When Marie was in the throes of her cancer treatment, she rang Centrelink every day for weeks, desperate to get through to them so she could access her superannuation.
“I spent six weeks, maybe a month, ringing every day,” she says. “I was incredibly ill at the time, and I was trying to get hold of them, being put on hold, being cut off and making absolutely no progress whatsoever. It was hours, hours and hours and it’s very demoralising.”
Marie isn’t alone. On Facebook, welfare recipients trade tips on how to get on to a human: punch in all the numbers at 7.59 am, then press call right on 8am. Ring the complaints line and ask to be transferred, or contact your local MP. Others seeking the age pension have turned to so-called “Centrelink consultants”.
After targeting the Coalition government over Centrelink office closures and the unlawful robodebt scheme while in opposition, Labor now finds itself forced to confront a growing list of problems at Australia’s central welfare agency.
Since the Albanese government took office, the average wait times for payments claims to be processed have increased for 27 of the 32 benefits for which there is data. People ringing the call centre are also facing longer delays, despite declining demand. Only 23% of calls were answered in July and August. Meanwhile, data points to an apparent staff exodus at Centrelink.
“We have seen years of cuts and funding pressure,” says the Community and Public Sector Union’s Melissa Donnelly, referring to the Coalition government. “That’s manifested in call, wait time blowouts, processing backlogs and a really, really difficult working environment for our members and Services Australia.”
The Albanese government recently announced 3,000 new staff in a bid to turn things around, while the government services minister, Bill Shorten, has promised to return “people to the frontline”.
But there are questions about whether the boost is sufficient, and change can’t come soon enough for the millions of Australians who rely on the agency.
Sick, broke and navigating a labyrinth
Marie, who did not want her real name used, knows navigating Centrelink can be like moving through a labyrinth.
After a shock cancer diagnosis late last year, the psychologist found herself on welfare payments for the first time in her life. She made her initial claim for the jobseeker payment – which also covers those facing temporary illness – in September. She says she waited 10 weeks until her first payment finally came through.
Seven months and two rounds of surgery later, Marie was sick, broke and going through chemotherapy. To access her super, she needed a letter from Centrelink confirming she’d been on benefits for at least 26 weeks.
A friend eventually went into an office for her and the letter came – but it had taken months, and without her superannuation, she had to rely on family and friends.
Staff bearing the brunt
Centrelink staff were boosted in 2020 and 2021 and, as resources have returned to normal after Covid lockdowns, customers have waited longer to get help. Callers waited 10 minutes longer on average in July and August than the 22 minutes they did in 2022-23. Between July 2022 and January 2023, the average wait was 18.04 minutes. In 2020-21, it was 4.06 minutes.
People are also waiting longer to get vital welfare benefits after applying. The majority of payments have now fallen below the targets set by Services Australia. This includes jobseeker, the age pension and parenting payment – benefits which more than three million people receive at any given time.
An age pension claim is meant to be processed in 49 days but in August the average payment took 61 days, up from 33 days in 2022-23 and 35 days in 2021-22.
Catherine Miller runs the business Claim My Pension, which helps people apply for the age pension and other payments.
“We have observed a concerning trend where some age pension claims can linger for weeks after submission, without any attention from Centrelink,” Miller says. “It often requires a phone call to prompt them into commencing the assessment of the claim.”
Complex claims, such as those involving a business or an entity, can take up to six months to be finalised, Miller says, because they need to be “checked by the complex assessment team before being put back in the processing queue”.
Ellen, who lives in Brisbane, helps manage her mother’s age pension. A month ago she had a simple question about declaring a cost-of-living payment her mother received from the Queensland government – and after what she says was almost a hundred calls, she still has no answer.
“I’ve tried the age [pension] phone number as well as the general inquiry phone number, and can’t get through,” says Ellen, who did not want her real name used. “I can’t even get into the hold pattern on either of those.”
Leading up to the reporting date, Ellen says she called 20 times in two days. Her mother went into a Centrelink office but was told to check online. Now she says she has no idea if she reported the payment correctly or if her mother will be penalised for misreporting extra income.
One Services Australia employee who works in a face-to-face role in Tasmania claims staff are increasingly bearing the brunt of customers’ frustration.
The employee has worked for Services Australia for almost a decade and claims “this is the worst” she has seen it for staff and customers.
“We’ve gone that far behind, I don’t know how we’re going to catch up,” she says. “Even though they’ve stated they’re putting [on] an extra 3,000 people … we have to train them. It takes about two years to understand some of the stuff we have to do.”
Donnelly says the announcement of 3,000 extra workers is welcome but staff retention needs to be addressed. Senate estimates recently heard the agency was losing 180 employees a month, while 20% told a staff survey they plan to leave in the next year.
“It’s really important that there is ongoing funding in the next budget and moving forward, and that these 3,000 jobs aren’t just plugging the hole of people who were departing,” she says.
In May the government undertook a review into staff safety at Services Australia, and one of the recommendations was a booking system for face-to-face appointments. The government agreed to the recommendation, but has not announced a timeframe.
Shorten says Australians are “rightly feeling growing frustration” at the delays.
He says 1,000 of the people have already started, and that the government expects “expect to see results in the coming months”. He also says the government has announced a new advisory group to “test ideas from outside the bubble” and outline a roadmap for the future of government services.
Independent MP Allegra Spender is among a group of crossbenchers who met with Shorten this week. She wants the government to implement an online appointment booking system for Centrelink and for complex cases to be given a permanent case worker on top of the extra staff.
“It’s not just about saying more staff, it’s also about better using your staff and making sure that people get that better quality of service,” she says.
But any further changes will be too late for Marie, who says navigating the system while sick “was a nightmare”.
“I consider myself an intelligent, educated, articulate person. And I could not work the whole thing through.”
