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Centrelink, or the Department of Human Services, has gone through a lot of change over the past several years. What you most need to know is that even before the pandemic, staff numbers were being cut and contractors brought in to take the calls. Since call centres manage performance largely based on how quickly a call is finalised, and casual staff who don’t perform to expectation don’t get as much work … even none, this means that tricks like “accidentally” hanging up the phone add to the frustration of long wait times as more people try to get through to fewer operators. Add to that the complexity of all the programs they’re dealing with, and the time cost to look up reference material, even back in March last year it was clear the contractors were getting people off the phones by giving out wrong information, and the few staff who did know their stuff were being tied up fixing those problems.

Once the pandemic set in and Jobseeker numbers grew, you can imagine the rush to pull in staff. Robodebt already had the phone lines clogged so it was hard to get through, now more staff had to get pulled in, and they were transferred from all over the place. More contractors along with people from other departments, trying to give out information that was changing, dealing with systems that were due for overhaul as being “30 years old” and failing back in August 2019.

Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of people doing their best to help, but you need to bear in mind that most of the people you’ll be dealing with are likely to be stressed out themselves (at least one office didn’t even allow for social distancing, then stood down the casual employees who had to isolate after Covid 19 did break out) and often on the receiving end of a lot of vented frustration when people finally do get through. Please bear this in mind and don’t make their job any harder, tempting as it may be to vent after hours listening to on-hold muzac.

In a nutshell, if you get hold of somebody on the Centrelink phone line that gives you information you’re going to rely on, you MUST take a note of their name and the receipt number for your call.