Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her questions. The response times for people, particularly for those in distress, are very important. This is a very important topic. I will run through a number of matters in relation to the volume of calls and various things that the Department of Human Services needs to deal with on a daily basis and more broadly. I think we would all agree that it is an incredibly large workload they get through.

I acknowledge many of the things the member opposite raised in her questions but she did neglect to say one thing: the staffing reductions in smart centres were 90 per cent under her government. She has raised the issue of staffing numbers in these areas but conveniently forgot to mention that while Labor was in government they had a 90 per cent reduction to smart centres in those areas.

It is a very big task. In 2014 the department handled over 59.5 million calls from new parents, job seekers, students, separated families, carers, people with disabilities, migrants, refugees, rural and remote Australians, and older and Indigenous Australians. You can imagine the diverse nature of the calls they would be dealing with. In 2014-15 the average speed of answer on the department phones for social security and welfare was less than 16 minutes, which currently meets the departmental standard. The average speed of answer has improved more than one minute when compared with the same period of the previous year.

For health-customer information it is around five minutes and 12 seconds, I am advised; the average speed of answer remains relatively stable when compared with the same period of the previous year. For health providers it is one minute and 23 seconds; the average speed of answer has increased by 50 seconds when compared with the same period of the previous year. For health, PBS authorities and e-health it is 25 seconds; the average speed of answer has improved by 21 seconds when compared with the same period of the previous year of 46 seconds. For child support it is just over 2½ minutes; the average speed of answer has increased by less than a minute. The average wait times in service centres, equally, is 12½ minutes for social security and welfare engagements. For health it is around 7½ minutes.

We do not deny the fact that we would like to do better in this area. I think that is really important. One of the things the member opposite did not quite understand is the revitalising of the payment system, which is what we are doing. As I said in response to an earlier question, the previous government decided not to do anything about the payment system, which is central to how you deal with these issues—when you can get people more online than being on the phone. I understand, as we all do, that there are some people who cannot go online. But if you can get more of the people who can go online off the phone, and get them online, that is a good strategy. Pretty much every business in the country understands that. Those opposite seem to struggle with the notion. That is why we have invested over $1 billion in the WPIT program to deal with these issues.

Those opposite raised the issue of the number of staff—but they cut the number of staff in smart centres by 90 per cent! The outrage we hear from those opposite seems to only find its voice in opposition. With their own government, they did not move on these issues. We are addressing them. There is over $1 billion to address the WPIT system, to improve the technology and ICT system support; all those initiatives.

Minister Payne has been an absolute Trojan on getting this project up and running and securing the support from the government in a difficult fiscal climate. We know if we get it right that the payment dividend for the government will come down the line, but we have to invest up-front in the technology. That is what we are doing. We do not want to try and paper over the problem as previous governments have done and not make the strategic investment which needs to be made in the ICT, which we are doing. We do not want to just deal with the superficial elements of this issue; we want to go to its core and its heart and improve the capability of the government to deal with this issue in a far longer term fashion, because that is what coalition governments do. We think through the long-term consequences of various policy initiatives and we think through the implementation. We think about what the objective is and how we can go about achieving it. I think that really does mark out this government from those opposite when it comes to matters of implementation.

So I acknowledge there are issues to be addressed here, but the members constituents will not be heartened by the way that Labour would approach this problem. They would just spend more money that they do not have rather than investing money strategically which we have been able to provide for through the savings we have put in this budget—savings those opposite do not support.

Expenditure agreed to.

Sitting suspended from 13:01 to 15:59

I wish to correct an answer I gave during consideration in detail of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016 in the Human Services portfolio today. I was asked about DHS staff numbers. I had answered, 'I am advised that 90 per cent of staffing reductions in smart centres occurred under Labor', and, further, that the previous government had actually reduced numbers by 90 per cent. The correct response is that at least 80 per cent of the recent reduction in smart centre staff numbers occurred under the previous government.

Education and Training Portfolio

Proposed expenditure: $2,015,007,000

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