The union for Services Australia employees say the agency is putting workers at risk. 

Services Australia managers have required staff to continue attending their offices despite recent lockdown and working from home orders in Brisbane, Sydney, Perth and Darwin and Melbourne. 

Workers are being forced to break lockdown orders and attend the office to perform non-customer facing roles, work from the office when they have the capacity to work from home and being told to use their own leave when identified as a close contact.

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) is notifying a dispute under national Workplace Health and Safety laws to force the Agency to protect the safety of its workers while continuing to provide services to the community in these dangerous circumstances and to force a national rollout of clear standards for lockdowns.

The approach of the agency, which runs Centrelink, Medicare and Child Support workers, has been inconsistent across the country and across business lines.

“Services Australia needs to take the safety of their staff and the community seriously,” CPSU national president Alistair Waters says. 


“This is not our first lockdown; it is indefensible for the agency not to have a clear contingency plan for local outbreaks. It is allowing local managers to wilfully and dangerously ignore lockdown orders.

“There are dozens of sites and around 10,000 Services Australia workers in lockdown areas right now, the flow on effect of getting this wrong could be devastating, not just for the workers but their communities.”

Services Australia general manager Hank Jongen has told reporters that the agency is following the advice of relevant state and territory authorities, as well as public health guidance on social distancing, increased cleaning, minimising face-to-face meetings, and restructuring teams.

“The wellbeing of our staff and customers remains our top priority. We provide an essential service to the Australian community and will continue to do so,” Mr Jongen has told The Mandarin.

“Throughout the pandemic, staff have continued to work safely from the office, and we have facilitated work from home. We’ll continue to closely monitor staff welfare and adapt within the rapidly changing situation.

“Where staff members are in the high risk category, or who live with someone in this category, arrangements are made available so their work can be done from home, including call and processing work.”