Centrelink rage! - Centrelink services getting worse

Twenty eight million dollars spent on adds and the services are getting worse. As usual it's the Centrelink computer, the phone lines, and the long waits in line if you physically go into an office. The opposition is describing Centrelink as almost unusable.

Of course this is old news for anyone who's ever had the misfortune of dealing with Centrelink. When I went back to work after illness some years back I ended up with a $600 over-payment that I had to pay back, simply because I had returned to work and couldn't get a hold of them to update my circumstances. You can't wait on line for nearly an hour when you're at work. All we got was a half hour lunch with a morning tea ten minutes. That was before I went online to deal with them.

Online Centrelink. Ah yes, the great white hope. There will never be a Centrelink line again and the phones will be answered straight away! Well I guess that was the idea, but alas to no avail. The online system is simply completely outdated and can't handle the volume of traffic the unrepresentative and incompetent Canberra swill thinks it can. Some dopey minister comes up with these grand ideas and has about as much technical internet experience and Tony fuckin Abbott FFS!

So when the internet site fails, and you can't get through on the phones, you storm down to the local office trying to calm the rage inside you. The line is out the door because nobody can use their internet site or get through on the phones. You get to the counter finally, only to be told that what you are trying to do cannot be accomplished there at the office and that you have to do it online! Fucks sake!

One time I went into the office, they sat me at an un-attended help desk, and put me on the phone to the Centrelink help line that I could have rung at home! The Centrelink help line people couldn't fuckin believe it! That I was actually in the Centrelink office calling them! 

Doug Cameron, the Opposition's spokesman for Human Services, reported a spike in complaints about Centrelink's service delivery. 

He said Centrelink's services were almost "unusable" for people. "You can't get access to their account, then when they ring up the phone lines are jammed, they can't get on the phones, when they go into a Centrelink office the lines are out the door," Mr Cameron said. 

Mr Cameron said it was ironic given that the Government had spent $28 million on ads. 

"To say that they are innovative, and yet they cannot deliver basic services through the technology … it's just an absolute joke," he said. ABC