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James Coyle
James has over 35 years experience in financial services with particular expertise in two of the key components of retirement finance - Superannuation and the Age Pension. He is passionate about providing the guidance and support that can help older Australians enjoy their best possible retirement. He lives in regional Victoria surrounded by dogs and chooks.
Centrelink does not cater for individual cases outside the square of a retired wage earner.
Navigating apps etc can be tedious and often not suitable to an enquiry.
Phoning means waiting a half hour average. Sometimes fantastic staff to help, other times no satisfaction or solution at all.
It concerns me greatly that aged people do not have the tech skills to operate on line without frustration and just give up. As with all government systems now it is about ease of function for the government, control and not client friendly at all. Centrelink is impersonal designed to authorise rather than assist.
I agree with Julie when it comes to the phone call lengths and the inability of many elderly people to use or comprehend the technology of computers/internet.
The wait time on the phone is bad enough, it gets worse when you get to speak to a person with a poor command of English and an accent that is difficult to understand.
Centrelink is disgusting terrible doing issues to reduce the age pension payment, creating imaginative Debts and not providing any support documents online to satisfy their decision.
Is acting like we are in a communist country
It is my income reporting day.
Start at 650am.
My gov. Reporting fails. Complete all information and final comment is do you want to submit partial report you havent entered income.
Centrelink express app.
Same result,
Centrelink self service line.
Get as far as wifes income and system hangs up on me.
Its now 728am.
i totally agree with Julie, whose comments are spot on!!!! and the system requires a complete overall.
Julie we thank you for such concise reply which is excellent
The problem with Centrelink is, like may organisations, they operate on a just in time ethos bringing in temporary staff when things get busy. These are temporary staff who do not have years of specific organisational experience behind them. This does not work well in a service organisation. I went and received specialist advice from a Centrelink financial adviser. The advice turned out to be not correct and so I had to rectify the problem.
Efficiency is not a requisite at Centrelink resulting in it costing us and them , valuable time and money.
Robodebt is a fine example with those administering the scheme running for the hills and using the ‘he said, she said’ arguments and no one taking responsibility. Just look at the former prime minister ducking and weaving in his response at the royal commission.
I have never felt so demoralised or humiliated in my life then I was by Centrelink assessor. I was called a lied to my face by a young lass who neither acknowledged my husband or myself through the entire process, did not introduce herself nor did she wear a name badge. We did not enter the information in computer but when asked to acknowledge something and we said no it was not correct she proceeded to tell me I was a lier . When I said her behaviour was inappropriate she throw a. Are at me and said here make a complaint. I was then asked to leave. We then asked our financial advisor to represent us as We could not face this again. We started process in May 2022 and did not receive our pension until November. It was found at some stage that our application had not been submitted. We did not receive the equivalent back pay. This process was so degrading between my husband and I we had paid the equivalent of 100 years worth of tax and had worked in government positions. So ashamed
I found it extremely difficult and very time consuming to apply for the age pension. It’s like they don’t want us to have it!
I gave up in disgust.
I feel for you. You are not alone. I know of 2 other local cases where people gave up and went back to work. Begs the question why they make it so difficult.
Why not a universal pension as per N.Z. and do away with this leech office trying to justify their existence . My only hope is that they have to enure what they are putting our older Australians through with crap reporting which would be abolished with a far better outcome and fewer PUBLIC SERVANTS draining our resources but discrimination runs wild
because they don,t have the same requirements as the PUBLIC . Let us do something about it rather than handout sympathy to people who are fed up with them !
Appalling service (obviously not in private enterprise), extremely difficult to reach by phone or arrange a personal interview, direct access is almost impossible and takes hours (if not cut off by them when trying to get through with a recorded message they are busy)! The officers (once you actually speak to one) try their best. This agency appears (purposely) to make direct contact difficult.
I just recently had to retire at 73 due to I’ll health I was working full time in a ED. I tried using the Centrelink sight to begin my application for the aged pension. The site is okay to navigate but despite this on completion it told me I wasn’t eligible for the pension because I wasn’t an Australian citizen !!!! Born in Penrith NSW in 1949.
All roads point to a Universal Pension. This would cut through all of the Centrelink roadblocks, simplify everything, and save truckloads of bureaucracy cost.
