Key Points
- Services Australia has apologised for the continued issue of long wait times for people trying to access Centrelink.
- The apology follows an announcement of a $228 million boost to the agency's budget along with hiring 3,000 staff.
- Services Australia customers have faced call wait times of up to four hours over the past nine years.
Almost three hours — that's how long one customer had to wait for a Services Australia agent to answer the phone.
At 2 hours and 54 minutes, it was the longest wait time experienced by a caller to Services Australia, the government agency that oversees Centrelink and Medicare, last financial year.
But it wasn't the lengthiest of the past nine years. That record was set in the 2016-17 and 2020-21 financial years, which both recorded longest wait times of 3 hours and 53 minutes.
A Services Australia spokesperson on Tuesday acknowledged lengthy wait times were an ongoing issue.
"Our wait times are longer than we'd like, and we're sorry some people are waiting longer than they should be," the spokesperson said in a statement.
The spokesperson said Services Australia manages around one million phone contacts and 10 million customer interactions a week — 90 per cent of which are digital.
"We encourage anyone who needs to speak to us to try again — people are getting through and our staff are working hard to answer calls," they said.
The data on the longest wait times was revealed in response to a question on notice put to Government Services Minister Bill Shorten by Liberal senator Maria Kovacic late last year.
Services Australia has a target of answering 70 per cent of calls within 15 minutes. In October last year, Senate Estimates heard that about 60 per cent met this target in 2022-23.
It was also revealed that of the 41 million calls made to the agency during that period, nine million received congestion messages — an automated system Service Australia activates during periods of high call volumes which directs a caller to use online services before ending the call.
Data tabled by Services Australia in Senate Estimates also showed the average wait time Centrelink callers faced in July and August was 32 minutes, up from 18 minutes a year earlier.
Centrelink handled 8 million calls over those two months, some 2.8 million of which received congestion messaging.
Over that same period the year prior, some 1.7 million of the 8.1 million Centrelink callers received a congestion message.
In November, the government announced a $228 million boost to Services Australia's budget, which would see 3,000 staff brought on in a bid to tackle the blow out in call wait times.
The majority of the new hires have started, with the remainder set to begin training by the end of this week, the Services Australia spokesperson said on Tuesday.
"These new staff will predominantly work on processing claims and answering calls as they are onboarded and trained," the spokesperson said.
Longest Services Australia call wait times
2014-15: 1 hour 52 minutes
2015-16: 2 hours 46 minutes
2016-17: 3 hours 46 minutes
2017-18: 3 hours 53 minutes
2018-19: 3 hours 22 minutes
2019-20: 3 hours 36 minutes
2020-21: 3 hours 53 minutes
2021-22: 3 hours 31 minutes
2022-23: 2 hours 54 minutes
Source: Services Australia
