Centrelink and Medicare call wait times have blown out amid a peak in demand, with more than 11 million going unanswered in the year to April.
Parents and carers calling Centrelink for assistance with family and parenting payments were left in the queue for an average of 52 minutes, an additional 21 minutes on the previous year.
Employment Services wait times followed closely behind, with callers on hold for 49 minutes before being put through to a Services Australia staff member. The year prior, the wait was just under half an hour.
Average wait times for Medicare inquires grew from 14 to 25 minutes, while Centrelink Aged Care call wait times doubled to 24 minutes.
Callers seeking help for child support-related queries had to wait on average four minutes longer than the previous year.
‘Disturbing’ consequences, ACOSS warns
Australian Council of Social Service social security program director Chamaine Crowe said the numbers showed there was still a significant amount of work to be done.
“It’s distressing to see the call wait times where they are at because we’re worried about those people that can’t get through and what that means for their payments,” she said.
“Parents, they have a lot on their plates at the best of times and don’t have time to spend hours on the phone or days trying to get through and, likewise, a lot of people are in employment and can’t spend all this time between the hours of 9am–5pm to try and get through.”
Ms Crowe said the number of calls that went unanswered was particularly troubling.
“It’s of huge concern that there were over 11 million congestion messages,” she said.
“Sometimes it’s a matter of their payment getting cut or reduced when it shouldn’t have and if you can’t get that resolved, it means that you’re trying to get by on too little money.”
Extra government investment in budget
The federal government in May announced $1.8 billion over three years for additional frontline and service delivery staff.
That investment was directed, in part, to addressing staffing pressures at the agency, with the focus on reducing claims waiting periods.
Data covering call and claims wait times for the previous financial year will be released next week and is expected to show improvements across the board after 3,000 new staff were employed earlier in the year.
It is understood there has been a halving of the usage of congestion messages, or phone calls going unanswered, since January.
Services Australia’s general manager Hank Jongen said call times had improved since the March data.
“Overall Centrelink call wait times have fallen from an average of 31 minutes in January to around 25 minutes in June, depending on the day,” he said.
“We answered over 8 million calls through service officers and self-service lines from 1 January to 1 May 2024.
“The government has committed in the 2024-25 Budget to increasing the agency’s staffing levels to continue to improve services.
“We manage around one million phone contacts a week and staff are working hard to answer calls.”
2020 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.
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I wanted to link my Medicare to My Gov. When I logged in to MyGov with p/w, all my details came up on the screen, when I followed on to Medicare, I entered my details as per My Gov, and was toid they were incorrect !!?? I have been with medicare sincve inceptioin . I was also trying to get a refund or rebate on the cost of an ultra sound scan of my macula, that was carried out by OPSM, who charged me $75. I found out later that Specsavers Bulk Bill the same thing, so wondered who was benefitting from that $75 scan, me or OPSM I finally had to go to a medicare oiffice in a centrelink buiulding and get it all sorted, after 3 attempts on the phone @ 40 minuters plus each time, I gave up .
These wait times are fantasy and each time Centrelink release phone wait times I have checked by phoning ,mainly the Agedcare line.
I have been a carer for 4 years and the wait times are in hours not minutes.
And then often the poor staffer needs to transfer you to Centrelink.Another wait in hours.
I see a programme of age abuse is coming.
Surely the Govt by not providing a reasonable service to the elderly and sick abuses it’s own standards.
It really is quite appalling.
Thanks for your column.
It’s about time we held our inept Governments to account, Jong needs to go his management of Centrelink has been appalling about the time Centrelink was made efficient, no wonder our country is in such disarray. I think using Political parties to run our country is a total failure, hopefully, the upcoming generation can find a form of Government that works as we’ve had decades of hopeless appalling leadership.