I have often dealt with Centrelink in my capacity of Enduring Guardian for my mother and my younger brother, both of whom suffered dementia. My latest experience was a RoboDebt style letter received just before Christmas that was based on information over 2 years old (they misleadingly used the word “have” not “had” which would have been more accurate) and related to a small inheritance my brother received from our mother’s estate. For my first few contacts, I was not advised that their information was so old, which would have been very useful. At the time, I paid the inheritance directly into his RAD in his nursing home and was in constant contact with Centrelink at the time advising them and receiving their approval. They accused me of not advising them of the inheritance and what it was used for, both of which are untrue and I had many visits, calls and notes regarding this at the time. RoboDept style, they have cut his pension and have demanded a huge amount of information from his bank account, superannuation account and nursing home, all of which was provided over 2 years ago and I have to duplicate. To add insult to injury, in this situation every time I have contacted them, mostly via interviews at Centrelink as it is impossible to reach by phone, they have asked for additional information that they had not previously requested. Throughout all this, their rudeness has been astounding. I have dealt with many organisations and people throughout my extended guardianships and I have been extremely impressed with the knowledge, compassion and professionalism of all these lovely people so I am not a difficult person. NOT HAPPY!
When I first came to Australia some 40 years ago the government agency (I forget its name) that was responsible for those needing the government’s assistance to be both helpful and courteous. The agency now charged with doling out this assistance has become combative, confrontational and downright rude.
I suggest if ‘Retirement Essentials’ really wants to help retirees that they inform the government of the low regard people hold Centrelink.
I recently applied for and finally obtained age Pension. The whole experience was a complete shambles and no Government either side of the Political divide is doing anything helpful about it.
With the reported 3.5 million Australians and residents receiving benefits a dedicated Seniors department is well overdue. Not a catch all department where staff can only hope to know and be trained (if they are lucky) a little about everything Centerlink covers.
Seniors in this country only receive lip service from Politicians. It’s a crying shame that there is no party representing Senior’s interests.
1) The whole front end is designed for teenagers, not senior people. And I say that with 45 years in I.T., many of them as a professional website designer. Senior people want to talk to someone, not voluminous websites, aps, chat bubbles, social media and so on.
2) Centerlink had my working wife’s employment record 25 years old as current and insisted on pay slips. Even when I told them she hadn’t worked there and uploaded scanned copy pay slips clearly showed another employer.
3) Centerlink insisted they needed pay slips for me as a sole trader – no such thing usually exists.
4) My nearest Centerlink office is Albany in WA. I can’t ring them direct. I have to ring the Centerlink number and request an appointment.
5) Even Centerlink’s Complaints section acknowledges the frequent futility of ringing Centerlink and has advised me on numerous occasions to ring them instead of the 13 number.
6) On one occasion a young lass said she couldn’t help me because she wasn’t trained in that area. Full points for honesty, but I was and still am agog at her call centre off script statement.
7) If you have any issues, when you ring Centerlink, you get virtual call centre phone staff that have limited powers and access to what no doubt is a lot of distributed and parochially developed systems. The best they can do is put a note on your file.
8) I believe the Claims section is responsible for assessing Pension applications. But when I requested to be put through to them I was advised they don’t take inbound calls nor could I find any alternative to contact them.
9) When I applied, via Centerlink’s web form, I was instructed to upload two of my wife’s pay slips and later asked why I had only uploaded two.
10) The pension web form only allows prescribed and validated input and uploads, there is no free form text field to explain situations outside the tiny reality square that Governments and Centerlink as their service shop front exists in.
11) You are instructed in Pension Application Outcome letters to ring the 132200 for complex enquiries, but often can’t get though on that number and told to ring back later, at which point you can’t still get through and told to ring back later.
There is probably a lot more, but my stroke effected memory isn’t what it used to be and I can’t be bothered going though my therefore necessary Hansard like notes.
Like many older Australians, my physical and mental health isn’t the best. Last year I suffered a substantial heart attack and then stroke. The last think I need was the extreme stress, frustration and time of the forgoing experience.
So my mark, 1 out of a possible 10. That 1 for existence, clearly a lot of work has to be done in the 2 to 10 region!
I am very happy with Centrelink
I agree with a lot of these comments, when we first went to Centrelink office to start a claim for our pensions, my wife begged me to not lose it with them, after both of us working since the age of 16yrs old were treated like second class citizens, they made us feel like low life beggars, two years on they still send letters/texts telling us we will lose our pension if we don’t supply information that we emailed them, called into a Centrelink office twice and showed them, it’s constantly banging your head against a wall. I will never let them speak to us like that again. Next time my wife and I and all our Grandkids are going to march outside a Centrelink office in protest at there complete incompetence.
Centrelink are hopeless in every way.
Instead of providing assistance they do the opposite and make life as difficult as possible. The vast majority of front line staff either don’t care or don’t know or both.
Very very occassionialy you will find a senior staff member that does know and will assist.
We were lucky to find such a member who corrected multiple errors made by previous centrelink staff.
Very rare that this happens. A great pity we didn’t find this member on day one rather than day 300.
As a result I rate centrelink at 2 out of 10 instead of 0 out of 10.
