Labor MP Alicia Payne spoke yesterday in favour of a House of Representatives motion to stop the Federal Government closing Centrelink shopfronts around the country – including the Braddon shopfront, which the government plans to shut in December and merge with the Gungahlin Centrelink.

“Canberrans are not going to stand by and watch the government close the only Centrelink in my electorate,” Ms Payne said. “It is not good enough for this government, who knows nothing other than to demonise and attack our social security system and the important services that deliver it. We will fight to save our Centrelink in inner Canberra.”

In the House on Monday, Newcastle MP Sharon Claydon called on the Morrison Government to terminate any plans to consolidate, close, or reduce access to the Mornington, Newcastle, Tweed Heads, Yarra, and Abbotsford Centrelink offices once and for all; to cease the impending closure of the face-to-face Centrelink service in Braddon; and to reinstate all Centrelink shopfronts closed in the last two years, including services in Benalla and Newport, Victoria.

Debate on the motion has been adjourned.

Services Australia general manager Hank Jongen has said the Braddon shopfront would be merged because customer demand fell by 40 per cent since 2016, as the suburb changed from an area with a high level of community housing, to a shopping and food precinct with new residential apartments. Customers could use light rail to travel directly to Gungahlin, or use Centrelink services online.

During yesterday’s debate, Liberal MP Angie Bell (Moncrieff) disputed the Labor claim that Centrelink shopfronts were diminishing. Uptake of online services via myGov and the Express Plus mobile app had increased, she said, while the number of customers visiting service centres had decreased by 43 per cent over the last six years.

Ms Payne disagrees. Once the Braddon shopfront closes, she argued, Canberrans “struggling to survive on the disgracefully low JobSeeker payment of $43 per day” will “have to spend a significant portion of their weekly income on public transport” to access the Centrelink shopfronts in Gungahlin or Woden.

“Not everyone can use online services,” Ms Payne said. “Not everyone has a computer or a smartphone, not everyone even has an address.”

Moreover, the Canberra MP argued, there had been no community consultation about the closure, despite support to keep it open. More than 1,400 people had signed her petition to save Braddon Centrelink.

“So what does [Linda Reynolds, Minister for Government Services] say to pensioners, people with disability, jobseekers, students, parents, people experiencing homelessness or escaping domestic violence who rely on this shopfront?”

In fact, Ms Payne argued, the pandemic showed that social security and Centrelink shopfronts were essential.

She likened the pandemic to the Great Depression: “Long lines of people stretching out the doors of Centrelink shopfronts, as workers found their lives turned upside down and their jobs gone when the pandemic hit.”

During this recession, she said, social security payments such as JobKeeper and the Coronavirus Supplement ensured that people who lost work did not sink into poverty, and gave those looking for work a lifeline. The Supplement’s extra $550 per fortnight lowered Canberra’s poverty rates from 8.6 to 5.2 per cent – and rose above the pre-COVID level when the supplement ended in March.

“Poverty is a public policy choice,” Ms Payne concluded.

Labor MPs Meryl Swanson (Paterson) and Peta Murphy (Dunkley) also supported Ms Claydon’s motion.

Last week, former opposition leader the Hon. Bill Shorten, now Shadow Minister for Civil Services and the NDIS, called for the government to keep the Braddon shopfront open.