Parents are being prevented from accessing the government's childcare rebate and other family payments because Centrelink staff are blocking phone lines and fudging caller wait times when reporting back to their bosses.
Centrelink has been flooded with calls in recent weeks in response to the government's controversial robo debt recovery scheme, which is designed to claw back billions of dollars in overpaid welfare payments but has faced criticism for high error rates.
As the new school year kicks in, parents have also taken to social media to complain that Centrelink's families assistance phone line is constantly engaged and it's making it difficult for them to process claims for the government's childcare rebate.
Lisa Newman deputy national president of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) says Centrelink's phone lines are being systematically blocked by staff when they are overwhelmed with caller inquiry.
"The telephone system blocks calls depending on call volumes and then it starts dumping calls," she says, adding that Centrelink staff are also "gaming" the phone lines.
It is not uncommon for callers to various Centrelink departments to be placed on hold for many hours before either being answered or the call is abruptly ended.
Centrelink staff went on strike over Christmas in pursuit of a pay rise and in response to the sacking of thousands of staff, many from the families assistance department.
Another strike is planned for next week, this time in response to the government's handling of the scheme and the bungling of incorrect debt notices being sent to hundreds of welfare recipients.
Casual and largely inexperienced workers were hired to replace many of the sacked Centrelink staff.
Newman says because of workplace pressures, a high number of casual staff are now "gaming" the phone system by fudging the caller wait times back to their bosses, to ensure they meet key performance indicators or KPIs.
By doing this they are able to "fudge" the actual wait time that they report back to government, but in truth the customer gets little benefit.
It's often reported that caller wait times to Centrelink or Medicare can be from six to 12 minutes on average. But what many people are experiencing are wait times of more than an hour.
"What the casuals are doing, they are not dealing with concerns, they are taking people out of one phone line queue and putting them into another queue," Newman says.
"What we have seen is a collapsing level of the capacity to provide basic services, and government and department officials are saying there is no problem.
"But there is a problem and anyone who has tried to use those services knows there is a problem."
A senior technical person at Centrelink privately verified to Fairfax Media this is what was happening.
It's not just Centrelink's phone lines that are frustrating Australians.
Reports have also emerged that branch staff are turning away parents who ask for face-to-face support on family assistance matters such as childcare benefits.
Staff at the Tweed Heads NSW branch told one mother last week that she'd be better off writing to her local member of parliament because staff were no longer technically trained to answer simple inquiries on the government's new myGov system, used to claim services such as the childcare rebate.
The Liberal Government is planning to overhaul childcare payments in July next year which would means test multiple childcare support payments, including the rebate.
Currently, the rebate is capped at about $7500 ar child for each financial year. Parents are encouraged to apply for it through the myGov system and can wait many weeks before knowing if they have been successful for money back.
The reforms also plan to streamline the digital processing system to make it easier for parents than it is through the myGov automated service.
A spokeswoman from the Department of Education says: "Families will be provided with appropriate support as the new IT system is introduced."
But Newman doubts it will improve services.
"We ask, and I have asked the (Human Services) department, what those changes will mean and whether they would increase a peak in demand, and they never get back to me," she says.
"Blind Freddie can see the department is in crisis. I have no reason to suspect that those changes will be handled any better than the Medicare, debt or student payments."
Centrelink was contacted for comment.
Bianca Hartge-Hazelman is a financial journalist and founder of women's money-goal magazine Financy.com.au.
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