E&OE TRANSCRIPT

SUBJECTS: Services Australia claims wait times reduced; increased staffing at Services Australia, using MyGov; cabinet reshuffle; immigration

DAVID SMITH, MEMBER FOR BEAN: I'm Dave Smith the Federal Member for Bean, and it's great to be here in the heartland of Bean at Services Australia here in Phillip with some great, great, great news. I'm here with the Minister for Government Services and the NDIS, although I think it's almost better to think about as human services, because this is a story about putting humans right back into human services, not just great public service jobs here in Canberra, but also delivering significant cuts to waiting times for complaints processing right across the country and reducing wait times for claims processing. Fantastic story nationwide but coming here from the heart of Bean, in Phillip. Bill?

BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Thank you. Dave Smith, there's no greater champion of the public service in the Federal Parliament than Dave Smith, always arguing for more permanent jobs. Some good news, some good news for Australians, good news for people who deal with Government. In the last six months, the Albanese Government has been able to reduce the mountain of outstanding claims from a peak of about 1.35 million outstanding Medicare and welfare claims. It's now down to under about 460,000. So, in other words, there's about 890,000 claims which have been outstanding, which have now been processed in the last few months.

That means that about $2.5 billion approximately, of outstanding payments are in the pockets of the people who need it, from parenting, from parental leave through to JobSeeker, through to pensions and in a cost-of-living crisis, this is crucial work. The reason why the Albanese Government has been able to reduce the claims by nearly a million is because we're putting the humans back into Services Australia. The Government made a very important decision in the last quarter of last year that we had to tackle the unacceptable increase in claim waiting times and indeed call waiting times. And what we've done is reversed a trend which, other than the Covid period, has been underway for the best part of a decade.

So, we've provided a table of how we've reduced on a whole lot of different payment categories, the time it takes, the days it takes for people to get what they are entitled to. I'm also pleased to say that about 20% of the calls which congest our phone lines are people saying, where are their payments at? So, as we've tackled the outstanding payment list, call waiting times have come down too, about six minutes in the case of welfare calls and about nine minutes in the case of Medicare calls.

So, what we're seeing is government doing the basics properly. When you’re owed some money, we want to make sure that you get it. And we want to make sure that you don't wait too long to get it. And we're also answering the calls quicker than we used to. We're not where we want to be yet, but we are certainly a lot better off than we've been for a number of years. And this is because of two simple reasons. This Government has put an extra 3000 public servants on the books to tackle the front-line issues, which are so important at cost of living crisis, and also, for the first time, we're seeing long term investment in government services and the roll out of myGov.

I'm pleased to say that in the last year, plus, 5.1 million people have now downloaded the myGov app and we haven't had to spend just about any dollars on advertising and we've seen more people using our digital channels. But this is a Government who recognises that when a Government does the basics properly, you can build some trust. We're not saying we've got everything correct yet. There's still a long waiting times on complicated payments and we want to get that down. But what we say to Australians, be it using Medicare or the welfare system or parenting payments or parental leave, is that you matter. And that's why we're putting humans back into the system. We want to keep reducing the waiting times for payment processing and phone calls. And we've also now got a four-year runway of investment in myGov. So, we say to people use digital, it's quickest, but if you don't want to use digital you can pick up the phone. You can come into one of our 318 call centres. And now we're finding - visitor centres like we have here, service centres. We're now finding that even here are over 60% of people who come in having their matters dealt with in 15 minutes. We've also got outreach workers as well.

So, whatever means you need to interact with government will be there with you on the journey and in a cost-of-living crisis. This is good news for people who need to get their money as quick as they can so they can make ends meet. Happy to take any questions people might have.

JOURNALIST: Minister, the disability support pension still takes 81 days to process. Why is that?

SHORTEN: Well, some pension applications are complicated. When you're applying for a disability pension, you've got to go through a series of tests. It's not the same as ringing up saying I've had my baby. So, some tests take longer. I want to get that down, though. Let's be clear. I want to get that down. But some of the tests, some of the pensions are not simply tick and flick.

JOURNALIST: So, is that the same for the Age Pension as well?

SHORTEN: Yeah, the Age Pension and the Disability Pension are probably some of the focuses we now have. But of course, as we put more public servants on, what we're able to do is put more resources into areas which traditionally have been put in the too hard basket or too long basket, I should say, in this case.

JOURNALIST: is there a best time to call to, you know, the time of day or whatever? So, you're avoiding the Iength of this.

