Centrelink, can a human pick up the phone?

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Catherine Xie (Comment, 19/10) has highlighted a core frustration for most Australians – the inability of industry and government services in this country to provide the most fundamental of services – a human being to speak to in an organisation when a problem requires resolution. The use of technology and robot responses to minimise interaction with customers is unacceptable. Call centre non-responses or ludicrous waiting times have become the standard and are the subject of widespread commentary and criticism within the community.
The reputation of Centrelink in this regard is deplorable – rightly or wrongly. If the frustration and anger eventually triggers an individual act of physical violence by a desperate person towards a person or people in a non-communicating organisation, that organisation will scratch its head and ask: ″⁣Why did that happen?” Governments remain silent about this issue – they are among the major offenders. It’s time – to answer the phone, promptly.
Brian Kidd, Mt Waverley

Patience as a survival skill
Catherine Xie’s experiences in attempting to access Centrelink certainly hit a nerve. Lots of music in the 1300 telephone wait queue, calls arbitrarily being shut down, but if your patience is eventually rewarded by being asked (auto teleprompter) to identify the issue of concern by pushing a certain number on your keypad, it generally results in curt advice to go access their website and the call is terminated. (No wonder there is a Reddit site to share ″⁣work-arounds″⁣ to try to get to talk to a real person.) After so many calls from the same phone number, that phone is ″⁣banned″⁣ from any ″⁣further″⁣ access for the day.
My experience is that if the client gives up trying to contact the 1300 phone number from home and finds their way into a Centrelink office, reception will ask if the 1300 number has been called. Obviously, the answer is yes, but with all the issues documented by Ms Xie it’s unlikely that they will have had voice-to-voice contact. No worries, as reception will invite the client to sit in the waiting room and try that number again. It’s amazing that this time the client’s request recorded on the 1300 number answering service results in a call back within five minutes, which is of course before an officer has to meet face to face with the client. Most efficient.
Without wanting to start a run on Centrelink offices, if you do present in person, it’s disappointing that if you have a well-dressed support person you are treated with a little bit more courtesy.
There is a positive note. The office staff are mostly well intentioned, caring and sharing people, but often inexperienced and overrun despite the attempt by management to encourage clients to use the automated web and phone services. Management (and maybe politicians) should be forced to access their sick leave, annual leave entitlements and various travel and living away from home allowances via the Centrelink system. This would surely result in an improvement in the receptiveness of the system.
Name and address supplied

Giving up when it’s Centrelink
I really feel for Catherine Xie. A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from my electricity provider, telling me that I might be eligible for a considerable discount on my bill. My hopes soared until I realised that this involved going through Centrelink, and at that point I gave up. I’m fortunate to be in a position to do this. Students and many others reliant on Centrelink payments are in a diabolical position and I’m glad this has once again been highlighted.
Juliet Flesch, Kew

The centre cannot hold
After months of reading, hours of door-knocking, and volunteering 10 hours a day for a fortnight, every line of the referendum analysis (19/10) resonates with me. So did Catherine Xie’s experience, at the level of the individual citizen, of (no-link) Centrelink.
Vince Corbett, Essendon

FORUM

Hit the pedal on EVs
I hope the High Court decision to reject EV road taxes is a good indicator of where we’re headed (“High Court zaps state electric vehicle levy”, 19/10). Why did the Victorian government ever go down that road in the first place? Vehicle pollution is helping to fuel the weather disasters that are costing our state governments dearly.
A pollution tax would be more appropriate.
Taxing electric vehicles will only lead to a dead-end. EV uptake needs to accelerate. It even makes fiscal sense.
Anne O’Hara,
Wanniassa, ACT

User must pay
Motorists should fund their roads. It’s unfair for them to be subsidised by the wider public at the expense of other modes of transport. Usage-based pricing is the fairest approach. Scrapping the EV levy amounts to a long-term but fairly small subsidy to EV users. This is a wasteful and ineffective policy to drive EV transition.
We need usage-based vehicle levies and much larger, short-term subsidies for EVs, targeted by income, to accelerate adoption.
Gregory Hill, Brunswick

