How the system works

days — for it to get processed. And, no, they won’t issue back payments for the time it takes them to process my form. To make a long story short, I walked out feeling deflated and stupid.

While I know I should have begun this process earlier, say before her conception was even considered, it still poses the question: why is this process so difficult?

I remember when I was a university student, hoping to apply for Austudy. I went to Centrelink, waited my turn and then worked with the staff member who assisted me in setting up an application.

It was done then and there. Yes, it was a long and tiring process, but it was done together and I left the building knowing that my application was correct, rather than having to wait 38 days to discover I had misunderstood a question or filled in the wrong form altogether.

How has a place that was designed by the government to assist people who need just that, assistance, become so unhelpful? It makes me wonder what kind of support the people seeking urgent help for basic necessities like a roof over the head or food to feed their families receive.

At the risk of sounding like one of those people who begrudge the way the digital world is changing, I’m going to put my neck on the block and say I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s due to the lack of people on hand — either over the phone or in Centrelink branches — that is the root cause of so many welfare-related nightmares.

There’s a lack of people who genuinely care because they have been instructed to treat people like numbers and to suspect everyone is a welfare fraudster. You can see it has been drummed into them to direct everyone online, rather than spend the time with them to ensure they have the basic services to, you know, survive the basics.

We see endless stories about how the Department of Human Services, which includes Centrelink under its portfolio, has failed to meet its own targets for processing age and disability support pension claims, with the number of those processed within its target time falling about 20 per cent over the past three years.

Not surprisingly, the delays coincide with a six-year reduction of about 5000 jobs across the Department of Human Services since 2010-11, including many in Centrelink, and, according to news reports, there will be more to come.

Centrelink staff have been criticised for not processing payments at the same time they have endured 5000 job cuts over the past six years. There’s a clear correlation here. It’s not rocket science.

And the majority of the people caught up in this quagmire of a system aren’t the ones the Government says are deliberately looking to rip taxpayers off but the people who are genuinely trying to do the right thing and get the support they are entitled to and, in many cases, desperately need.

Maybe we should get the 200,000-plus alleged welfare cheats in to run Centrelink for a while and see how they go. It couldn’t be much worse than the current faceless system we all know, could it? Plus if anyone knows how to stop the system being scammed, it’s the ones doing the scamming. Sarah Morgan is a freelance journalist and communications professional.