TRANSCRIPT - FIVEAA Afternoons with Stacey Lee

PAUL FLETCHER MP

Shadow Minister for Science and the Arts

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy

Manager of Opposition Business in the House

TRANSCRIPT

FIVEAA Afternoons with Stacey Lee

29 AUGUST 2024

Stacey Lee: But now we want to talk about government service payments and why the turnaround time and processing time for them is so long, if you're here in Adelaide. Paul Fletcher joins me in the studio. He's the Shadow Minister for Government Services in the Federal Parliament. Good afternoon, Paul Fletcher.

Paul Fletcher: Great to be with you Stacey.

Stacey Lee: Thank you for your time. You're in Adelaide, loving the weather. Look, we've turned it on for you.

Paul Fletcher: Beautiful day and always great to be in Adelaide. I grew up in Adelaide, lived here till the age of 12. Started out at South Downs Primary School, supported the Bulldogs - Central Districts, because if you went to South Downs Primary School, that's what you did. It's always great to come back to Adelaide.

Stacey Lee: So, you must have some memories from the Show.

Paul Fletcher: Oh, the Royal Show. Absolutely. A very important part of life during the year in Adelaide, along with the old John Martin's Christmas Parade. 

Stacey Lee: Yes. 

Paul Fletcher: And yeah, so, I'm always delighted to get back to Adelaide.

Stacey Lee: Yeah, well thank you for coming in today. I really appreciate your time because when you sent me some of the processing times for some of the payments with Services Australia, this is largely through Centrelink, I was really surprised to see the table that you've collated. The turnaround time why is it so long? I mean, 124 days if you're based in Adelaide is the average, I'm assuming, time to get the Age Pension.

Paul Fletcher: Look, that's right. So, these are numbers that we've got through Senate Estimates and other processes. So, if you apply for an Age Pension, you apply to Services Australia, they take some time to process it, to work out if you're eligible. 

What we know is for Adelaide, for the local government area of Adelaide, that wait time is 124 days. Campbelltown 89 days, Adelaide Hills 97 days, Charles Sturt local government area in 93 days. But it's a similar story with some other benefits that you apply to Services Australia for Disability Support Pension, 109 days in the Adelaide local government area, and this is a pattern we're seeing around Australia. 

So, when we were in government, when the Coalition was in government, if you applied for the Age Pension on average you were waiting 35 days, on average around the country now for the Age Pension on the most recent numbers that the Minister Bill Shorten has put out, you're waiting 60 days. So that's the average across the country. But as we've just heard in some of the areas of Adelaide, it's much, much worse than that. As I say, 124 days for the local government area of Adelaide.

Stacey Lee: I guess it's probably speculation, but is it because we have an older age group here, are there more people applying, that's why it takes longer?

Paul Fletcher: Look, I think there are a range of reasons, but what we do know is that overall, the service levels have really dropped very badly since Bill Shorten became the Minister. He's been the Minister for Government Services for two years now, a bit over two years and the waiting time for the Age Pension around the country has really got worse. The waiting time for the Disability Support Pension used to be on average around the country you waited 40 days, that's now 81 days.

Stacey Lee: You can't say it's Bill Shorten's fault, though. It's not one person's fault. There's a whole department there.

Paul Fletcher: Well, there's a series of decisions that Mr. Shorten has made, which are clearly linked to what's going on here. So, one of the things he did was got rid of about a thousand specialist information technology workers in late 2022. That means all of the hardworking people at Services Australia, who are obviously doing their best every day to help the Australians that they’re to serve, don't necessarily have the tools that they need. The computer systems are not being updated the way they should be. 

What we also know is that Mr. Shorten got rid of a contract with a company called Serco, which specializes in doing call centers and there were several hundred people who were dismissed through that process, but Serco was delivering better response times than the rest of Services Australia. So, some of the ideological decisions that Mr. Shorten’s made, he is a former union secretary, he's very keen to have more permanent public servants who are union members. But the problem is the service experience for Australians who want to apply for the pension, for example, is getting worse.

Stacey Lee: I'm assuming that was part of a cost cutting measure. If you're getting rid of people who are in the public sector, it's usually to save some money somewhere?

Paul Fletcher: I think what's happened is Mr. Shorten has approached this in a very ideological way. He's put on more people. There are actually on average now about 2,000 more people at Services Australia than when we were in government. But at the same time as the number of people employed has gone up, the service levels have gone down. And one of the reasons that I say it's ideological is because he got rid of people who were clearly delivering outcomes and the people he's added on, we've seen a reduction in service levels. 

Now again, part of the problem is those people are being brought on, but the tools they need are not being maintained and updated. And so that means that ordinary Australians, anybody who needs the help of services Australia in this cost-of-living crisis that's a lot of people, they're finding a worse experience.

And then the next thing that happens is if you've applied for the Age Pension and you're waiting and waiting and waiting, you're likely to call up and say what's going on. So, if the performance goes down in the core business, processing applications quickly, the next thing that happens is the performance goes down in how long people have to wait. 

When we were in government, if you called what was called the Older Australians line, on average you waited 21 and a half minutes. Now that's not a great time, but that's how long you waited when we were in government. Now it's 46 minutes, 39 seconds. So, it's more than doubled. 

So, in a whole range of ways Australians who need to deal with Services Australia, really through no fault I’d say of the people who work there who are very motivated to do their best to help Australians, but they are captive to the decisions that Mr. Shorten as the minister has made.

