90 Second Statement: Services Australia and Bill Shorten’s failures

Under this government, the delivery of government services is getting worse and worse. If you call Centrelink, you're waiting longer than ever. Call hold times in the 'disability, sickness and carers' category, to take just one example, have risen from just over 20 minutes under the coalition to 28½ minutes under the member for Maribyrnong. In a genius move, the member for Maribyrnong has dumped the specialised call centre operator Serco, which will only make things worse. He has fired over a thousand specialist IT staff, meaning that work to improve digital service delivery has effectively ground to a halt. He has failed to respond to the myGov user audit and its 10 recommendations, despite being asked to do so by 1 July.

When he gets asked about his poor performance, the member for Maribyrnong gets very tetchy. Earlier this year, he stood up in parliament to complain that I was wasting his time by asking too many questions. His default approach is simply not to answer. In August we learned he'd failed to respond to 275 questions on notice relating to his portfolio. In another troubling episode, his office failed to respond to Services Australia and give any guidance on how it should respond to a freedom of information request, and Services Australia sought extra time to respond from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. I'm pleased to say they rejected that request. The member for Maribyrnong might not like it, but he has to comply with the law like everyone else. Australians deserve better from the member for Maribyrnong, whose portfolios impact the lives of millions of people. He needs to do better and respond to questions.