Centrelink now have a "register intent to claim" button on MyGov, so it appears this a new way for a person to start their claim online (before, they used to have to call or visit Centrelink to get a customer number before they could start their application), and then hopefully they can sort out the rest of their claim either online and/or on the phone. If their payment is approved, it gets backdated to the first registration date.
Good on Centrelink for that one. Hopefully there's less need for people to wait in line this way...
No idea how long a claim takes to get approved though. I hope people have enough saved to enable them to hang on until their claims come through.