Mark Jeffreson said Friday had become Vestrum Wealth Management’s “Centrelink day”, simply due to the time it took to talk to an operator.

“The staff are fantastic when you can get hold of them,” Mr Jeffreson said. “But that can take hours.”

He said many were feeling sting of long-wait times and engaged tones when trying to contact the department of human services (DHS).  

It is the reason local councillor Dan Hayes is heading a campaign to build a Centrelink call centre in Wagga. 

The push comes after more than 33 million calls made to the department, went unanswered last year. 

“People, who are trying to do the right thing and get access to a service, are struggling,” Cr Hayes said.

“That’s pensioners, students, those with a disability, and the unemployed.” 

Cr Hayes said the problem was no secret. 

“There is a major problem with the number of calls and the level of staff hired to take the calls,” Cr Hayes said.

“One of the key ways to help overcome that is to hire more staff.”

While DHS said its resourcing levels had been maintained, Cr Hayes said he assumed call centres were full. 

If so, he said a solution would be to build a new one.

His proposal follows the government’s commitment of $51.7 million across three years to provide 250 additional call centre operators, according to DHS. 

Cr Hayes said Wagga had the resources to plan, build and operate a centre for those operators. 

If a facility were to be built in Wagga, Cr Hayes said it would create more than 100 non-specialist jobs and attract more people to Wagga, boosting the local economy.  

“Wagga has previously had call centres and been able to staff them, and it has had developments built that met the requirements for government agencies,” he said.

“The potential here is huge.”

He said it would also aid in the decentralisation of commonwealth agencies – a move the Riverina MP said his party had pushed for.

Mr Hayes launched a change.org petition on Thursday, hoping to build support for the proposal. 

DHS general manager Hank Jongen said the Department was already undertaking a range of initiatives to reduce call wait times.

“We are already seeing the benefits of this work,” Mr Jongen said.

“For example more callers are getting through the first time they call and there has been a substantial reductions in busy signals.”