I can tell you from my own personal experience that applying and receiving the Covid disaster payment has been extremely fast.
I am self employed, and contract solely to a company that has had to close down during this current lock down being in the non-essential retail sector.
I lost 40 hours per week.
I had never claimed any form of social security, hardship payment or the dole in my working life of 44 years, nor had I ever had to deal with Centrelink, until now.
Not knowing what to expect, I needed to contact Centrelink to get a CRN (Customer Reference Number), before I could put my online application in through my MyGov account.
Thinking I would be on the phone for hours and on hold especially during this Pandemic and with more than the normal number of claims being made, I grabbed a coffee before calling.
I was pleasantly impressed with Centrelink... My call was answered and I was speaking to a staff member within 15 seconds!
Quicker and more efficient than ringing my bank or a large Telco.
Later in the day, I had to ring them back again due to a technical issue I had linking Centrelink to MyGov... Again the phone was answered by support staff in a flash.
Within 3 hours after I put my application through... I could not believe that my first disaster payment was already in my bank account!
Each week of the lockdown has been the same... Like clockwork, the money is in my account every Friday.
Kudos to the Government in how they are quickly handling these disaster payments to those that are affected!