WHAT WAS CLAIMED
It now takes about 50 per cent longer to apply for an age pension and five times longer to apply for a low income card.
OUR VERDICT
Misleading. The claim relies on outdated figures.
AAP FACTCHECK - The federal opposition's finance spokesperson has used outdated figures to misleadingly suggest wait times for the age pension and low income card have blown out.
In criticising the increase in the public service under Labor, Senator Jane Hume claimed it now takes 50 per cent longer to apply for an age pension and five times longer to apply for a low income card.
However, this claim relies on outdated wait time figures from Services Australia.
The most recent figures suggest the combined wait times are at their lowest level since the first year of the pandemic, when the agency was handed a one-off funding injection.
While wait times increased in the years after the funding injection ended, they have fallen in the last two quarters. At the same time, average staffing levels have again increased.
Senator Hume made the claim in an interview with the ABC on March 24 (timestamp four minutes 27 seconds), arguing Labor increased the size of the public service without necessarily improving its performance.
"It now takes about 50 per cent longer to apply for an age pension. It takes five times longer to apply for a low income card," she said (5:18).
"A bigger public service is not necessarily a better public service."
Senator Hume made similar claims in early April (3:37), saying the "latest annualised data" shows age pension wait times rose from 36 days under the coalition to 76 under Labor, and that applying for a low income card is taking "three times longer" now than under the coalition.
A similar argument has been made by other coalition MPs, including Paul Fletcher in 2024.
Senator Hume's office didn't respond to AAP FactCheck's request for evidence for the claim.
AAP FactCheck attempted to replicate the senator's numbers using Services Australia figures.
Average wait times for the age pension rose to 76 days in 2023/24, which compares to 35 days in 2021/22 - a period when the coalition was in power for 10 months out of 12.
Age pension wait times in 2022/23 were 48 per cent lower than the first quarter of 2024/25.
Low income card wait times, meanwhile, were 6.6 times higher in 2023/24 than in 2020/21.
However, Senator Hume hasn't cited the latest data, which shows wait times for the age pension and low income card have decreased in the 2024-25 financial year, particularly in late 2024.
Average wait times for the age pension fell to 32 days over the December quarter of 2024, while the low income card is down to 16 days.
That's less than the average wait time of 52 days for the age pension and 48 days for the low income card under the coalition in the 2019/2020 financial year, most of which occurred before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Services Australia told AAP FactCheck that falling wait times is due to additional funding for public servants in the 2023/24 mid-year fiscal update (page 291) and also the 2024/25 budget (p1).
Average staffing levels for the agency have rebounded to 30,218 in 2024-25 (p204) after falling to 28,519 over 2023/24 (p193) after pandemic-era surge workforce funding expired.
"With these staff we've reduced outstanding claims significantly," a Services Australia spokesperson told AAP FactCheck on March 24.
Services Australia also questioned comparisons of wait times to the COVID years, saying the agency was given a one-off funding injection amid the pandemic.
"Comparisons to the COVID years, including the impact of bushfires and severe weather events, are not meaningful," the spokesperson said.
"They were extraordinary times where additional resourcing was available to the agency."
Average staffing levels for Services Australia rose from 26,682 in 2019-20 (p213) to 29,188 in 2021-22 (p187) under workforce funding unveiled by the coalition during the pandemic.
As COVID funding expired, Services Australia staff numbers decreased which correlated with an increase in wait times.
Average wait times for the age pension increased around 142 per cent to between 33 and 35 days in the 2021/22 and 2022/23 financial years compared to 2020/21.,
That was followed by another 130 per cent increase in age pension wait times to 76 days in 2023/24 and a 231 per cent increase in wait times for the low income card out to 53 days.
Services Australia said that wait times increased substantially in 2023/24 because the COVID resourcing for the agency had ended in 2022/23, reducing public servant numbers.
"When this additional resourcing ended in 2022/23, the agency's service delivery workforce reduced," the spokesperson said.
Peter Whiteford, an Australian National University social policy expert, supported Services Australia's explanation for how wait times changed during and after COVID.
He agreed that using COVID years as a basis for comparing wait times can be problematic.
"Using the pandemic as a starting point can be misleading," Professor Whiteford told AAP FactCheck.
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