Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

In the sense of a new phone number, it won't be a new phone number because obviously we want people who contact Centrelink to have only the one phone number in their mind. However, two things will happen. One, obviously, is that all Centrelink phone line staff will be trained, informed and skilled up to deal with this as soon as it goes live, as a No. 1 priority. And, of course, when you contact Centrelink, the first thing that you will be asked is, 'Are you calling about this particular transition?' so that you don't have to go through a whole series of 'push 1, push 2' et cetera. But we wouldn't be seeking to use another phone number, because the confusion of having several Centrelink phone numbers is not always sensible. The customers will have access to all the services that they currently have with Centrelink, but all the staff that are in those services will obviously be appropriately trained and up to speed on all of the issues in relation to the transfer.

In terms of the specific actions around the consultation and the design and implementation that will be undertaken by Services Australia to assure ourselves that the Single Touch Payroll interface with our system is working, obviously they're operational decisions. We would be making sure that we worked with the recipients to test the system to make sure it was appropriate, and any of the issues that came out of it would be dealt with. So obviously we are going to test the system with real people before it goes live. The specifics of the operational component of it, of making sure that the information's coming through correctly, that it is easy to use and all that would be tested operationally inside the department in the first instance. We would then seek to make sure that the recipients had the opportunity to use it themselves before we went live.