Centrelink: History, Operations, Benefits, and Challenges

This article provides an overview of Centrelink, a government agency that provides financial services to Australian citizens. It covers its history, operations, benefits, and challenges, including limitations related to debt collection. The article concludes with recommendations for improvement.

CENTERLINK
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INTRODUCTION.
McIlroy (2018) in his article ‘Green Left Weekly’ states that Centrelink is a part of the
administrative and financial portfolio of the government. It is majorly created for the purpose of
providing financial support to the Australian citizens and other people residing in Australia. It is
under the Department of Human Services
The amount of financial support an individual receives depends on the needs. Among the
groups which are legible for this financial aid are people with disabilities, those from remote
areas, native Australians, people negatively affected by the natural calamities, the elderly, poor
families, jobless individuals and students between 16-24 of age among others (Natalier,2018).
LITERATURE REVIEW.
Several studies have been done on Centrelink. Both its historical aspects and operations
have been done by several authors. Different articles are covered in this section on the matters of
the topic.
History of Centrelink
Centrelink began originally as an agency of the Australian government under the
Department of Social Security. In the early period of 1997, Centrelink was functioning under the
Commonwealth Services Delivery Agency as its trading name. Following an enactment of the
Commonwealth Services Delivery Agency Act 1997, the brand name of Centrelink was later on
effected in the same year, 1997. This followed the immediate establishment of offices
nationwide in order to administer social services to citizens in need. By the year 2011, of July on
1st, Centrelink was made part of the Department of Human Services together with Medicare
Australia. This was due to the enactment of the Human Services Act, 2011 (Cth).
Operations and roles of Centrelink.
Centrelink is a project within the Department of Human Services which is concerned
with the delivery of payment to needy individuals, families or groups. Such payment services
include disability pension support (DSP), Family tax benefit (FTB), parental leave pay (PLP),
Dad and partner pay (DAPP). Centrelink is also mandated with a responsibility for deciding

whether an individual, a family or a group is worthy of PLP, DAPP, DSP or FTB payments. The
Centrelink determines the mode and source of payment to be offered to the needy, the payment
can be done by the Centrelink directly or by the employer under the request of the Centrelink as
well as the eligibility of the person to be paid and the amount to be given (Maxwell, 2018).
Apart from the payment services offered by Centrelink, it also offers first-point-of-
contact services which are meant to give detailed information to the customers pertaining the
payments so that the client will be in a position of making informed decisions of whether he
really deserves the services or not. Among the first-point-of-contact services offered are: it
answers questions on eligibility issue, gives information concerning the mode of delivering
payments, provides the formal copies of necessary information such as claim forms, receives
complaint or request forms presented by the clients on the payment services, communicates any
new information on the change of service delivery to the clients and also gives any necessary
advice regarding financial issues (Bandara, Bailey, Mathiesen, McCarthy & Jones 2018).
Benefits of Centrelink.
The eligible individuals that qualify for the services of Centrelink stand high chances of
benefiting. Examples of individuals that benefit among others are youths and persons with
disabilities.
The Youth Allowance is a payment service offered to individuals aged between16 and 24
undertaking a full-time Australian Apprenticeship which assists them to complete their
academics successfully. The Disability Support Pension is meant to support those
individualswho are physically, intellectually, or mentally impaired.
It also provides Health Care Card which provides access to free or cheap medical, water
and electricity services. The card allows an individual to use public transport and other public
services freely or at a cheaper cost (Bull, 2018).
Conditions for eligibility
To be eligible for these benefits, there are conditions which an individual must meet.
Examples are as shown below (Lehmann, Lehmann & Sanders, 2018).

For Disability Support Pension:
- Must be 16 and above years of age
- Permanent disabling medical condition
- Meet statutory residency conditions
- Meet assets and income test requirements.
For Youth allowance, an individual must be:
-16-21 of age seeking a full-time job.
-18-24 of age undertaking full-time studies.
-16-24 of age undertaking full-time Australian Apprentice
-16-17 of age in need to be away from home for study.
Guideline for claiming Centrelink benefits
An individual can claim the benefits by applying online. This involves account creation
and registration. There are also service numbers for different groups such as 132 490 for youths
and 132 717 for people with disabilities which upon calling one is accessed to confirm his or her
legibility for benefits (Liamputtong & Kurban 2018).
TOPIC ANALYSIS.
Centrelink as part of the Department of Human Services offers social security payments
and services to citizens of Australians. Among the clients targeted are families, job seekers,
students, impaired, marginalized and older individuals. Despite the many benefits from these
services, there are challenges that come along with the time of paying back.
Limitations related to Centrelink.
The Centrelink faces a challenge on the way of collecting their debts from the clients. A
report of 2016 shows that Centrelink had 20,000 pending debt recovery letters each year upon

automatic reconciliation of its welfare recipients' records versus data from the Australian
Taxation Office.
The absolute use of an automatic technique for data comparison between debt recovery
letters and recipient's records without human oversight presented a big error and large losses due
to the inaccuracy. The technique also made the clients to pay the non-existed debts. Some
complaints are also being raised on the inconsistency of the debt records where the debts are
higher than what the clients actually owe. In some circumstances, the debts are being backdated
beyond the timelines that actual transaction occurred and therefore incurring more interest
charges on the clients (Christmas & Dutton, 2018).
Gab in research.
There is a need for further research to be carried out on the effective methods for
comparing, updating and keeping the debt reports in order to avoid errors which result into losses
of exploitation of clients (Mann, 2018).
CONCLUSION
This work was about the Centrelink as a government agency for providing financial
services to the Australian citizens. The history, operation, benefits, and challenges of the agency
have been covered. Recommendations on what should be improved have also been presented.

REFERENCES.
Bandara, W., Bailey, S., Mathiesen, P., McCarthy, J., & Jones, C. (2018). Enterprise business process
management in the public sector: The case of the Department of Human Services (DHS)
Australia. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases, 8(2), 217-231.
Bull, S. (2018). Does your view of the world tally with what the media are telling you?. Green Left Weekly,
(1179), 3.
Christmas, A., & Dutton, P. (2018). The real problems at Centrelink, 123(5), pp.56-67.
Lehmann, C., Lehmann, J., & Sanders, R. (2018). Missing out: The intergenerational ramifications of
current social security arrangements. Children Australia, 43(3), 163-168.
Liamputtong, P., & Kurban, H. (2018). Health, social integration, and social support: The lived
experiences of young Middle-Eastern refugees living in Melbourne, Australia. Children and Youth
Services Review, 85(3), 99-106.
Mann, M. (2018). Privacy in Australia: Brief to UN Special Rapporteur on Right to Privacy, 18(1), p.45.
Maxwell, R. (2018). Centrelink issues hit remote people. Guardian (Sydney), (1811), 3.
McIlroy, J. (2018). CPSU slams Centrelink call center outsourcing. Green Left Weekly, (1179), 3.
Natalier, K. (2018). State Facilitated Economic Abuse: A Structural Analysis of Men Deliberately
Withholding Child Support. Feminist Legal Studies, 1-20.