Centrelink debt notices - Turnbull govt reaches new levels of arse clown-ness

Philip's and Friends' Political Analysis & Satire
Information to hand from Canberra suggests the Essential Poll numbers have renewed more speculation of head counting in the Liberal Party . The Prime Ministers staff are again working the telephones to the Back Benchers to keep the numbers . Mitch Fifield is said to be keeping tight lipped as to where his support might lay . Dutton and Abbott supporters are taking soundings
 
I wonder how much money Serco has received from this government? Off/on-shore detention centres now Centrelink call centres.

https://www.serco.com/media/1609/1609.original.pdf
https://www.serco.com/media/1573/1573.original.pdf
https://www.serco.com/media/2188/se...vent-presentations-13-dec-2017.pdf?1513256749


It makes you wonder why the government continues with Serco and continues with the poor performing model at centrelink. What is it about government that leads to these outcomes? and why does government accept these outcomes?
 
Mar 19, 2008
59,367
64,009
Narre Warren North
AFL Club
St Kilda
Other Teams
.
There is something wrong with the way Centerlink operates.
If it is established that someone is entitled to a Healthcare card , and they apply for the Healthcare card they should just get the Healthcare card. They should not need to call someone about it 5 times with a 20 minute discussion each time. Multiply these calls by LOTS ( and its not just healthcare cards ) and then its no-wonder their telephones are overloaded.

In the olden days the tax forms ( you used to look them up manually ) would have a column for people with no dependants and columns for those with dependants that allowed them to pay less tax. It was all done by the employer, and pretty easily too.

Now you report how much you will earn next year ( phonecall ), guessing in the case of overtime, or special payments, but sometimes , if you are on a Salary , knowing exactly how much you will earn.
They then make up a slightly higher amount to determine the payment , either way its likely to be wrong. ( phonecall ).

Idiots working in a system designed by idiots.
 
Mar 19, 2008
59,367
64,009
Narre Warren North
AFL Club
St Kilda
Other Teams
.
I am going to spread a new term #cashuals

Those people working for cash only to avoid the systems in place
Those needing assistance deciding to not register cash payments for work done

They build a trap for themselves.
Often they get paid well below the award, and no holiday's , sick leave or workers compensation. Then, because some people are happy to do it, unscrupulous small business owners try to push people into it.
My wife quit her job rather than "make waves" when a shonky bought the cafe she worked in.
Buy business , force pay cut , cash payments , totally illegal.
 
Mar 21, 2016
73,835
116,743
Down South Corvus Tristis
AFL Club
Adelaide
Other Teams
Sturt, White Sox
They build a trap for themselves.
Often they get paid well below the award, and no holiday's , sick leave or workers compensation. Then, because some people are happy to do it, unscrupulous small business owners try to push people into it.
My wife quit her job rather than "make waves" when a shonky bought the cafe she worked in.
Buy business , force pay cut , cash payments , totally illegal.
They certainly do. So what happens is they apply for Government assistance and lie through their teeth about any #cashual payment
 
There is something wrong with the way Centerlink operates.
If it is established that someone is entitled to a Healthcare card , and they apply for the Healthcare card they should just get the Healthcare card. They should not need to call someone about it 5 times with a 20 minute discussion each time. Multiply these calls by LOTS ( and its not just healthcare cards ) and then its no-wonder their telephones are overloaded.

In the olden days the tax forms ( you used to look them up manually ) would have a column for people with no dependants and columns for those with dependants that allowed them to pay less tax. It was all done by the employer, and pretty easily too.

Now you report how much you will earn next year ( phonecall ), guessing in the case of overtime, or special payments, but sometimes , if you are on a Salary , knowing exactly how much you will earn.
They then make up a slightly higher amount to determine the payment , either way its likely to be wrong. ( phonecall ).

Idiots working in a system designed by idiots.

especially as they will need to enter that information into a data base. why not simply set up a database.........as they already have that can monitor activities on bank accounts, tax returns etc. That way the information gathering process is accurate, real time, efficient and only the anomalies have to be followed up?
 
Mar 21, 2016
73,835
116,743
Down South Corvus Tristis
AFL Club
Adelaide
Other Teams
Sturt, White Sox
especially as they will need to enter that information into a data base. why not simply set up a database.........as they already have that can monitor activities on bank accounts, tax returns etc. That way the information gathering process is accurate, real time, efficient and only the anomalies have to be followed up?
Like MyGov then?
 
