Turnbull Government to boost Centrelink call centres with 1000 new staff

ONE thousand new staff will answer calls from pensioners, students and other welfare recipients in a bid to ease the frustrating wait times that plague Centrelink.

ONE thousand new staff will answer calls from pensioners, students and other welfare recipients in a bid to ease the frustrating wait times that plague Centrelink.

More than 33 million calls to the nation’s welfare agency went unanswered over the last year, with people who got through successfully waiting nearly 16 minutes to speak to an operator.

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The Turnbull Government will today announce a massive call centre expansion, likely to cost about $200 million over three years, in an effort to help Centrelink handle the one million calls it receives every week.

Human Services Minister Michael Keenan said the extra operators were needed to “help ease the burden on busy phone lines”.

“There are times — particularly during peak periods — when our customers tell us it is not always easy to get through on the phone,” he said.

“Our investment in these 1000 operators will greatly enhance our ability to answer more calls and ensure that the service we deliver is in line with customer expectations.”

The extra staff, who will be based in Australia, will be hired by private companies after a six-month trial of 250 call centre operators employed by Serco.

Human Services Minister Michael Keenan. Picture: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Those staff handled more than 1.4 million calls and Mr Keenan said they had helped halve the number of busy phone signals experienced by welfare recipients.

“An independent evaluation of the Serco pilot also found that staff were efficient and were giving the department greater flexibility around peak demand periods,” he said.

A recent Senate hearing was told that of the people who got through to Centrelink, 330,000 waited more than half an hour for their call to be answered, and 167,000 were on hold for more than an hour.

The government will launch a competitive tender for the expanded call centres after signing a three-year contract worth $50 million for the Serco trial.

Mr Keenan said it made “good business sense” to use private contractors instead of hiring extra public servants because fewer people were expected to call Centrelink in the years to come as more services became available online.

Most payment claims will soon be able to be lodged and processed online, with digital assistants available to answer questions to take the pressure off Centrelink’s phone lines.

Labor has argued that Centrelink is under-resourced and needs more permanent, qualified staff.

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