SHORTEN: Oh, I don't want to give all the hacks. I'll leave that to the Facebook groups. So, if you can use the digital system, do that. That's quickest and easiest I know a lot of people, me included, use myGov to do my Medicare payments. But if for whatever reason, that's not appropriate, you might not have the access, you might not have the tech, you might not have the confidence, you can go to an office and you can call. So, we've got a range of ways in which you can communicate with the government. And there are different phone lines. I don't want to - we've created an advocate's phone line for people we’ve got - post the Robodebt Royal Commission, one of the recommendations was that we should have an advocate’s hotline where welfare advocates are able to ring through. We do that too. So, there's a lot of ways to contact Services Australia. Digital is good, but if you can't do that or don't want to do that, we've got 318 centres, we've got sub-agencies and we've also, of course got our phone system.

JOURNALIST: Is reducing waiting time and processing time just down to putting more people at desks doing that stuff?

SHORTEN: I think it's a couple of things. I think we're seeing more people over time build confidence about going online, but it is a people solution. If you want to get phones answered, if you want to get phones answered more quickly, if you want to be able to get through to Services Australia, then the Government needs to put more people on. If you want people's payments processed more quickly, you need people.

The reality is that in 2017 and roughly around then, the previous Government sort of fell in love with digital solutions, and that's not a bad thing, by the way. But they backed some of the software, which just didn't work. The problem is that at the same time as they were taking a bet on the software working, they started to say that the agency had to repay the cost of the software investment by reducing staffing numbers.

Now, we did have a blip during Covid where everything was all in, but since Covid, two things have happened. The software hasn't worked. The people reduction is affecting. And the third thing, of course, is that demand hasn't decreased in the way we thought it would. So, as we see across government services, state and federal, we're in a new normal where the digital channels are being used more than ever, but people still need to talk to humans more than ever. And that's what we're doing. We're trying to answer both propositions.

JOURNALIST: There's nothing more annoying, though, than calling up and waiting on hold music or whatever it is for half an hour at a time.

SHORTEN: Sure, sure. And time is precious. I will encourage people to use digital where you can, because then you don't have to listen to the music. You can do something else. But having said that, if you need to call, you can. We're not - we are not to where we want to be. Let me be very clear. We want to do better. Right now, it's tax time. So, we're having extra congestion. But the point of today's announcement is that this is the bread and butter of government work, making sure that Aussies can get their Medicare payments quickly, making sure if you've had a baby, you're getting your parental leave payments, making sure that if you're unemployed, you can get your Jobseeker quicker. Making sure we can help process pension applications. This is bread and butter work of governments. It's not particularly exciting. It's not particularly sexy. But this is what citizens want to see their governments do well. It hasn't been done as well as it should be, but on behalf of the thousands of people working all over Australia, answering the phones and processing the payments, the trend is our friend. And that's a good thing for everyday Aussies and the cost-of-living crisis.

JOURNALIST: Just another quick one. In the wake of the cabinet reshuffle, Tony Burke didn't waste much time heading off to Indonesia to talk about stopping the boats. This is a sign that maybe the previous Minister wasn't doing enough?

SHORTEN: No, I think you find that - it's great that Tony's gone to Indonesia. Excellent. But I think you'll also find that Clare O'Neil went there many times. And I'd say if you'd want to look at someone not wasting time, yesterday, Clare O'Neil was visiting the Vinnies in your own hometown here of Canberra, hearing from the homeless. So, I think you'll find that right across the Government, the Ministers in their new portfolios aren't going to die wondering about what they've got to do. And they're getting on with it, from Julie Collins with Agriculture to Murray Watt with industrial relations through to Tony Burke through to Clare O'Neil, they are all immensely talented people. And I think, you know, we're going to see great contributions from them all, as we have in the past.

JOURNALIST: Just on that same issue, there's some reports today that the surveillance aircraft around that, you know, great Northern expanse that's been dropping off over the years, is Government spending enough to stop the boats?

SHORTEN: Oh, listen, I'm not in a position to answer the specifics of, you know, flight patterns of a particular aircraft. But the general proposition, is the Government doing it? We are very committed. The reality is that Prime Minister Albanese and Minister Clare O'Neil, discovered a complete mess when we got in. They've had three separate inquiries looking at the problems from our immigration system, to have people rorting the visas, the dodgy migration agents. And there's been a lot of work done under the hood since we came in, and I'm very confident that the Government has absolute commitment to Operation Sovereign Borders, I know it is. It's been a policy in opposition. It's our policy in Government, complete commitment to making sure that we are maintaining the sovereignty of our borders, which we've been doing. Thanks, everybody.