MEDIA RELEASE - SERVICES AUSTRALIA RECALLED TO SENATE ESTIMATES OVER WAIT TIME BLOW OUT

PAUL FLETCHER MP

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy

Shadow Minister for Science and the Arts

Manager of Opposition Business in the House

MEDIA RELEASE

Thursday, 21 November 2024

SERVICES AUSTRALIA RECALLED TO SENATE ESTIMATES  OVER WAIT TIME BLOW OUT

For the second time under the Albanese Labor Government, Coalition Senators have taken the rare step of recalling officials from Services Australia to face an additional Senate Estimates hearing, following the agency’s failure to provide key data during a cost of living crisis. 

The Community Affairs Legislation will hold an additional hearing on 12 December 2024.

During the initial hearing of 6 November 2024, Coalition Senators questioned why agency officials had chosen not to provide information requested weeks earlier about Centrelink and Medicare claims processing and telephony wait times. 

Shadow Minister for Government Services, Paul Fletcher, said the agency's performance data was being kept secret because it would expose Bill Shorten’s mismanagement of the welfare agency.

“The only thing transparent about Services Australia’s declining customer standards is the Albanese Labor Government’s repeated attempts to avoid scrutiny,” Mr Fletcher said.

“We still don’t know answers to basic questions about Centrelink and Medicare claims, including precisely how many claims in 2023-24 were delivered outside their timeliness standard and what the dollar value of this backlog was.”

Coalition Senators Hollie Hughes, Linda Reynolds and Maria Kovacic said they would use the additional hearing to press for answers about Services Australia’s performance.

“It’s unacceptable that during a cost of living crisis the Albanese Labor Government is focused on spinning their way out of trouble, with only limited and incomplete information available on the data.gov.au website,” Senators Hughes, Reynolds and Kovacic said. 

“We know Bill Shorten is preparing to retire from the Parliament, but that doesn’t mean he gets a hospital pass on being held to account for his mismanagement of Centrelink and Medicare.”

Senators Hughes, Reynolds and Kovacic have since written to the CEO of Services Australia, Mr David Hazelhurt, concerning the additional hearing and repeating requests for information.

Services Australia’s 2023-24 Annual Report, released last month, showed the agency had failed to achieve the majority of its key strategic performance measures, including ‘customer satisfaction’; ‘administrative correctness of payments’; ‘customer served within 15 minutes’; and ‘work processed within timeliness standard.’