Centrelink customers reveal months of frustrating call hang ups—are you one of them?

For many Australians, Centrelink plays a vital role in providing income support, family assistance payments, and other essential services.

But lately, customers have become increasingly frustrated as long wait times and dropped calls become the norm when trying to contact the agency.

This is not just an inconvenience, but a significant issue for those who rely on Centrelink.



One disability support pensioner, Kathy Parrey, noticed last month that her disability support pension had stopped.

Due to her disability, she is unable to visit a Centrelink office and has been trying to get through on the phone for four weeks.


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Centrelink customers reported that their calls are being hung up on. Image source: Shutterstock.


Kathy's experience is not unique. She's one of many Australians who claim they can't get through to Centrelink, regardless of how many times they call.

'If you don't choose the automation process, the next thing you get is, “Well, we're very busy, goodbye”…and you're just cut off,' she said.

'You can ring 20, 30, 40, 50 times a day, it doesn't matter.'



Bernadette Lohrey-Toms and her husband Peter share a similar story.

The couple, currently travelling from Queensland to Melbourne to visit family after Peter's retirement, expected that the application for the pension would be a straightforward process.

However, they were told they would have to wait five months.

'He's 69 years old, he's worked his whole life, he's never claimed Centrelink ever, and he's told also five months,' Bernadette shared.

'I don't understand why they're not being funded adequately (enough) that they can at least answer the telephone.'

General Manager of Services Australia, Hank Jongen, defended the five-month wait to get on the pension, saying, 'Look, age pension is a payment, where we're putting someone onto a payment for life.'

'And what that means is that we need to be absolutely certain that we have all the information validated.'

However, he admitted that the current customer delays in accessing government welfare were 'not acceptable'.

'We're in a situation where, despite the best efforts of our staff, our customers are waiting longer to have their payments processed than they should be,' Jongen added.

'There's no question that this is [a] disadvantage [for] some of our customers. It's a matter of grave concern for us.'



The impact of these delays and hang-ups is far-reaching.

Dr Domenique Meyrick from Financial Counselling Australia shared that its counsellors are experiencing an overflow of calls from people waiting on welfare help.

'It's really unfortunate to have a system that's designed to help, actually causing harm or increasing harm. It's making life more difficult for people,' Dr Meyrick said.



Services Australia is currently sitting on 1.1 million unprocessed claims, but Jongen said it has onboarded 3000 new staff to get through the backlog.

'3000 staff is a significant number of staff to bring on board…and in fact, we've recruited closer to 5000,' Jongen said.

Charlotte McKay is one of the new starters and has just completed two months of intensive training.

'It's always busy, we are working as hard as we can, as efficiently as we can to get things done,' she said.



Services Australia hopes to reduce the number of unprocessed claims by half, which may also reduce the number of people needing to call in.

'Current delays are not acceptable, and we are very conscious of that,' Jongen reiterated.

'And we feel that once those staff are brought on board, the situation will improve.'

'It's always disappointing to hear the stories of our customers' experiences but those disappointments are shared by our staff.'

'Make no mistake, the staff in this organisation are focused on and committed to providing the best quality service.'

In the meantime, customers like Kathy are left to navigate the system as best they can. Kathy has since hired a carer to accompany her to a Centrelink office to get her issue sorted.



In similar news, data presented by Services Australia revealed that approximately 7,444,939 calls to the agency received a congestion message in the year to the end of December.

This means that these calls were not answered but instead were directed to a voicemail system.

In addition to this, over 2 million calls were reportedly terminated by customers, likely due to long wait times.

You can read more about this here.
Key Takeaways

  • Centrelink customers are experiencing prolonged delays and claim they are being hung up on during phone calls.
  • Disability support pensioner Kathy Parrey has had her payments stopped and is struggling to get through to Centrelink for resolution.
  • Services Australia General Manager Hank Jongen admits the delays in processing welfare payments are not acceptable and have disadvantaged customers.
  • Services Australia has hired 3000 new members of staff, with the aim of reducing the backlog of 1.1 million unprocessed claims to improve service and help alleviate the need for customers to call in.
Have you had a similar experience with Centrelink? Share your story in the comments below.
 
