myGov has become a one-stop shop for birth registrations in Canberra, with Services Australia kicking off a new trial just weeks after assuming responsibility for ‘life event’ services.
Government Services minister Bill Shorten announced the trial on Monday, giving parents the ability to register their newborns to the ACT Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages through the platform.
Mr Shorten said he expects the trial, which follows years of work by the federal and ACT governments, to expand to other state and territory birth registers next year.
Responsibility for ‘life event’ services – an approach to government service provision framed around major changes in a person’s life – transferred to Services Australia at the start of this month.
The new ‘tell us once’ approach makes it easier for parents to register the birth of their child by using details based on information provided to the hospital, if they complete a consent form.
The parent need only confirm the accuracy of the information before the birth is registered with the ACT government.
The federal government estimates the service will save parents 30 minutes that would otherwise be spent on paperwork for a newborn, on average.
Earlier trials of the newborn enrolment system also focused on using hospital information within the federal service.
Plans for the first trial at Gold Coast University Hospital were announced in 2016 and led by the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA).
Hospital information is already used to enrol newborns to federal services including Medicare, the Medicare Safety Net, My Health Record, and the Australian Immunisation Register, as well as providing birth confirmation for Centrelink Family Assistance claims.
The trial of using myGov to register on state and territory registers begins nearly six years after work on ‘life event’ services formally began under the 2018 Digital Transformation Strategy.
At the time, the Digital Transformation Agency led ‘life event’ services. This responsibility transferred to Services Australia at the start of the month alongside development work on a five-year plan for myGov.
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.