We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we work and pay our respects to all Elders past and present, and to the children of today who are the Elders of the future.
Artist: Jasmine Sarin, a proud Kamilaroi and Jerrinja woman.
When you complain to us, we will treat you with respect. We're here to help you. That may mean explaining your options or working with the government agency or community service provider to fix the problem.
This is how we handle your complaint.
We are independent and impartial. We don’t work for the government, and we don’t take sides.
We will review your complaint to decide what action, if any, we should take. Although you may disagree with an agency or service provider’s decision or feel angry or disappointed, we can only act if we think the conduct was unlawful or objectively unreasonable.
When assessing your complaint, we will consider:
Most complaints are handled within 30 business days. Complex complaints and formal investigations usually take longer.
We will always tell you what we decide to do with your complaint and give reasons for our decisions.
If it appears there has been a miscommunication or the agency or service provider hasn't done anything wrong, we can explain:
Over 80% of complaints we receive are resolved this way.
If we think the agency or service provider can fix the problem, we will contact them. If we refer your complaint to the agency, we will find the best person to handle your complaint, so you don’t have to start the complaints process again.
We may also ask the agency or service provider for more information about your complaint to help us decide whether to take further action.
We aim to resolve most complaints informally. In some cases, we may suggest improvements to fix an underlying issue.
Nearly all complaints we receive are resolved by this stage.
If there is an ongoing relationship between you and the agency or service provider, we might offer to conciliate the complaint. This involves both sides agreeing to come together to talk about the problem with one of our conciliators. A conciliation can improve communication and help to reach an agreement on a way forward.
We may formally investigate your complaint if it's very serious. Very few complaints we receive are formally investigated. If a complaint proceeds to a formal investigation, this can take between 6-12 months to complete, depending on its complexity and other factors months to conclude.
When we finish the investigation, we will report what we find and what we consider should happen next. We may recommend that the agency or service provider:
While we can't force an agency or service provider to comply with our recommendations, most do. If they don't, or if there are serious systemic or public interest matters, we can make a report to Parliament.
You can talk to us if you need help making a complaint.
We can support people with disability, Aboriginal people and people experiencing vulnerability. We also have information in Easy Read and other languages.
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we work and pay our respects to all Elders past and present, and to the children of today who are the Elders of the future.
Artist: Jasmine Sarin, a proud Kamilaroi and Jerrinja woman.