2016-02-03
The Senate has today rebuked the Government and supported a Greens initiated motion, calling on them to address mounting frustrations over accessing Centrelink with long phone wait times, unanswered calls and a clunky MyGov website.
“In 2014-15 complaints to Centrelink jumped by nearly 20% from the previous year, this is hardly surprising considering in the last year alone 22million calls to Centrelink went unanswered.
“The Government is set on vilifying income support recipients and have ploughed money into initiatives like a ‘welfare cop’. Meanwhile there are endless accounts of recipients trying to report changes in their circumstances just to hit a busy dial tone or hours of wait time.
“If the Government’s clear policy is to divert Centrelink customers to telephone and online services, then infrastructure and staffing must be properly funded to meet demand.
“I urge the Government to stop vilifying Australian’s accessing income support and properly fund staffing and Centrelink infrastructure so that our most vulnerable get the support they deserve.
“I welcome the support of the motion today and urge the Government to take steps to fix the broken Centrelink and MyGov system.”