Senate estimates is combative, at the best of times. But this week saw politicians on most sides agreeing on one thing: Services Australia needs to clean up its act.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The beleaguered agency knows this, too.
In his opening statement to estimates, Services Australia's new chief executive David Hazlehurst disclosed that it was grappling with a backlog of more than one million claims.
Officials also fronted up to Wednesday's hearing with a mammoth 304-page document detailing call wait times and processing delays, in response to senators' information requests.
The picture painted is bad: from September 1 until the end of 2023, more than five million customer calls were met with congestion messages and terminated.
Customers hung up on another 2.1 million calls, while those with social security and welfare inquiries waited an average of 34 minutes to get through.
Payment processing times are eye-wateringly long. In that same period, it took more than 82 days on average to process a low income card or disability support pension claim, 78 days for the age pension, and more than 47 for student Youth Allowance.
Mr Hazlehurst assured senators that work was underway to fix this. He said that the agency had not only hired 3000 customer service staff as promised under the government's November funding injection, but a further 2100 on top of that.
But the question is: will this be enough?
Staff morale is low at Services Australia. Only 58 per cent said they would recommend the agency as a workplace, according to last year's public service census, and we learnt last estimates that up to 180 staff were leaving per month.
Employees saw their workplace torn to shreds in the robodebt royal commission report last year, and would have been undoubtedly impacted by the news that a Melbourne Centrelink worker was allegedly stabbed by a disgruntled customer.
We again heard this week of staff claiming they are disciplined if they take longer than five minutes to use the bathroom.
Mr Hazlehurst assured senators he was "quite confident" they could keep up with staffing targets this year.
But with more than 30 per cent of agency employees telling last year's APS survey that they wanted to leave either immediately or within the year, Services Australia needs to focus as much on retention and cultural change, as recruitment.
Sunlight may be the best disinfectant, and sorely needed in a place like Services Australia. But Australians deserve change, not just transparency.
It's yet to be seen whether they will get both.
Send us a letter to the editor
Letters to the editor should be kept to 250 or fewer words. To the Point letters should not exceed 50 words. Reference to The Canberra Times reports should include a date and page number. Provide a phone number and address (only your suburb will be published).
Responsibility for election comment is taken by John-Paul Moloney of 121 Marcus Clarke Street, Canberra. Published by Federal Capital Press of Australia Pty Ltd.