Save the green spaces
Like your correspondent (Letters, 19/10), I am worried that the green spaces around our city are being lost. Meanwhile, Sydney Road and High Street, specifically my local one, but in all likelihood yours too, reveal huge numbers of abandoned shops, graffitied warehouses with broken windows and even empty blocks. Many have been unoccupied for several years.
Can anyone explain why we cannot find a way to use these pointless, wasteful extravagances to provide well-serviced housing?
Lesley Walker,
Northcote

Scandinavian nous
The correspondent (19/10) who ″⁣imagines an aspirational society in which genuine attempts are made to ensure that each student is able to access resources″⁣ needs to look no further than the much lauded Scandinavian nations. Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway fund schools where the ethos, like their host societies, has a democratic, equitable temper. Private schools are rightly relegated to a peripheral status. Each nation performs creditably across international tables.
By contrast, the replica ″⁣colonial″⁣ Etons and Harrows, which are dotted across the Australian landscape with no obvious intellectual relevance or raison d’etre, should wither on the vine and allow the literal ″⁣public schools″⁣ to thrive.
Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza

Time to act
I suspect your correspondent (19/10) fails to appreciate the irony in his own opinion on the Voice result. It is Anglo-Australians, who as a result of colonialisation, continue to hold a position of privilege over First Nations people.
The proposed constitutional amendment sought to enshrine a different way of dealing with the multitude of social and economic problems faced by Indigenous people as a result of colonialisation.
Hardly hereditary privilege – but rather a recognition that it is time to listen and do what is required to overcome their extreme disadvantage.
Andrew Blair, St Kilda

Alarm bells
Niki Savva’s article (Comment, 19/10) is both insightful and alarming. The way the Voice was played out by Peter Dutton not only demonstrated a lack of vision or leadership, but took it to depths that are dangerous and disingenuous.
What is at stake is the future direction of how political discourse will be based on manipulation, lies and misinformation. In many ways the Voice referendum is an alarm bell ringing loudly, to which we must be cognisant so our fragile democracy does not disintegrate.
Judith Morrison,
Nunawading

Who will walk with Long?
Michael Long spent 18 days walking from Melbourne to Canberra in support of the Voice. Despite overwhelming support from Indigenous people, most Australians ignored his invite to ″⁣walk beside him″⁣. Will he undertake the annual ″⁣Long Walk″⁣ from Federation Square to the MCG for the Dreamtime game next year? One could understand if he decided otherwise.
Indigenous greats Adam Goodes and Cyril Rioli walked away from the game, never to return. No doubt the AFL (who supported the Voice) will spend up big next season to promote yet another Indigenous round and to celebrate Indigenous players. But after last Saturday’s emphatic No result, does this amount to little more than an annual window-dressing exercise to make supporters feel good about themselves?
Richard Willcock, Albert Park

What’s the plan now?
Does the opposition know how silly they look? Bridget McKenzie is calling for the Albanese government to come up with a new policy on Indigenous affairs days after she helped defeat a referendum that would have enabled the implementation of Labor’s policy. Surely it’s now down to the opposition and all the other knowledgeable, smart and empathetic supporters of the No vote to come up with their own policy, one that has the backing of all the ATSIC groups that were present and contributed to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Defeating the referendum was easy, now do the hard work.
Ian Porter, Kensington

A broken heart
Nearly a week after the referendum and I am still deeply saddened. I live in the Mallee, which had the highest No count in the state. I had tried to reach out to the community with a couple of discussion picnics for those who were undecided, but there was little response apart from those of us who were voting Yes.
The ecstatic rejoicing on social media after the ballot count made me ask what they had actually won. What was the prize? No one has given me an answer that makes any sense or logic. Many I spoke to before the vote happily conceded that all their information came from memes on social media and proudly stated they don’t read mainstream media.
I had tried to explain algorithms to no avail. Of course, some had done their research and I admire that, but most I spoke to just didn’t care.
It is disheartening to feel that somany in my community are either wilfully ignorant or racist.
I don’t want to believe we are racist, so I’ll go with apathy and gullibility. I am heartsore, ashamed and embarrassed – and my town is going about life as if nothing has happened.
But then again, most of Australia won’t agree with me and think it’s old news, so what do I know?
Rachel Buckley, Dunolly

