What's Happening with Various Government Services in Australia? Your Experience?

In the past month, I used three government services - birth certificate, passport, and sending a parcel using express post platinum service. Here is my experience:

  1. Birth certificate: It stated 28 days to deliver in BDM website. After about 40 days, I tried to contact them through call and message option in their website. The call did not go through. I got no reply from their email. So I had to visit their service centre and wait 2 hours to get the birth certificate. No reason explained and no apologies.

    Eventually after a month, I got an email reply about my earlier query that their record shows the birth certificate has been issued.

  2. Passport: I submitted a passport application with priority processing. It says 2 days to issue the passport. So after 8 days, when their website did not show any update, I contacted them and came to know that the passport application has been marked for regular processing by mistake! They took more than twice the money for priority processing and did this to me.

  3. Express post platinum: I sent a document using this service, which says next business day delivery. So in the third day, when my tracking shows it has not left the city, I made an enquiry. I was told (with apologies this time) that their sorting system made an error, and it is now in a completely unrelated post office. They are taking care of the issue and will let me know an update in two business days.

    Now I used this expensive service as I have time constraints. And that's what happened.

It feels to me that the whole service system is breaking down. I know it is a small sample, that is just my feelings.

What is your experience in recent times??

Poll Options expired

  • 23
    I faced issues with services in the past year
  • 10
    I did not face any issue in the past year

Comments

  • +2

    we're a third world country remember

    • I was going to be the first commenter but my first world internet… <buffering>

      • And then?

  • +3

    Item 3 - Australia Post is technically not a government service. It is a (publicly-owned) private company. And it probably does not meet the standards that it is supposed to attain.

    I don't think that the public service, in very general terms, has ever been very efficient. But I did see in the news yesterday that PM Morrison is going to fix that.

    • +2

      He'll fix it by sacking 3000 people to pay for tax cuts.

      He complained about public service bureaucracy - the government write the regulations, the public service act within them. It's an easy way to shift the blame.

    • -2

      It is a (publicly-owned) private company

      Nope it's owned by the Government. They corporatised it.

      That means instead of paying public servants to operate it they waste a whole bunch of money paying private executives to run a business that the Government owns at your expense.

      Because as it dribbles crap about competition it actually set up a monopoly in private hands because the voters are morons who will keep voting if they did this. They did the same shit with electricity.

      • +1

        Yes, publically-owned = owned by the government.

        The electricity market is made up of the following:
        - competitive wholesale generation sector
        - monopoly network businesses
        - competitive retail sector.

      • Private executives operating a profitable GBE is better than politicians running into the ground.

      • +1

        voters are morons

        The Greens are so much smarter with that slogan. No wonder the Greens only managed to win one seat in the House of Representatives.

  • +3

    Most federal department has lost staff recently. I work for one and in 4 years our front line workforce has halved and work up 40%. Going to get worse with the continuing Liberal government I respect the government of the day…. Blah blah blah

  • Sorry but I had to chuckle at the Express Post Platinum shipment not leaving your city after 3 days.

    Welcome to 'Straya son.

    Take a ticket, wait 5 years, receive no correspondence or contact, lose interest and get on the piss instead.

  • I applied for a birth certificate for my daughter mid February.
    I'm still waiting for it lol.

    • Seems like this is very common nowadays, based on google review.

  • +1

    I ordered a birth certificate for my newborn and it came promptly in the mail one week later. I was very pleasantly surprised!

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