Centrelink have well and truely exceeded their good to use by date.
A new, modern, cut down, user friendly, low cost, version is required urgently.
The new enity should include divisions to handle claims for the aged pensions only and unemployment only, etc.
By being trained to handle one specific type of claim (ie aged pension) then staff can be instructed to provide the correct information and assist those making claims.
In the process of applying for the CSHC I was asked for both my own and my husbands financial details.Centrelink is agreeable that I may speak in behalf of my husband and vice versa.Thankfully, after online application and one visit to centrelink my application for CSHC was approved and a card arrived by post.I had expected a card each would arrive since centrelink had details of both our financial position.However, only one card for myself arrived, but no card for my husband,so the whole process of applying has to be done again so my husband can also have a card.An exact duplication of our financial details to be processed again.!!
I think the problem with the poor customer service at Centrelink is that the department is reliant on many people who just do not have the necessary skills in dealing with their clients. In the late 1980s through the early 1990s we were continually being told by the department that customer service was very important. I also think that the quality of Centrelink employees is not what it used to be. Many of them are employed on a more temporary basis and probably couldn’t care less.
Centrelink today is not fit for purpose. The first thing that should happen is Pensions claims should be separate from the rest of the Centrelink system.
Separate departments and locations which focus on assisting older Australians and treat them with respect rather than the defensive resentful attitude which prevails in the current system.
The whole Centrelink system is disfunctional and needs to be disbanded with Pension claims removed from what was an unemployment service.
We are NOT unemployed, we have retired after paying our taxes to the government for decades.
Treat us with respect,please.
In a nutshell applying for a pension through Centrelink is a very difficult, confusing and complex procedure, with little assistance offered.
Eg: I uploaded and submitted various documents re: financial position which they totally misunderstood. So after phoning them , clarifying some issues I uploaded more documents together with an explanatory letter and nothing has been corrected.
They need to get their act together, offer more assistance and above all simplify there requirements so that average Person understands exactly what they want .
In May 2022 I applied under HEAS for a reverse mortgage. I became eligible for the aged pension in June 2022 thus the HEAS. After several months I contacted Centrelink and was informed that it had become stuck in the system and was not yet actioned. Finally in October 2022 I was informed that my application was invalid as I had lodged it before I was of age for an age pension (about 5 weeks). I requested to be shown where it said I could not apply early and why wasn’t I informed earlier. They couldn’t actually show me where it said specifically that I couldn’t make an early application but the supervisor thought it was an exempt payment? I was entitled to a formal review and I immediately made this request. Note the legislation specifically states you can make an early application up to 13 weeks prior to becoming eligible (Sch. 2, Social Security Act (Administration) 1999). It has been over 3 months since I lodged the formal review request and still no response. Incompetence in the administration and management of the Centrelink system is an understatement.
Federal Government both parties appear to actively discouraged age pension applications. The senior population like myself find the system impossible to navigate and always the issue that Centrelink will demand immediate rebates if there’s They perceive there is an overpayment.
The British and Canadian systems both work really well. In Canada all who earn less than$90000 a year receive the OAP. Nothing will change untill the federal government admits age pension is a right not a privilege.Thats what a good scheme looks like
I have never had to deal with centreLink in my life until retirement- I receive a partial pension. I agree that some staff excellent; but some have no idea. The phone times are ridiculously long. @0 mins to make an appointment ! OMG. Definitely better to get a face to face IF you get good staff member. I see a BIG issue is the assessment system construct; If for example omne is assessed on the INCOME element, then I seriously question the need to be continually updating the Asset element. I updated mine and it has been months since reply; further, they BLOCK the ability to make further changes (on line) once a submission is entered; yet the ‘rule’ is to report within two weeks of changes exceed in $2k in any account. Surely an annually review would be more cost efficient to the department. I am sure the department is spending more on assessing my changing situations than what financial changes are incurred… it is not cost efficient. I admit to have been brought to tears in frustration with the system and seriously have concern for others less fortunate; eg single parents with kids hanging off their arm, waiting for essential financial aid. This service is supposed to be empathetic to diverse needs, it requires human interfaces- the pre-recorded artificial voice / A I / menus are inflammatory – I strongly recommend a wider selection of contact phone numbers addressing different needs rather than chocking the bottleneck menu system currently used.
Dealing with CentreLink is similar to dealing with any Government department in my experience. Try calling any of them and you will have the same frustrating experience. Although I was born in England and lived the the greater part of my life there, their automatic telephone system refuses to recognise my voice. The last time this happened, after several attempts I said that I wanted to speak to a b++++y human voice, I was then repremanded by the automatic voice for being disrespectful. Drives one crazy.