42 Million of Your Calls to Centrelink Heard the Busy Signal Over the Last 10 Months

A Senate hearing has revealed that 42 million calls to Centrelink went unanswered in the first ten months of this financial year.

That figure is surprisingly up from 29 million in the 2015-16 financial year. To put this huge figure into perspective, that’s about 140,000 missed calls a day.

The ABC spoke to Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, who thought this was clearly an indication of a broken system.

"This is an astronomical number representing Australians trying to access supports, adjust their payments, seek information or update their earnings," Siewart told the ABC.

The ABC is also reporting that even if your call is answered, you could be on the waiting list for a while.

Call wait times for 'youth and students' as well as 'unemployment services' is averaged at 30 minutes; the wait for 'families and parenting services' is a bit shorter, at 16 minutes.

Centrelink has pledged to hire another 250 people to help fix the situation, though this been criticised for being too low a figure. Until then, expect to waiting a loooooooong time.

Photo: Student Edge