Weekly round-up: Centrelink backlog has been halved, disgusting police officer actions, and the top 20 most stressful jobs

In this week’s round-up of HR news, the Centrelink and Medicare blunder is finally being remedied thanks to new employees, a demotion is not on the cards after the disgraced actions of a Northern Territory police officer, and the top 20 most stressful jobs have been named.

Centrelink backlog slowly being cut down

According to Nine News, Services Australia has halved its Centrelink and Medicare backlog in the space of three months, but well over half a million claims are still awaiting a response, causing major frustration for a number of Australians.

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten said hiring thousands of new staff had helped the agency clear 700,000 overdue claims – and 823,000 claims in total – in the past 13 weeks.

“Services Australia has focused on getting claim levels back to normal levels as quickly as possible after recruiting and training these 3,000 staff to process critical Centrelink and Medicare claims. A few weeks ago, I announced the agency had slashed 500,000 claims in 10 weeks and since then, we’ve cut a further 200,000,” Minister Shorten said.

“The backlog is now around 660,000, and the agency remains on track to reach normal claim levels by mid-year.”

Minister Shorten failed to provide a figure for what would be considered “normal levels”, but Services Australia CEO David Hazlehurst said earlier in the year that he’d like to see claims sitting between 400,000 to 500,000.

The overall claims that are covered by Services Australia include the disability support and age pensions, parent payments, JobSeeker, and carers allowance. The new employees who have been involved in fixing this debacle have reportedly answered more than 1.1 million phone calls.

That comes after it was revealed that almost 7.5 million calls to Services Australia went unanswered in 2023, while a further 2 million were ended by the caller.

“I acknowledge and I apologise to any customer who is struggling to get through to us. There is not a person in the agency that does not want to serve customers. We are doing everything we can in order to maximise the service that we provide the customers,” said deputy chief executive Jarrod Howard to the Senate.

Police officer swerves demotion after vile act

A Northern Territory police officer has avoided demotion after sharing photos of a topless Aboriginal woman with a WhatsApp group of other officers in Alice Springs. According to The Guardian, the officer’s demotion was rescinded by the police commissioner.

The inquest into the deaths of four Aboriginal women at the hands of violent partners has been examining the responses of police and the government in the NT, which has the highest rates of domestic and family violence in Australia.

Under questioning, the NT police commissioner Michael Murphy admitted that a sergeant in Alice Springs had sent the photo of a “topless Aboriginal lady in a public place” to a WhatsApp group, and a member of the group reported it to the professional standards command.

But Murphy told a Darwin court he rescinded the decision to demote the officer after the NT Police Association wrote to him. That was because the officer admitted to the act and had shown contrition. Murphy said the sergeant’s transfer to Katherine would have separated him from his family, and he may have taken leave or left the force entirely.

Instead, Murphy said, the officer was transferred to Darwin and given a 12-month good behaviour bond but not demoted. When asked by Phillip Boulten SC, representing one of the families, whether the officer was now a watch commander in Darwin, the commissioner said he “did not know [the sergeant’s] current location”.

Using social media as an employee is a risky task; however, doing so in a manner as vile as this is inexcusable. Quite frankly, the officer is lucky to not have been reprimanded further.

The top 20 most stressful jobs

US News has named the top 20 most stressful jobs. The following data was acquired from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics:

1. Anaesthesiologist
2. Business operations manager
3. Clinical social worker
4. Community health worker
5. Child and family social worker
6. Dentist
7. Firefighter
8. Financial analyst
9. Highschool teacher
10. HR specialist
11. Lawyer
12. Marriage and family therapist
13. Mental health counsellor
14. Nurse practitioner
15. Paramedic
16. Patrol officer
17. Physician
18. Sales manager
19. Software developer
20. Surgeon