Our LinkAssist team will be there to help when customers are going through tough times.
We will be establishing a specialist team dedicated to helping customers in social and financial difficulty. This follows a pilot project led by our Customer and Communities Advocate, Dr Jean Ker Walsh, that tested changes to the implementation of our long-standing hardship policy. Read the results of this pilot project.
The LinktAssist team will introduce a dedicated phone-line for financial counsellors, community welfare, and legal assistance practitioners advocating for clients with debts and fines.
We will work with state authorities to explore more flexible treatment of fines issued to those experiencing hardship.
And we will look to introduce alternative payment channels, such as Centrepay, for people on Centrelink benefits.
These initiatives build on a range of improvements to our enforcement system introduced over the past two years that have already resulted in a 60 per cent reduction in tolling infringements issued nationally.
The LinktAssist team will be recruited in coming months.