Nov 28, 2011
19,312
33,375
Melbourne
AFL Club
Adelaide
Other Teams
LIVFC
There is something wrong with the way Centerlink operates.
If it is established that someone is entitled to a Healthcare card , and they apply for the Healthcare card they should just get the Healthcare card. They should not need to call someone about it 5 times with a 20 minute discussion each time. Multiply these calls by LOTS ( and its not just healthcare cards ) and then its no-wonder their telephones are overloaded.

In the olden days the tax forms ( you used to look them up manually ) would have a column for people with no dependants and columns for those with dependants that allowed them to pay less tax. It was all done by the employer, and pretty easily too.

Now you report how much you will earn next year ( phonecall ), guessing in the case of overtime, or special payments, but sometimes , if you are on a Salary , knowing exactly how much you will earn.
They then make up a slightly higher amount to determine the payment , either way its likely to be wrong. ( phonecall ).

Idiots working in a system designed by idiots.

Even though I haven't had any Centrelink payments for about 4 years (when I finished uni) I haven't exactly worked fulltime and I'm pretty certain that a ~$20k yearly income qualifies for a healthcare card -- Can't be bothered applying for one because god damn it I hate having to deal with them in any way whatsoever
 

Rob R

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 17, 2009
5,406
6,005
AFL Club
Hawthorn
There is something wrong with the way Centerlink operates.
If it is established that someone is entitled to a Healthcare card , and they apply for the Healthcare card they should just get the Healthcare card. They should not need to call someone about it 5 times with a 20 minute discussion each time. Multiply these calls by LOTS ( and its not just healthcare cards ) and then its no-wonder their telephones are overloaded.

In the olden days the tax forms ( you used to look them up manually ) would have a column for people with no dependants and columns for those with dependants that allowed them to pay less tax. It was all done by the employer, and pretty easily too.

Now you report how much you will earn next year ( phonecall ), guessing in the case of overtime, or special payments, but sometimes , if you are on a Salary , knowing exactly how much you will earn.
They then make up a slightly higher amount to determine the payment , either way its likely to be wrong. ( phonecall ).

Idiots working in a system designed by idiots.

Having sadly worked with the government for many years on a range of projects, the saddest part is that the root cause of the problems (regardless of the government in power) remains the same - we are running projects in Canberra using an out of touch with reality workforce that is drawn from two pretty crappy universities with no real industries to draw on. So when they setup a project, it is setup with a workforce that is available not the best because the Canberra fatcats won't let a project be setup away from them. If the Federal government looked and said right we will setup the Centrelink software project in West Sydney because it has a higher number of customers there (easy to engage with stakeholders) and a much larger IT/Service Delivery workforce to draw on (better workforce), it would probably succeed much better. If they decided to setup the project for Army Attack Helicopters in say Brisbane where there are pilots; maintainers; engineers; a civilian aviation industry, lots of project managers then we would probably have choppers that fly occasionally and are affordable instead of over budget cobweb gatherers.
Sadly they will keep repeating the failures - after all the Canberra workforce has failed to SAP based ICT projects year after year so Defence's new Logistics SAP project is .... setup in Canberra despite there being no Defence logistics organisations in Canberra to contribute to requirements etc.
 
Mar 21, 2016
73,835
116,743
Down South Corvus Tristis
AFL Club
Adelaide
Other Teams
Sturt, White Sox
Having sadly worked with the government for many years on a range of projects, the saddest part is that the root cause of the problems (regardless of the government in power) remains the same - we are running projects in Canberra using an out of touch with reality workforce that is drawn from two pretty crappy universities with no real industries to draw on. So when they setup a project, it is setup with a workforce that is available not the best because the Canberra fatcats won't let a project be setup away from them. If the Federal government looked and said right we will setup the Centrelink software project in West Sydney because it has a higher number of customers there (easy to engage with stakeholders) and a much larger IT/Service Delivery workforce to draw on (better workforce), it would probably succeed much better. If they decided to setup the project for Army Attack Helicopters in say Brisbane where there are pilots; maintainers; engineers; a civilian aviation industry, lots of project managers then we would probably have choppers that fly occasionally and are affordable instead of over budget cobweb gatherers.
Sadly they will keep repeating the failures - after all the Canberra workforce has failed to SAP based ICT projects year after year so Defence's new Logistics SAP project is .... setup in Canberra despite there being no Defence logistics organisations in Canberra to contribute to requirements etc.
Wasnt there once a Regional Services Policy floating about that got scuttled very quickly? ie setting up services in rural areas to attract workforce and service growing areas
 