Flawed reasoning
It’s hard to understand your correspondent’s reasoning (Letters, 19/10) in comparing Australia’s support for Israel after the deadliest barbaric attack on Israelis with the tragic explosion of a Gazan hospital that killed hundreds of innocent Palestinians without even knowing who was responsible. One was a well-planned attack by Hamas intent to inflict as much carnage and pain against Israeli civilians as possible, while bombing a hospital would have been unintentional irrespective of who’s responsible.
Henry Herzog, St Kilda East

Global pressure needed
Israel had nothing to gain and everything to lose from the hospital bombing in Gaza, especially on the eve of the arrival of Joe Biden. Hamas and its supporters had everything to gain (accidental bombing or not) and nothing to lose given that it constitutes their ideal propaganda, and they have shown time and again to have no respect whatever for human life, be it that of the enemy or of their own people. One can only hope that this tragedy leads to world pressure for de-escalation with the ultimate deaths of fewer innocents.
Ruja Varon, Malvern

Two states a pipe dream
The general-secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, Mustafa Barghouti, claims that Israel wants to ethnically cleanse 2.2 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. That is plain nonsense. He neglects to mention that the Gaza Strip is controlled by Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation whose charter makes it quite clear that Israel should be wiped off the map.
Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iranian medieval Islamic government has also stated the same and a former president attended the United Nations and claimed that Israel had no right to exist. The brutal and deadly invasion of Israel by Hamas this month just confirms these intentions.
Why would any Israeli government or any citizen of Israel accept a two-state solution and have a terrorist state on its border that wants to wipe it off the map? While Hamas has Israeli citizens as hostages, presumably to use as bargaining chips to release thousands of Hamas terrorists from Israeli jails, talk of a two-state solution is just a pipe dream.
Coke Tomyn, Camberwell

Equality of a life
In the Hamas/Israeli war, innocent children are dying on both sides. The blood of the dying children of both sides is the same. On both sides, the parents of those dying children mourn just as much. The value of one life is the same as any other.
Greg Tuck, Warragul

Help the innocent
Despite our cost of living pressures, please if you can, give to nonpartisan organisations like Medecins Sans Frontiers and Red Cross who are attempting, despite horrendous conditions, to assist the innocent and injured no matter what their religion or beliefs. Our pressures are nothing compared with theirs.
Jenny Callaghan,
Hawthorn

AND ANOTHER THING

Global politics
The Gaza hospital explosion shows how amazing and brave the medical staff are. What a wonderful example of sacrifice and courage.
Mary Fenelon, Doncaster East

The ″⁣other team″⁣, Joe Biden? If only this were a game.
Matt Dunn, Leongatha

Biden flies into Israel and embraces Benjamin Netanyahu. How provocative, but then Biden knows that he faces an election next year.
Robert Saunders, Box Hill North

The US, like Russia and China, use their vote to veto any UN declaration that is critical of the abuse by one of its partners. A sad world.
Roger Christiansz, Wheelers Hill

To your correspondent (19/10), this conflict began in 1967 with the Six-Day War.
Keith Lawson, Melbourne

EVs
Thanks High Court for saving plug-in hybrid owners from paying two sets of excise.
George Reed, Wheelers Hill

Who would have thought it? Electric vehicles now running around Victoria “free of charge”.
Greg Oates, Huon Creek

As an owner of an electric car I am happy to pay the state EV tax. Now that the High Court has quashed the state’s rights to levy this charge, from where will the money come for road maintenance?
James Young, Mt Eliza

How do EV owners propose to pay their share of road upkeep rather than leave it to those of us who cannot afford an expensive car?
Frank O’Connor, Heathmont

Furthermore
A word to the earnest and confused: do you think baristas might be having a game of their own with your names (Comment, 19/10)?
John Whelen, Box Hill Sth

I used to be proud to be Australian but that is no longer the case.
Paul Thomas, Essendon

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