Centrelink call wait times are skyrocketing, with hundreds of thousands of struggling Australians forced to wait on hold for more than an hour for assistance.

More than 600,000 calls made to Centrelink were not answered within 60 minutes after calls were tracked in the first four months of this year, according to new data.

In the figures, tabled in parliament and published by The Daily Telegraph on Friday, a total of 600,906 calls, made between January 1 and May 1 this year, had a call wait time of more than 60 minutes.

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That figure represented 20 per cent of all calls to the service provider.

Each category of caller wait times exploded, with waiting times for families and parents up to 52 minutes — an increase of 20 minutes from 2023.

Disability, sickness, and carer related calls, as well as calls from elderly Aussies, jumped to 47 minutes, up from 28 minutes last year.

On Friday, Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley joined host Monique Wright and Federal Education Minister Jason Clare on Sunrise and slammed the blowout in wait times.

“It’s not good enough,” Ley said.

“These wait times have blown out under one person in the Labor government — (Government Services Minister) Bill Shorten.

“One group of people I’m really worried about is women escaping domestic violence because the time that it’s taken to process their payments has doubled from two days to five days.

“These payments need to be delivered as a priority and in a hurry. We’ve seen this absolute blowout in waiting times under Labor.

“They need to bring it back under control and realise we’ve got vulnerable and desperate Australians that are waiting for help.”

Clare also took aim at the wait times, but said a Centrelink hiring blitz should go some way to addressing the issue.

“There’s nothing worse than being stuck on the phone for an hour, and how frustrating that can be,” Clare said.

“You know, you’re talking about everyone from pensioners through to new mums who want to get paid access to paid parental leave.

“We employed I think about an extra 3000 people at Centrelink to help to deal with this. They’ve gone through the training processes.

“We’re hopefully going to see those waiting times come down because, you know, you don’t need me to say, and everybody knows, there is nothing more frustrating than being stuck on the phone.”

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, a spokesperson for Services Australia apologised for the wait times.

“We know our phone wait times are longer than we’d like,” they told the publication.

“The government has invested in 3000 additional staff to process claims and take calls, and committed in the 2024-25 Budget to increasing the agency’s staffing levels to continue to improve our services.”