Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wentworth for raising an important issue. I'd just like to acknowledge the inconvenience and the frustration caused to Australians, not only in your electorate but across Australia, by delays in telephony in Services Australia. In answering your question fully, I'd like to explain why I think some of this is happening and I'd like to talk to you a little bit about what Services Australia are doing and some of the improvements that we've made.

First of all, demand is up. There's no question about that. Between last financial year and the year before, the number of people seeking a childcare subsidy increased by 36 per cent; the number of Commonwealth seniors seeking a health card increased by 85 per cent; indeed, after the COVID debts, which were paused, they were then un-paused; and, also, the more generous treatment under this government of paid parental leave and childcare subsidy has led to more benefits. But it's not just on the demand side. It's also true that between 2017 and 2020 the number of people working in Services Australia was reduced by the then government by 3½ thousand people, and they commissioned IT projects which have significantly failed.

Let's have a thought for the people working at Services Australia. Let's think about the people who actually work on the front line here. Yesterday they answered 227,000 phone calls. Last year they answered 55 million phone calls. There are 5,000 people today working on answering phones. There are 6½ thousand people working in the service centres. Last year they saw 10 million people. There are 3,000 people processing payments. Right now, every day, there are 270 people just processing parental leave claims. There were 1.1 billion online transactions with Services Australia last year, and there were half a billion customer interactions. Last year Services Australia paid out $1.4 billion promptly to 1.2 million people who had suffered from natural disasters. Also, I just remind people here that Services Australia staff experienced 9,000 abusive incidents of which 1,200 were most serious.

What we've been doing is having the robodebt royal commission and rebuilding the culture of Services Australia. We've committed—

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