Rob R

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 17, 2009
5,406
6,005
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Wasnt there once a Regional Services Policy floating about that got scuttled very quickly? ie setting up services in rural areas to attract workforce and service growing areas

I think you are right. Both parties seem to be very inconsistent promising the world but in reality they keep letting Canberra do what it feels like - look at the Armidale move, fierce resistance lots of discussion - but hundreds of jobs being lost in regional /outer metropolitan areas and moved to Canberra and neither party says anything......
 
Mal says " hold my beer "



Call the election
I wonder how many staff that would pay for? They have gutted Centrelink.

Maybe if they spent the money on updating systems and not changing processes/regulations/rules every other month things may be better.
 
Sep 15, 2011
31,463
47,753
AFL Club
West Coast
I wonder how many staff that would pay for? They have gutted Centrelink.

Maybe if they spent the money on updating systems and not changing processes/regulations/rules every other month things may be better.
Ten at most, which wouldn't make a difference. The gutting has been far more extensive than that. Labor bears some of the blame too.
 

Herne Hill Hammer

Cancelled
10k Posts
Jun 22, 2008
24,580
21,272
AFL Club
Geelong
https://www.serco.com/media/1609/1609.original.pdf
https://www.serco.com/media/1573/1573.original.pdf
https://www.serco.com/media/2188/se...vent-presentations-13-dec-2017.pdf?1513256749


It makes you wonder why the government continues with Serco and continues with the poor performing model at centrelink. What is it about government that leads to these outcomes? and why does government accept these outcomes?

Because they put out for tenders and then award contracts with no idea what they're really doing. They basically get bent over every single time.

I know a minister will have career bureaucrats working under them that handle this sort of thing but what experience does the bureaucrat have in this sort of thing apart from 20 years of getting bent over every single time.

How about they spend the money and employ some hard bargaining professionals from the private sector. You know, like the type that continually run rings around the government staffers. Pay them half a million a year, if they can do it better than the clowns in there now then half a million will be a drop in the ocean to what they can save us.
 
Because they put out for tenders and then award contracts with no idea what they're really doing. They basically get bent over every single time.

I know a minister will have career bureaucrats working under them that handle this sort of thing but what experience does the bureaucrat have in this sort of thing apart from 20 years of getting bent over every single time.

How about they spend the money and employ some hard bargaining professionals from the private sector. You know, like the type that continually run rings around the government staffers. Pay them half a million a year, if they can do it better than the clowns in there now then half a million will be a drop in the ocean to what they can save us.

Agree

Obviously politicians are just used car salesmen with no relevant experience or capability. So they aren’t good for the job and don’t actually run the process anyway.......something that many overlook.

Then the government departments actually don’t want the process to succeed as workers naturally don’t want change, unions want to hang onto their cash cow and the director generals get paid on the size of their budget. This last issue is massive as efficiency would result in pay cuts to the boss! How can we expect anything but failure with that model?
 
Last edited:
Mar 19, 2008
59,367
64,009
Narre Warren North
AFL Club
St Kilda
Other Teams
.
Agree

Obviously politicians are just used car salesmen with no relevant experience or capability. So they aren’t good for the job and don’t actually run the process anyway.......something that many overlook.

Then the government departments actually don’t want the process to succeed as workers naturally don’t want change, unions want to hang onto their cash cow and the director generals get paid on the size of their budget. This last issue is massive as efficiency would result in pay cuts to the boss! How can we expect anything but failure with that model?

Nail on the head for just so much.
 

AM

The standard you walk past is the one you accept
Aug 18, 2006
24,579
23,475
Here there and everywhere
AFL Club
Geelong
Came across this ditty shortly after seeing the RWFW Molan sworn in as a Lib Senator. Appropriate? Oh yeah!

AKRxcJZ.jpg
 
Back