His ultimate aim is to make it “a much more seamless exercise” that doesn’t force people to spend hours of their own time applying for payments or updating details,the new minister said in an exclusive interview.
“They’ve created digital workhouses,basically. You know,workhouses were a 19th century place where the kind-hearted burghers of Victorian England and Australia said,‘Well,if we’ve got to pay you for three meals a day,you can go and work in a workhouse,’” he said.
“And I think that we’ve used,in some cases,digital technology to create two classes of Australians.
“We haven’t privatised the service. We just privatise your time. You spend hours on it. I’m amazed there’s not more rage out there.”
The minister’s most recent interaction with myGov was downloading his digital vaccination certificate.
“Listen,I’ve got three degrees,I found it a little perplexing,” he said. “Maybe my 12-year-old could have done it better.”
Services Australia is effectively the delivery shop for a huge range of other portfolio areas,administering payments for everything from childcare subsidies and Medicare rebates to disaster relief and paid parental leave,along with the more traditional welfare payments such as pensions and JobSeeker.