MEDIA RELEASE - SHORTEN’S NEW AGENCY CHIEF DISCLOSES THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS FAILURES

PAUL FLETCHER MP

Shadow Minister for Science and the Arts

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy

Manager of Opposition Business in the House

MEDIA RELEASE

13 February 2024

SHORTEN’S NEW AGENCY CHIEF DISCLOSES THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS FAILURES

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten’s series of failures have been sensationally exposed by his new Services Australia boss, with reports in the media that the agency has a backlog of about 1.1 million unprocessed new claims across a range of vital payments.

This extraordinary backlog means Australians are waiting longer to access health and social security assistance amid a cost of living crisis.

Shadow Minister for Government Services Paul Fletcher said the revelations are further proof that Bill Shorten has lost control of his portfolio.

“Australian families are struggling with hip pocket pain and need fast and efficient access to Centrelink and Medicare payments,” Mr Fletcher said.

“What they are instead experiencing is a teeth grindingly slow process that only serves to frustrate and belittle customers.

“Having David Hazelhurst do media interviews won’t fix this mess. I repeat my calls for there to be a root and branch review of Services Australia’s operations, to improve the agency’s performance.

“Bill Shorten is putting on more and more people while the digital experience is stagnating – even though the evidence shows that there are more than 100 digital interactions with Services Australia for every one face to face transaction.

“He needs to heed lessons from the private sector on how to deliver an optimal customer service experience – using a mix of shop fronts, call centres and digital channels. But sadly his main interest is in employing more public servants who are union members – rather than on providing Australians the service excellence they deserve.

“The Coalition will be carefully scrutinising the government over these and many other Services Australia failures in Senate Estimates this week.”

Examples of Services Australia’s failures under Bill Shorten’s leadership:

• If you call Centrelink, you're waiting longer than ever. Call hold times in the 'disability, sickness and carers' category have risen from just over 20 minutes under the Coalition to 28.5 minutes under Labor.
• If you are fortunate to get through to someone, the processing time for payments is grim, with figures revealing that the average days to process the Age Pension going from 33 days under the Coalition to 61 days under Labor.
• Over a thousand specialist IT staff have been sacked, meaning that work to improve digital service delivery has effectively ground to a halt.
• Information obtained by the Opposition via Senate Estimates last year shows that the ICT component of the Health Delivery Modernisation Program that Services Australia is delivering in partnership with the Department of Health was in ‘Red’ status since December 2022, despite being in ‘Green’ status in July 2022.
• Bill Shorten could only secure $5.65 million for myGov, when the independent myGov User Audit recommended annual recurrent funding of $138 million.

Media contact: William Sparling | 0416 628 276 | [email protected]