The Albanese Labor Government is presiding over a staffing crisis at Services Australia, with a top agency official conceding that understaffing is drastically impacting the delivery of vital government services and payments during the cost of living crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an interview on 3AW radio yesterday, Services Australia\u2019s long-time agency spokesperson, Mr Hank Jongen PSM, admitted that widespread delays to the processing of Paid Parental Leave was a result of understaffing, saying \u201cin reality, we are understaffed in our service delivery,\u201d adding that \u201cwe are currently actively trying to recruit staff to help us address call centre and processing delays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy Paul Fletcher said Government Services Minister Bill Shorten must urgently order a review into Services Australia\u2019s workforce arrangements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLabor has unleashed waves of job cuts at Services Australia without doing any proper planning which is clearly affecting service delivery,\u201d Mr Fletcher said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLabor cut average staffing levels for this financial year, going from 36,685 in 2022-23 to 35,956 in 2023-24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn June, 600 call centre jobs were axed after a multi-million contract with Serco was scrapped, with no public explanation offered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no wonder that Mr Shorten has repeatedly refused to release data about how long Australians are having to receive a Centrelink or Medicare payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAcross the country, major businesses are deploying smart technologies to improve how they engage with customers without increasing the headcount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLearning from the positive digital transformation journeys of the private sector and translating those lessons into the public sector should be on Mr Shorten\u2019s to do list.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Fletcher said digital technology could help address many of the government\u2019s service delivery challenges, but just isn\u2019t being prioritised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAustralians going online to access services via MyGov are also being let down by this government, which puts digital transformation in the too hard basket,\u201d Mr Fletcher said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOver 1000 specialist ICT jobs were abolished in December last year and, more than six months on, Mr Shorten still hasn\u2019t responded to the MyGov User Audit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe government needs to urgently review the viability of Services Australia\u2019s current workforce arrangements which includes an examination of the impact of its contractor cuts and the health of its digital service delivery channels.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Albanese Labor Government is presiding over a staffing crisis at Services Australia, with a top agency official conceding that understaffing is drastically impacting the delivery of vital government services and payments during the cost of living crisis. In an interview on 3AW radio yesterday, Services Australia\u2019s long-time agency spokesperson, Mr Hank Jongen PSM, admitted … Continue reading “Services Australia staffing crisis exposed on air”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22573,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22572\/revisions\/22573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}