Life on the West Island - MyGov myopia

Readers of Life on the West Island might remember what was once the norm when they had an issue or complaint about the Tax Office, Centrelink or Medicare. Basically, they could pick up the phone and talk to a real person or instead just go the nearest government office and have the matter sorted out by the person behind the counter. But in this wonderful new age, we have what is advertised as a “one stop digital site” to deal with all such woes. It’s called MyGov, which every citizen can access online and supposedly have their every desire concerning federal government met. Unfortunately, the reality is not so straightforward. Let us tell you a tale to illustrate.

It started with Cousin Frieda getting a most unexpected bill through her MyGov account for over $2,400 from the Tax Office. This was a bit of a surprise, because she had calculated that she was due for a refund of almost $300. Her online enquiry through MyGov was met with stony silence, so she searched for and found a Tax Office enquiries phone number, which was answered by a charming AI-generated voice giving the usual range of numbers to press. Having chosen one, she endured dozens of AI messages about all the things she could do online, but none dealt with her issue. Eventually, she opted for the non-recommended option of waiting on the line for a real person to deal with. She was lucky – she only had to wait 55 minutes before a kind man spent another half hour trying to sort out the problem. Eventually he decided that the tax assessment was incorrect and said that the Tax Office would review it, make a new determination and advise her of the outcome through MyGov within six weeks.

Two long months passed with no news, but then an email from MyGov advised Cousin Frieda that she had a new message in her inbox. As usual, she logged in and was told that MyGov had sent a single-use code by text message to her phone. No message arrived, and four further attempts to log in achieved the identical outcome. So, she phoned the MyGov enquiries line, waited on hold for 70 minutes, then the service closed down for the day without answering. The next day she was more successful, eventually getting through to a live person after a mere 50-minute wait. The officer was sympathetic and helpful and eventually advised that he had cancelled her MyGov password and that she should wait for thirty minutes, then establish a new MyGov account with a new password.

Now, as you may know, MyGov is a platform that allows you to contact multiple government agencies, with one catch. That is, you have to register separately for each agency. So, Cousin Frieda started that process by trying to link to the Tax Office. All went well, until she was told that to complete the linking process, she would have to respond to the single-use code sent by text to her phone. Then Murphy’s Law cut in. Guess what? No text arrived and the link could not be completed. But she was finally able to establish a link to Centrelink. However, Medicare was a different story. Having entered all of her contact data (plus the answers to questions about her grandmother’s maiden name and what primary school she attended) she received an on-screen advice that some of the data did not match Medicare records. So she tried again (three times), each time being blocked from completing her registration.

Now, we have booked an appointment at the nearest Medicare office, which is some 30 km north of us. These days, you must have an appointment to go to their office, or you will not be seen. So, in just over a week we will venture there in the hope that they can have Cousin Frieda registered to receive the Medicare benefits and correspondence that has come to her over the past 30 years through the mail.

As for the Tax Office, the nearest branch is 150km away and they don’t make appointments. We are only hoping that they might send Cousin Frieda’s revised tax assessment by snail mail and that it’s not a bill but a refund. Even so, we may have to make the 300km round trip just to have her linked properly to the Tax Office so as to receive future correspondence.

So why have we labelled this column “MyGov myopia?” As you may know, myopia is the condition of being shortsighted. It seems to us that, in the name of being ultramodern and “efficient,” the government has been extremely shortsighted and has made dealing with federal agencies much less user-friendly than the old-fashioned way of simply talking by phone or in person to a qualified officer who could discuss the matter and hopefully sort out the problem. A pointless conversation with a disembodied bot is no substitute for a proper contact with a real West Island person, who might even show some empathy!