LABOR has taken a shot at the government’s poor Centrelink track record, as the party continues to campaign hard in the region during the build up to the byelection.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Shadow Families and Social Services Minister Jenny Macklin was in Tamworth with Labor’s New England candidate David Ewings on Tuesday to discuss the “Centrelink crisis” with concerned residents.
Mr Ewings said the government was “really letting down” pensioners and others who relied on the critical services that Centrelink provided.
“The Coalition does not care about disadvantaged people, or the elderly,” Mr Ewings said.
“People are waiting ridicolous amount of times, sometimes up to an hour, to talk to someone at Centrelink. I’ve spoken to pensioners that have waited well over six months to have age pension approved. This has got to stop.
“This is in no way an attack on the workers of Centrelink, they’ve got a hard job and it's only being made harder by the Coalition cutting 1200 staff from these positions.”
Ms Macklin said Centrelink was in crisis under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
“Last year, over 55 million calls to Centrelink went unanswered, and people are waiting longer to talk to Centrelink,” she said.
That’s up from 29m calls in 2015-16 and 22m in 2014-15.
“Around 40 per cent of these calls were from families calling about family and parenting support and around 20 per cent from people with disability and their carers and people claiming sickness benefits,” Ms Macklin said.
“Pensioners, people with disability and their carers are now waiting between 19 minutes and half an hour to speak with Centrelink.
“These damning figures come after the government cut 1200 jobs from the Department of Human Services.
“In October, the Turnbull Government announced a new call centre to deal with the backlog of unanswered calls to be staffed by 250 Serco employees. We don’t know if they’re full time or permanent. This simply isn’t good enough. Centrelink is under-resourced and understaffed.”
Ms Macklin said the service needed permanent, full-time staff, who were properly trained to deal with the complex issues facing Australians who required income support.
“Turnbull and the Liberal-Nationals are completely out of touch with the lives of ordinary Australians,” she said.