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I am sorry for your lack of service from centerlink may I suggest you email this minister stating your frustration & demanding an explanation, as for the promised expansion in center link staff levels they need to learn English first as many of them are from over seas Email [email protected].
 
I am sorry for your lack of service from centerlink may I suggest you email this minister stating your frustration & demanding an explanation, as for the promised expansion in center link staff levels they need to learn English first as many of them are from over seas Email [email protected].
 
Sick of the same talk..'we are aware', 'we are doing our best', 'we've put on more staff' etc etc...but things keep getting worse!
The current situation is untenable. Thousands of experienced staff were laid off under the previous government, and now many now don't have the necessary knowledge /experience to deal with and process situations.

I worked in the public service in the distant past, there was always a 'go slow' attitude and work ethic, in fact it was encouraged! This is no longer acceptable, but seems to have been carried through.
That being said, my own experiences when dealing with Clink staff for any issues has been ok, apart from being non contactable by phone 99.9% of the time.
No more excuses, this situation MUST be addressed urgently.
I can tell you now that there is NO "go slow" attitude within Centrelink and it helps no one to spread that disinformation. Yes back in the 80's when I first started in the public service there was that attitude and that is one of the reasons I left and went back into private enterprise. In the late 90's I rejoined the public service in what was then Dept Social Security (now Centrelink) and there is NO "go slow" at all. In fact, they are monitored to the last second and time that could be spent on the phones helping customers is spent in monthly one-on-one "coaching sessions" where they are given the statistics of how many calls they have taken, how long each call was, how much information they input into the computer for each call etc. They are abused by management and they are abused by customers and I am so glad I retired 15 years ago! If anyone needs to be raked over the coals it is upper management as they cannot hold on to staff due to the way they are treated, and those they do have were, for a number of years, temp and casual staff who had little to no training. The staff were cut to the bone under the previous government and now they are recruiting more staff it will take some time to get them all trained to the point where they can accurately answer customer queries. I understand the frustration the customer feels and I can assure you many of the staff feel the same way as they want your issues resolved too.
 
Been hearing the same old excuse for so long it's beginning to run a bit thin.
5000 new employees,should be well trained by now. A backlog
of one million. applications, that's 200 applications each in my estimation, not withstanding all the original staff. If they only processed ten applications each a day, that would clear the backlog in four weeks.
Just how slow do they work. Maybe they should hire a team
of snails or perhaps tortoises, I'm positive they could work faster.
Having done many temp office jobs, in various public service departments,many years ago, it appears that nothing has improved.
Working at the rate you suggested would clear the backlog in 4 weeks but that would only be that backlog. In the meantime more applications are coming in & so they are behind yet again.

OH BUGGER! WHEN WILL THIS END? I THINK I NEED TO TAKE STRESS LEAVE!
 
For a long time I thought I was one of the few to have call disruptions with CentreLink. I am now afraid to attend my local office at Browns Plains due to conflicting stories from staff there. The last straw came when one of the interviewing staff was intent on investigating "fraud" because I failed to submit updates. Those updates were sent however, the web site failed to record them. It was difficult for me to attend in person due to my physical disabilty. Now I am left with wasting a great deal of time waiting "on hold" or simply being cut off. I am left to wonder who is going to repay my time and phone/internet bill. If CentreLink want us to pay them they are very quick to demand it. Big shout out though. On one occasion via the help/complaint line 13 23 00 the staff member really went above and beyond to help me and get the whole matter resolved.
 
They are waiting for us to die.As a person with breast cancer I have had no extra financial help.For example after chemo I have to get public transport when I have no immune system.I have almost died once due to this ,by getting Covid,Sepis,and Pneumonia at the same time.Would have been cheaper to pay a $20 taxi fee,than 5 days in intensive care,and five in the ward.When will some one help or even care?
 
Why the hell cant they establish a payment immediately just to cover their basic needs like rent power and food ... waiting five months could mean some people would be out on the street or forced to sell some of their precious belongings.... we all or most of us know that the governments are all illegal and corrupt
 

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