Stacey Lee: So let's talk about these times. 124 days on average, if you're in the Adelaide local government area and that's to receive the Age Pension. If you're waiting for the Carer Payment, it's 87 days. Disability Support Pension is 109 days as well. A lot of these people who are waiting for these payments really need these payments. So do you have any advice, like can you, we know with the Age Pension for example, you can receive that at 67. 

Paul Fletcher: Yes. 

 

Stacey Lee: So, should you be applying earlier? Should you give yourself 6 months? So, should you apply at 66 and a half, would that work?

Paul Fletcher: I certainly think on these numbers, it's not a great idea to wait until the day you turn 67. 

Stacey Lee: It's not how I'd want to spend my birthday. 

Paul Fletcher: No indeed, and we know from the numbers that people have to wait a long time. So a bit of advanced planning would be a good idea. It's a shame that I have to be saying that to people because people ought to be able to rely on Services Australia to turn around these applications quickly. I mean, if this was happening in the private sector I have to say, the executive in charge would be sacked. This is not good enough.

I've called for a root and branch review of Services Australia. We really need to have a very careful look at what is going wrong and why the service experience that Australians are having when they're calling up or putting in an application has gone down so much.

Stacey Lee: Does it get back paid to the date you apply or?

Paul Fletcher: Your eligibility is not a function of when it's approved, but when you make the application. 

Stacey Lee: Right. 

Paul Fletcher: But nevertheless, there's uncertainty because until you get it approved, you don't know if you're going to get it. And I've certainly heard stories of people who have been in very difficult situations and they're now waiting for weeks and weeks and weeks to get approval of a benefit and frankly it shouldn't have to be like that. 

Stacey Lee: Yeah, Carer Payment or Disability Support Pension, I imagine if you're left for 100 days, more than 3 months going, will I get this? Will I not get this? Even if you do get back paid, can I afford to be doing X, Y, Z? Can I afford to be buying X, Y, Z? You just don't know if you're in limbo.

Paul Fletcher: Of course, you don’t know and its human nature that until you can be sure you're going to get that payment; you're probably going to be very careful and very cautious. But there's no way that people should have to be waiting 124 days, 127 days, which is what you're waiting in the Adelaide Hills, on average for the Disability Support Pension to be approved, your application to be approved.

And so, this poor administration, this poor management is having very real human consequences. And of course, we know we've got a cost-of-living crisis. There are a lot of people who really need that support if they're eligible for it as quickly as they can possibly get it.

Stacey Lee: Alright. So, you've called for a review?

Paul Fletcher: I have called for a review 

Stacey Lee: If the Liberal Party wins the next election. What are you going to do differently to get these times down?
 

Paul Fletcher: Well, one of our focuses is going to be making sure that we are servicing Australians in the way they want to be serviced. If you look at the numbers about 1.1 billion interactions digitally, that's to say through your smart phone or through your computer with Services Australia in the last full year, 55 million over the phone, about 10 million face-to-face. So, where you go into a Centrelink office where people have the option to do it, they do prefer to engage digitally because it's quicker. You don't have to physically go into a center. 

And right now, the evidence suggests that Mr. Shorten is allocating people to the wrong priorities within Services Australia. So what we want to do is support the hardworking people of Services Australia so that they can serve Australians the way they want to be served and so we can get these wait times down. And so we get away from this cascading series of problems where the longer you're taking to respond to an application for the pension, for example, the more then calls you are triggering into the call center and people then have to wait longer.

Stacey Lee: So, I hear there may be more resources to online services and fewer resources in Centrelink offices. Is that the plan?

Paul Fletcher: What we want to do is have people served the way they want to be served. So the first step is to have a root and branch review. And I'm certainly not going to be committing any particular way to approach this until we've had the results of that root and branch review.

But the overwhelming focus has to be how best do we serve Australians in the way they want to be served? Of course, there will always be people who would prefer the face-to-face interaction, who would prefer to get on the phone and get an answer and we need to make sure that continues to always be an option for people who prefer that. 

But if you prefer to call up rather than do something online, at the moment under Mr. Shorten because you're waiting over 46 minutes on average, if you call that older Australians line, that's not a good outcome for you. So, we want to be able to serve Australians, whichever channel they want to engage with in the most efficient way. And the first thing we need to do is have that root and branch review of what's working and what isn't working. So, that we can improve the service levels for Australians.

Stacey Lee: Right. Let's go to David in Athelstone. He's given us a call on 8223 0000. Hi David.

David: Hello. You're talking about the efficiency of servicing us older Australians. Why do we have to apply the tax department already know our intimate tax details, what our incomes have been for decades, just give us that 67th birthday present in our bank accounts on the day. What could be easier?

Stacey Lee: Oh hear hear what David! Yes!

Paul Fletcher: And David, I think that's a really interesting suggestion. When we were in government we were able to use what's called single touch payroll, which is a series of technology changes that the tax office made to then make it a lot easier for people who were on an income support payment to be able to demonstrate that they had not worked more than the required number of hours because you were given a pre-populated form and all you had to do was click yes, that's right and you submit that.

So, there are great opportunities to use information technology better to make it much easier for people so you don't have to fill in long paper forms. And so, it's a much smoother easier experience, unfortunately, for the reasons I've given because Mr. Shorten has got rid of a lot of the IT people. That sort of innovation isn't happening, but the suggestion you make with the right systems to back it up, there's no reason you couldn't have a pre-populated electronic option.

Stacey Lee: Thanks for the call, David. Really appreciate it. 8223 0000 is the number to call. And thank you for your time, Paul Fletcher. Really appreciate it. 

Paul Fletcher: Thanks Stacey. 

Stacey Lee: Thank you. That is Paul Fletcher, the Shadow Minister for Government Services in Federal Parliament.