Services Australia has apologised to its customers over a sustained blowout in call centre wait times as new figures also reveal a backlog of more than 1.1 million payment claims and significant delays for age pension applications.
Despite the Albanese government employing thousands of new Centrelink staff, only around 50% or 22.4m of the almost 45m calls to Centrelink made in the six months to 31 December were answered and handled by a Services Australia operator.
