding would, with employment growth strong, go down. (Time expired)