Department of Human Services

The majority voted in favour of a motion introduced by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert (WA), which means it passed.

Although motions like these don't have legal force, they do represent the will of the Senate and so have some influence on the Government.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) notes that the Turnbull Government cut nearly 1200 jobs from the Department of Human Services in the 2017-18 Budget;

(b) acknowledges that 42 million calls to Centrelink hit a busy signal between 1 July 2016 and 30 April 2017;

(c) notes that the Government is engaging private contractor Serco to supply 250 call centre workers to answer Centrelink calls from income support recipients;

(d) condemns allowing a private contractor to run a critical Government service involving access to the personal information of Centrelink clients; and

(e) calls on the Government to reinstate the jobs cut from the Department of Human Services, and act on the recommendations of the report of the Community Affairs References Committee, Design, scope, cost-benefit analysis, contracts awarded and implementation associated with the Better Management of the Social Welfare System initiative, as soon as possible.