Centrelink issued 2.8m busy messages to callers in only two months, amid a significant blowout to wait times that has prompted members of the federal crossbench to raise the alarm with the Albanese government.
Despite trends showing the agency is generally fielding fewer calls, data tabled by Services Australia in Senate estimates on Wednesday revealed over July and August only 23% of calls to Centrelink were answered, compared with 35% over the 2022-23 financial year.
Of the 41m calls to Centrelink made across the 2022-2023 financial year, just over 9m, or 22%, received a “congestion message”. Almost 13m, or 31%, were answered, and 4m were terminated by the person calling.
The agency received 8m calls in July and August this year, with 2.8m calls receiving a congestion message. The data showed 1.8m calls were answered, while 800,000 were terminated by the customer.
When call volumes become high, Services Australia turns on “congestion messaging”, where the call is answered by an automated voice which advises the caller that online services are available and then hangs up.
The average wait time in July and August was 32 minutes, compared with 22 minutes the previous financial year.
In comparison, the average with time between July 2022 and 31 January 2023 was 18.04 minutes and 4.06 minutes in 2020-21. Services Australia’s staff numbers were boosted significantly during the pandemic.
The agency has a target of answering 70% of calls within 15 minutes.
Overall, wait times are increasing despite the agency taking fewer calls, with Services Australia’s annual report revealing a decrease in calls to 55m in the 2022-23 financial year, compared with 73m the previous year.
Under questioning from the Greens senator Janet Rice, the Services Australia chief executive, Chris Birrer, said the current situation “did not meet our KPIs”.
“We would like to have better customer service performance in a number of measures and we’ve discussed some this morning,” he told Senate estimates. “It doesn’t meet our KPIs that we set for ourselves. We’re working to be as efficient and as disciplined as we can within the resources that we have.”
He said the July-August period was normally busier because it is tax time and the agency is taking a lot of claims.
“We do see a large number of calls from people wanting to reconcile their family tax benefit and childcare subsidy,” he said.
“What we also saw this year … was quite a number of calls relating to changes in eligibility of certain payments, including rental assistance.”
Birrer said use of the MyGov app and fewer calls relating to the pandemic and natural disasters were the reason for this drop.
It comes as several MPs from across the political spectrum wrote to the government services minister, Bill Shorten, about the long wait times, saying they are being contacted by a growing number of constituents who cannot get through to Centrelink.
The independent Allegra Spender has led crossbenchers including the other teal MPs, David Pocock and the Greens, who wrote to Shorten asking for a briefing on the matter.
“Since last year’s election, we have been consistently contacted by extremely distressed constituents who have been unable to reach Services Australia to have their issues or questions adequately addressed,” the letter reads. “As a result, their situations become increasingly urgent creating unnecessary stress and hardship in their lives.”
In a statement, Shorten said he had “consistently engaged” with Spender and the crossbench.
“She recently sent me a letter outlining some concerns she had about call wait times and requested a briefing, which I have arranged,” Shorten said.
“I agree this issue is causing frustration for Australians who access government services, but I’m not going to engage with rookie games.
“After 10 years of Liberal neglect this is not an overnight fix. No one in parliament would ever accuse me of not being available to meet with them.”
Guardian Australia understands a meeting is planned for the next sitting fortnight.
Jeremy Poxon from the Australian Unemployed Workers Union said the “service is currently in the worst shape we’ve ever seen”.
“We’ve never seen so many people getting congestion messages, having their calls blocked,” he said.
“The number of disconnections from basic service is completely unacceptable, and not even measured by Centrelink – helping them boost their calls data and pretend everything is still hunky dory.”
