Beleaguered Centrelink staff are bracing for a "perfect storm" of customer service problems in the coming weeks, heaping more misery on the welfare agency's millions of clients, according to the main workplace union.
The ongoing debt recovery debacle already has public servants at Centrelink stretched to breaking point, the CPSU is warning, and the agency's workers will soon have to cope with hundreds of thousands of student benefit applications and pensioners trying to make sense of changes to their payments.
But the department says customer demand is normal for this time of year.
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Fairfax has also been told there is a "pecking order" to debt cases for review with clients who have gone to the media or a minister with their grievances moved to the front of the queue.
Centrelink says cases are prioritised according to hardship and the client's need of assistance.
The union says its members working on the controversial debt recovery scheme are reporting that nearly all the debts they are being asked to review turn out be bogus with cases, such as a demand for $9000 from a client who really owed just $90, pointing to a complete system failure.