Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak about what I could only describe as some of the most terrible experiences that people have been talking to me and my office about as they relate to Centrelink and the Department of Human Services. Millions of Australians interact with and get payments from Centrelink. Some of those people actually rely on the payments they get in order to meet essential services, eat and pay their rent. These include, for example, disability support pension, youth allowance, Newstart, carers allowance and payments such as the age pension, the family tax benefit and paid parental leave. Millions of ordinary Australians are getting these services, and there is mounting frustration about the lack of services being provided by Centrelink and the Department of Human Services.

Because I have been contacted about this, I asked on Facebook for people to outline some of their experiences of their recent interactions with the Department of Human Services and with Centrelink. Within a couple of hours I had dozens—in fact, now I have 400 just over the last couple of days—of accounts of people's experiences with Centrelink. We have heard about the number of calls that are on call waiting or unanswered, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. The length of time that people have to stay on the phone, finally getting answered and then getting hung up on; the constantly engaged signal; the inaccessibility of the myGov site; the interactions where they are told to go into an office and are then told to go back to get on the computer to find a site that is not functioning and does not meet their needs—it is extremely frustrating. The cuts to government resources are having a devastating impact, and many people—including me—think it must be a deliberate strategy to make it harder and harder to get access to Centrelink and the Department of Human Services and for people to access what are essential payments.

I promised the people who sent me their accounts that I would try to read them into the Senate. Of course I cannot read all of these into the Senate, but I do give an undertaking that the issues that they raise I will be following up in estimates, because there are literally dozens of issues that come up, need to be explained and people deserve an answer for. I will read out some of the accounts in the time I have left available, because they are astounding in terms of the way people are being treated. It is no wonder they are getting frustrated.

Pos says that, never mind the time it took:

I have to travel a 200k round trip to make my 57 second appointment (yes I timed it).

Pos then goes on to describe his experience of trying to apply for DSP for his father:

At the moment, he can't walk without assistance, his speech is slurred, he can't always use his hands, he gets sporadic bell palsy, he will randomly shake while standing, has short-term memory difficulties, falls asleep as soon as he sits at a desk and is in constant pain. But according to Centrelink he can work 15 hours a week. So he is on News tart where he has to apply for jobs that he can't read or sometimes comprehend.

Celeste said:

My poor mum has to call up Centrelink on two occasions every fortnight one for herself for being a carer and one for my dad, who is disabled. Each and every time I hear her struggle to get a hold of them often having to stay on hold for hours.

Jaslyn said:

I am on Centrelink because I have a bad knee (waiting for surgery), and a special needs child. This morning, while reporting online, I found out my payment had been suspended. Rang Centrelink, on hold for over 2hrs, to be told that I didn't respond to a letter... A letter they sent to the wrong address. Another 50min on the phone to have payment reinstated.

Shane said:

7 Hours one day, I truly wish I was joking, OR exaggerating at all. But I'm not, I think I still have the screenshot on my old phone somewhere. This was about 5 months ago. I was trying to sort out a medical issue and my job network member at the time, it was disgusting..

Bec said:

I suffer from a chronic pain condition called Fibromyalgia. I spend more time in bed with pain and not being able to do the simplest tasks like sweeping my house then I do out of bed. I am in pain on a daily basis and it is only the severity of that pain that changes. I have just been rejected for the disability claim saying I do not meet the criteria.

Amanda said:

I recently applied for the disability support pension. I was told the process would take 7 weeks. 6 months later it was finally approved. I spoke to a very helpful officer who explained the processing staff have a grade of service. They need a certain per cent done in the 7 weeks so if your processing goes a day over they let it sit without chasing anything up to focus on 'easier' cases.

Marion said:

If you are a disability pensioner and change your address, the essential medical equipment allowance forms need to be filled in by a doctor again. Wasting the doctor's time and Medicare funding obviously. You find this out when you receive a letter the week following registering the new address when you receive a letter cancelling your essential medical equipment allowance.

Chayla said:

I have to make sure I have literally nothing else to do that day and sit there pressing recall for 1-2 hours BEFORE being on hold for an hour and a half average. I'm lucky that I can use the app for most things now but dread having to have direct contact.

Rachel said:

Recently spent every day for over a week trying to call Centrelink, as requested in a letter sent to me. Received an engaged signal on both Families and Employment line every time, pressing redial over and over again for the same response. Eventually got through to be told it was a 90 minute wait. My phone (a cordless landline!) ran out of battery before it was ever answered.

And the concerns go on:

We know that if we ever have to call, we have to make sure the home line is charged and that nothing can interrupt us for at least one to two hours because it always takes that long to get served. That said, the staff are always awesome and generally know what to do and are always polite. The online stuff, oh my sweet God. The myGov site is like pulling eyeballs and I cry if we have to use it.

Online services quite often do not work and it takes several attempts even over a couple of days to do what you need to do. If you need to phone them, yes, expect to try to get through for at least an hour first then you are on hold for maybe another hour. The whole thing is sooooooooo frustrating. They want you to do the right thing ie report and update circumstances but they make it near impossible to do it.

And that takes me to a very important point—all these raise very important points: the government says it is tightening up compliance requirements. People are trying to report. They are trying to report over the phone, they are trying to report online and when they go into Centrelink offices they get told to do it online. People talk in these reports about trying to register online and then getting told they have to show their ID. So they go into the Centrelink office to show and verify their ID and to try and finish the process in Centrelink itself with a human being but they get told they cannot. They have to go back home and do it online. Or they could use the system at the office but there are examples in these accounts of where the system was down in the Centrelink office so they had to go home again and then it would not accept the ID because the person in the Centrelink office had not actually keyed it in right. These are real lived examples happening all the time every day. The government have done an appalling thing by cutting resources to Centrelink. They need to get their act together and they need to fix it.