Mr LAWLER —My question is addressed to the Minister for Community Services. Can the minister inform the House how the government has improved the delivery of social security services right around Australia; and how will this benefit my constituents in the electorate of Parkes, especially in the western part with towns like Broken Hill?

Mr ANTHONY (Community Services) —I thank the member for Parkes, whose electorate covers one-third of New South Wales. I am certainly very pleased to advise the member for Parkes that the Broken Hill Centrelink office earlier this year had a major refurbishment and is now a very modern open-plan office. I do acknowledge that the Broken Hill Mayor, Ron Page, and his delegation are with us today and would certainly know that office. The Broken Hill office is an important office because it provides a visiting service and agent to Wilcannia and also an agent to Menindee—Wilcannia, which is 200 kilometres from Broken Hill with a very large indigenous community; and Menindee, which is 120 kilometres from Broken Hill. There, a service is provided through a community agent every day to those people in remote Australia.

The government is committed to improving Centrelink services. This is a far cry from the dark old days of the DSS, particularly when the opposition was in government. What we want to see now is that, when people go to a Centrelink office, those offices are open, bright and breezy and they have very good customer service.

Mr Swan —And there's no staff.

Mr ANTHONY —The opposition interjects, but the interesting thing with Centrelink today is that at least it is open five days a week. Under the old DSS, if you went there on a Wednesday afternoon at 1.30, the door was shut, it was not open. Centrelink today is open five days a week. In the old days of the Labor Party, you could not even make an appointment. Now you can make an appointment with Centrelink; if it is an urgent appointment, you can make it on the day. In the old days of the Australian Labor Party, you would have to wait in long queues to get into the DSS. Those queues now are minimised. Centrelink customers now have choice; they have a choice of what day to receive their pay. They did not have any choice under the old ALP regime. They did not have personalised service; today they do have personalised service, with one-to-one contact, and you do not have to keep repeating your story—like I have to keep repeating it to the opposition so they will learn. These are the improvements that Centrelink is making across the country.

Importantly, in rural and regional Australia there are more services now: 260 rural agents and 140 visiting services, with options to video conference, et cetera. These did not exist under the Australian Labor Party. Likewise, in the early 1990s there were hardly any telecentres or call centres. Now there are 23, and two more will be opening shortly. Over 13 of those, just under half, are in regional Australia. What is more, we actually have a customer charter. You did not have a customer charter before with Centrelink. What this is all about is providing the best possible service—I know the member for Lilley is listening; he may learn something—to Australians. But I recognise that we will always continue to review Centrelink for its six million customers to ensure that it provides the best possible service to the community and to the Australian taxpayer.