Centrelink pension approvals drag out for months - Daily Telegraph

Australians are waiting as long as two months for their pension to be approved by Centrelink while people supporting disabled loved ones are going up to 80 days without their carer payments being given the green light.

New figures on wait times for common Centrelink payments have revealed shocking blow outs in approval times for the most vulnerable Australians who are applying for support for the first time.

The delays apply to the initial application for welfare payments not the ongoing automatic monthly deposits.

A person caring for someone living with a disability waited 46 days for their application to be processed in the 2022-2023 financial year but in the year after, that wait time has ballooned to 80 days.

For people going on the pension, a 33 day wait time last year has now almost doubled to 61 days while the carer payment processing time jumped from 45 days to 52 days.

Struggling Australians on the Low Income Card had some of the worst blowouts, increasing from 16 days to 48 days. Families dealing with the growing cost of their little ones were also doing it tough with the additional child care subsidy for parents transitioning to work now taking almost 100 days to process compared to 39 days.

Dad and Partner pay claims also almost tripled in wait times from 20 days to 56.

The revelations build on findings that only about 60 per cent of calls to the agency are answered within 15 minutes.

Coalition government services spokesman Paul Fletcher said it is taking more than three months for some people to receive much needed financial support, saying: “You could drive around Australia faster than you would receive some of these payments. It’s embarrassing.”

A Services Australia spokesman said: “We apologise to anyone who is waiting longer than they should be, and we encourage customers to let us know if they are in hardship so we can prioritise claims.’

Author: Angira Bharadwaj

This article appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 27 October 2023