FROM self-serve checkouts at supermarkets to government websites, the march of technology has transformed the way businesses and services interact with customers.
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But one Hunter community service says the increasingly automated world excludes the most vulnerable members of society.
Kurri Kurri’s Barkuma Neighbourhood Centre provides assistance for people enduring financial, social and housing hardship with an emphasis on Aboriginal families.
Dealing with emergency rent payments to medical appointments, CEO Deb Dacey, centre manager Tshinta Sommerville and Aboriginal linker Tamara McDonald witness the full experience of poverty in the Hunter.
The workers said that while they can’t point the finger at any one cause behind poverty, they can identify the barriers that keep clients from breaking free.
“Centrelink’s systems create more poverty,” Ms Dacey said. “They create a whole world of additional stress. People can’t pay rent, can’t eat, they borrow, they steal.”
Ms Sommerville identified long phone service hold times, self-service terminals and reduced staff as obstacles for people without cars, phone credit, personal computers and digital literacy.
“The services are helpful once you’re in,” she said. “But sadly, for those who need it most, it’s often not worth the fight.”
She said people suffering from mental illness were excluded from difficult-to-navigate services.
Ms McDonald said older members of the community were also at risk of exclusion as doctor’s surgeries and other services disappeared behind computer screens.
“Its a rigged system,” she said. “As our clients tell us, it’s an under-30s system.”
Federal member for the Hunter Joel Fitzgibbon said his constituents came in to his office in tears as they struggled with the systems.
But it was not a reflection of the staff at Centrelink.
“It’s just been cuts, cuts, cuts,” he said. “Government has cut too hard, then bureaucrats have to rush new technology in.”
This week Centrelink staff walked off the job to protest wages and conditions.
“They’re losing their best, most experienced staff and those who are left have had a gutful of the abuse from frustrated clients.”
Mr Fitzgibbon said regional communities, like those under the care of Barkuma, were already disadvantaged because people have to travel long distances to access services.
Ms Sommerville echoed his point.
“[Government agencies] seem to think this area is out of reach,” she said.
“There are lots in Newcastle, but it stops at Maitland.”
