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

Thank you very much, Senator Chandler, for your question and the opportunity to tell the chamber what the government has been doing as we face the unprecedented demand and significant new challenges that have been presented by the coronavirus, particularly to Services Australia, who are at the forefront of supporting Australians who have been impacted by this pandemic.

Throughout this time, Services Australia have been required to deliver new and improved income support measures and fast track the Australian government's coronavirus financial support to many, many thousands of Australians in need. We acknowledge that this has been a particularly difficult time for many Australians. Can I acknowledge the extraordinary patience and understanding they have shown as we have had to ramp up the services at Services Australia to a level we have never, ever seen before.

This effort includes the redeployment of over 12,000 additional staff into support centres and call centres, processing claims. Since 27 April, we've got the $550 coronavirus supplement out the door, valuing $1.1 billion for that fortnight to around 1.9 million Australians. We have also ramped up the capability and the stability of our online service systems, particularly MyGov, and we've seen a capacity increase from 6,000 concurrent users to 300,000 concurrent users just in a matter of days. In the month of April, we had an average of 1.7 million Australians on MyGov every single day, and on one day alone we had three million Australians, which is the most we have ever seen on the MyGov website. We also managed to get the $750 stimulus payment out in early April to over 6.8 million Australians—that's $5.1 billion in the hands of Australians who most need it. This is an injection into the Australian economy to support Australians through the corona pandemic.