Entertainment

Angela Bishop brands Centrelink ‘outrageous’ after parents’ welfare blocked

Dec 19, 2018

Angela Bishop hit out at Centrelink over waiting times and its website. Source: Twitter/Studio 10.

Angela Bishop has slammed Centrelink in a passionate speech on Studio 10 after it was claimed some struggling parents are having their welfare payments suspended and are being forced to rely on charities for food to get them through the weekend.

The 51-year-old TV star was responding to a plea from peak employment body Jobs Australia, urging jobs minister Kelly O’Dwyer to overhaul the government’s pre-employment scheme ParentsNext and temporarily remove it from targeted compliance framework (TCF).

Being part of this framework means participants — most of whom are single mums — are required to attend a compulsory activity, such as playgroup, and report their income every fortnight in order to receive their parenting payment. If they fail to report on either of these, the payments can be temporarily suspended.

Should that happen on a Friday, it can mean they go all weekend without their usual payment as Centrelink is closed until Monday. In this case, the Guardian reports the government simply refers them to charities to get food to keep them going until staff are back in the office again.

Among these cases was reportedly a woman who had her payments suspended because she was admitted to hospital while 33 weeks pregnant — meaning she could not report to Centrelink when she needed to. Meanwhile, Jobs Australia claimed the issues have been made worse as many participants haven’t been able to get through to the government body due to delays on customer service lines.

Hitting out at the program as a whole, Angela claimed its down to “failings” within Centrelink itself and said a lack of staff, long call waiting times and a website that is prone to breakages are all to blame.

.@AngelaBishop slams Centrelink's lack of organisation after single mothers were told to turn to charity for food because their welfare payments have been wrongly suspended. #Studio10 pic.twitter.com/awJoaxP1f5

— Studio 10 (@Studio10au) December 18, 2018

“Let me guess, they [the parents] couldn’t have reported to Centrelink because they wouldn’t have been able to get on the MyGov website,” she said on Wednesday’s show. “And then if they tried to make a call, they would have been put on hold for seven hours while they tried to get through to someone. It is outrageous.

“Then when they finally do get through to someone, the excuse they’re given [is], ‘Oh it’s Friday, we can’t do anything with the paperwork because nobody works over the weekend. Yes we understand you’re going to starve but tough cheese, you’re just going to have to wait until Monday – go ask for some charity’.”

She added: “That is another failing of Centrelink which this government has failed to address. It has to get that organisation ship shape, get the website working, hire enough people to answer the goddamn phone when people have a problem and fix these problems pronto.”

Jobs Australia now reportedly wants ParentsNext to be temporarily removed from the targeted compliance framework (TCF), which is the system that sees payments suspended if participants don’t attend certain activities, until the program can be redesigned “in consultation with providers and other stakeholder groups”, the Guardian reports.

The Senate have since confirmed they will be conducting an inquiry into the impact of the program on vulnerable parents.

Jobs Australia CEO Debra Cerasa said in a statement: “The newly announced Senate Inquiry into ParentsNext is necessary and important. Concerns about ParentsNext have been raised by our members and we are pleased that the Senate has responded.

“We hear from our members that current arrangements for ParentsNext are causing harm to vulnerable parents on income support. This requires investigation.”

A spokesperson for the department of jobs and small business told Starts at 60 in a statement that the majority of the 75,000 people referred to ParentsNext are benefiting from it and are gaining help in planning and preparing for employment

“The Targeted Compliance Framework has many safeguards to ensure that parents are not inappropriately or unfairly penalised,” they added.

“The Department of Jobs and Small Business is currently preparing a response to the Senate inquiry into ParentsNext. One of the topics the department will address in its submission is the application of the TCF to ParentsNext.”

Department of Human Services General Manager Hank Jongen told Starts at 60: “There are a number of ways for people to report their income to us: online through myGov, via the Express Plus Centrelink app, by dialling 13 EARN or visiting service centre.

“People can also visit our service centres to use our phone or online services and to receive help with online reporting.

The statement went on to respond to the claims customers have been left waiting on the phone and added: “The Department meets its target of answering calls within an average of 16 minutes. But we believe we can do even better which is why we are hiring an additional 2750 call centre staff to further improve customer service.

Meanwhile, they insisted in the statement that myGov was available “99.9 per cent of the year, exceeding the target of 99.5 per cent availability” throughout last year and added: “People having trouble accessing their myGov account may also need to update to a more recent version of their internet browser.”