So yesterday the governments threw millions of workers under the bus by closing down their workplaces. Naturally, they had to apply for the dole. So, the idiotic minister says it can all be done on line. The mygov website can only 55000 connections, and so when millions tried to use it, it crashed. Then when you can connect, you find you can't apply for anything because you need a "Customer Reference Number" (CRN). So you try to apply for that, the first question is what is your CRN? You need a CRN to apply for a CRN. This, I presume, is the general standard of Centrelink.

The minster says to use mygov. The centrelink facebook says, no you must phone. If you phone you never get answered, or you get cut off.

Therefore people line up outside offices (if you can find one) with the lines stretching around the block. When you finally get in after 4 hours, they tell you to apply online.

What kind of utter stupidity is this? The people who run this must have negative IQs.

The minister is a known fool, he should have been got rid of before the last election.

Why didn't anyone gear up for the expected influx? Nothing was done of course.

Unfortunately this kind of thing is expected in this country, we are drowning in red tape, and being told what to do by morons.

What kind of utter stupidity is this? The people who run this must have negative IQs

Look at the work history of our politicians. How many have had any sort of meaningful jobs before deciding to become official seat warmers? My father was fond of saying that no matter who you vote for you end up getting a politician, and he wouldn't feed a politician.

I used to reply "Well, that's democracy. Look at the alternative."

Most ministers take the advice of senior public servants, and make pronouncements after the spin is added by their minders. The current crop of senior public servants have never experienced a pandemic and so are doing the headless chook dance.

As for predictable computer system meltdowns, they have the most recent Census for a classic example.

Yes it's looking more like depression not a recession.
Centrelink has been working with minimal staff for years due to cut backs and so mygov was to handle most of it,but it's not ever been working very well .
It's not centerlinks fault though .Under staffing and they must be overwhelmed by the amount of people , It's predicted 2 million people may loose their jobs and apply for centerlink help.
Plus the people who were already unemployed or underemployed.
Maybe some massive changes in OZ I think we will see many people struggling and far more poor people doing it tough.

Pete

In one sense I can understand the issue. There were many Centrelink staff laid off a couple of years ago because unemployment was going down and use of MyGov was increasing. Additionally, in-branch Centrelink staff had a reputation for just standing in small groups chatting away all day instead of doing some meaningful work.

Now that the unemployment rate has almost doubled in the last few days, they all now find that they all have to put in a solid eight hours of work, which is what they were supposed to be doing in the first place. Because next to none of them understand the concept of working hard, they can't handle the workload. They'd understand if I was their boss - I'd put a rocket under the lot of them licketty split. I'm not a hard boss, I just expect a good days' work for a good days' pay.

As for the website crashing - again, understandable to a point. The host was designed for a certain number of concurrent users and that limit was exceeded by a factor of two by the time it melted down. The host servers and the connections will need beefing up.

At the end of the day, training extra staff to handle face to face transactions and upgrading web servers are not overnight tasks. It'll happen because it needs to. Having been a Centrelink 'customer' at one time in the past, I can also understand the frustration suffered by applicants for the dole. Centrelink is a royal pain in the arse to deal with at the best of times and if there is an inefficient way of doing something they will make sure that is how it gets done.

The whole of the government computer systems are "clunky" & God only knows where they get their staff?

It is incredible that last year, after decades of computing the Police here finally worked out how to put the Historic Vehicles on the register use for checking registrations. I could manage a car rally with registrations of all types & people & meals from all states, in the nineties just using Lotus?

Perhaps the volume of people on the street would be lessened by an odds & evens system, with M&F couples by male date, or the rest by elder partner?

A new announcement will see the rest of the non-essential workforce on the dole.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/masks-virus-tests-pour-into-australia...

Let's see if Centrelink does any better with them.

Gosh , should be interesting to see how the Government will pay for all these changes without going Bankrupt !
If we're taking anther 2 million people unemployed, plus the cost of medicare , hospitals due to coronavirus and the stopped economy due to coronavirus.
Good luck ! I guess we can always sell Canberra to the Chinese.

Pete

The debt we already have is unbelievable but it is shadowed by the fact that Australia is a federation and we only tend to take notice of how the Commonwealth is going with its finances. The debt ceiling has risen to $850bn - a shocking figure. The debt itself isn't that high but that is what the Government has permitted itself to raise. Most states also have large debts. NSW and the ACT are currently debt free but that will change because of the virus. Because of the massive capital works programme in NSW, it is probably the only state that can realistically afford some debt. There is a shortage of tradesmen and other building workers because of the number of large projects underway so any that get the boot from their current job will probably end up finding work fairly quickly. It won't be like that for those who work in cafes or even department stores.

Those of us that note human nature & behaviour are speculating on the Christmas baby boom.

Hah, aren't husband and wife supposed to keep socially distant? That means no touching.

No touching? Won't be a issue with most marriages😛😛😛

They are predicting an upturn in family violence!!
I pity those poor families with young children if we face a full lockdown.

They are predicting an upturn in family violence!!

Doesn't surprise me. Internationally, murders tend to peak during holiday breaks, such as Christmas. Add confinement/restricted movement to the stress of uncertainty and employment and you have the ingredients for violence for those so inclined.

I can see how that may happen .
Cabin fever, no jobs , kids at home . Bills piling up and up .
That sounds like trouble and if they mix booze with it to feel better ..look out !!

"The debt ceiling has risen to $850bn - a shocking figure."

The US govt just 'printed' $2tn today. The road to hyperinflation?
Counterintuitively, contrarian deflationists say they won't be able to arrest the global contraction of credit.

https://deflation.com/en/Articles/The-Collapse-in-Money-Velocity-and-the-Coming-Deflation

Either outcome is undesirable.