Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sure mine is not the only electorate where people have been left waiting on the phone, for hours sometimes, just to be able to speak to someone on the other end of the line at Centrelink. This government cut 12,000 Centrelink jobs and—surprise, surprise—55 million calls went unanswered over the year. People in my electorate have been left with the consequences of the government's mismanagement of Centrelink. Naomi says that three out of four times she calls Centrelink she can't even get in queue, and when she does get through she is in the queue for up to 70 minutes on hold. April says she waited over six hours. The kids had been to school and back in that time. She wasn't prepared to hang up again and go to the beginning of the waiting list. Mehdi sometimes waits for over two hours before being disconnected. Anyone would be frustrated with that. Berni spent her time in hospital trying to get through to Centrelink. She and her social worker spent all day trying to get through to someone. When she finally got through, the person hung up and she had to start again. This is not the only time that the government has shown its incompetence when it comes to Centrelink. Let's not forget the robo-debt debacle and the time the AFP's letterhead ended up on Centrelink notices. This government doesn't care about people wasting their time—that's the message they're giving to my community. This government has failed on Centrelink. Show some respect to your fellow Australians and fix it.