Labor MP Alicia Payne has brought out the big guns in her quest to save Braddon Centrelink from closing: former party leader and prime ministerial candidate, the Hon. Bill Shorten MP, now Shadow Minister for Civil Services and the NDIS.
“The Morrison Government is running a stealth campaign against the vulnerable, the poor, and the needy of Australia,” Mr Shorten warned, speaking outside the Lonsdale Street shopfront this morning. “They are quietly closing Centrelink shopfronts all around Australia.”
Last week, Services Australia announced it would close the Braddon shopfront – the only one in the Civic / Inner-North area – in December, and merge it with the Gungahlin Centrelink.
General manager Hank Jongen said the decision had been made because customer demand had fallen by 40 per cent since 2016, as Braddon changed from an area with a high level of community housing, to a shopping and food precinct with new residential apartments.
But Centrelink shopfronts in Victoria and NSW have also been threatened with closure, Mr Shorten said: in the Melbourne suburb of Abbotsford, and in Mornington. The Benalla Centrelink has stopped providing face-to-face service. Five Centrelink shopfronts near Newcastle would have been merged into a single mega-office, a plan apparently delayed by the pandemic.
By cutting services, Mr Shorten argued, the Liberals believe they can save money.
“This Government is planning to fund its debt crisis off the backs of fewer services to vulnerable Australians,” Mr Shorten said.
He said the Federal Government wanted voters to believe in “a fairy tale of the digital age”: that everyone had a smartphone, and nobody needed to see another person when they dealt with Centrelink.
“The Morrison Government is creating a digital poorhouse for Australians who need Centrelink,” Mr Shorten said.
“Centrelink provides services which are fundamental to people’s dignity and livelihoods, administering the pensions, making sure that people who are down on their luck can get a bit of support. Not everything can be done online. Not everyone has access, equal access, to the digital world. Sometimes you just need a human contact to sort problems out.”
Old-age pensioner Judith Pablan said her severe vision impairment made going online or using a phone difficult.
“I cannot negotiate or navigate my way through a complex database … If I just make one mistake, I’ve lost my pension,” Ms Pablan said.
If the Braddon Centrelink closed, she would have to take a long tram ride into Gungahlin, which would her take the whole day.
“It’s just unbelievable that the Government can tread on the people who really depend on these kinds of face-to-face services. And it doesn’t show any respect even, for the people who work, the kind of service, the fabulous service that they give.”
Carer Rebecca Scouller said she cannot do her Centrelink business online because all forms are paper-based, and must be handed in or posted. The Braddon shopfront is the only Centrelink office in central Canberra, and Centrelink doesn’t open on weekends.
If she goes to Woden or Gungahlin, she will have to spend another hour out of her day driving and parking. She cannot use her phone for Medicare because her mother isn’t on her Medicare card.
“The system is antiquated at best,” Ms Scouller said. “Every time I have to do a paper form, not only do I have to go into a Centrelink, I also have to visit a GP, and pay for a visit, for her to read a form again, that my Mum has dementia. So, the forms need to be updated, it needs to be online, and it needs to be efficient – and still have a shopfront that people are able to access and seek the help they need.”
Lorenzo, a student, said he, like many others, lived in the Inner North.
“This service is clearly the most accessible for all of us who live in the Inner North,” he said.
“I became ill a year ago, and I couldn’t continue my full-time study. As a result of the complications that arose from that, I had to go into the Centrelink shopfront to get all the logistics sorted out for my illness. Without that shopfront, the process would have been infinitely more complicated.”
Sorting out a Centrelink issue was “too complicated and too unique a circumstance” to sort out over the phone or online.
“It’s unbelievable that the government is going to leave central Canberra without a Centrelink shopfront. They just don’t care about us.”
Mr Shorten said the only way to save Centrelink was to change the government. The Liberals, he said, had “an insatiable appetite to keep cutting services”, and were “constantly in a tug of war with the community about closing shopfronts”.
“This government can’t be trusted to administer the safety net of Australians,” he said.
The Braddon Centrelink is expected to close in December; there may not be an election until May. Asked whether Labor would reopen the shopfront, Mr Shorten said:
“We’ve got to make sure that we stop the pattern of closures. So, let’s see how we go making sure that Braddon doesn’t shut. But there’s no doubt in my mind that a Labor Government will run a safety net for people, so that people get basic, decent, courteous treatment from the government.”
The Morrison Government, he said, was “cowardly”, as the government retreat from the NDIS showed.
“When you have the outcry of ordinary people, this government does back down,” Mr Shorten said.
“As we get closer to an election, this government will, in my opinion, turn to jelly, and back down on some of their meaner cuts.”
Ms Payne encouraged people to sign her petition – signed by more than 1,300 people already – and to write to politicians, including ACT Senator Zed Seselja.
“Let the government know just how much we need our Centrelink, and that we will not accept a government that will not deliver the services that Canberrans need,” she said.
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