By Alesha Capone
A Hoppers Crossing man has been forced to wait more than six months to receive the age pension.
Seventy-year-old John Smith, a former transport driver, retired on March 30 this year.
Along with his wife, Vicki, he visited Centrelink on April 4 and applied for the pension soon after.
Mrs Smith said she later received an email from Centrelink saying that the matter would possibly be finalised by June 1.
Mrs Smith said that she and her husband “cut back” on a lot of expenses while waiting for the pension to come through, buying all their groceries on special and reducing their use of electricity.
Mr Smith said that after June 1 passed, they received no communication from Centrelink.
“Luckily, Vicki was working part-time and we had savings, but they dwindled to almost nothing,” he said.
After six months, the couple visited the office of Lalor MP Joanne Ryan.
Mrs Smith said the office contacted Centrelink on their behalf, which resulted in Mr Smith’s pension payments finally coming through after 27 weeks.
“But we shouldn’t have to go through that,” Mrs Smith said.
“The girls and people we spoke to at Werribee Centrelink were very helpful and very good at explaining how things went and were very apologetic. It’s more the process and how long it took for things to go through that makes us worried about how other people will have to wait.”
Ms Ryan told Star Weekly that waiting 27 weeks to receive the age pension was “unacceptable”. She said the federal government had axed the jobs of 2500 Centrelink staff, which meant increased delays for people dealing with the organisation.
Department of Human Services general manager Hank Jongen said he was unable to comment on specific customer cases.
“We process millions of claims every year and work hard to finalise them all as quickly as possible,” Mr Jongen said.
He said that during the 2017-18 financial year, the median processing time for the age pension was 49 days (compared to 36 days in the previous financial year).
