Stuart Henry (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Other Measures) Bill 2005 was recently passed by this parliament. Several additional amendments to social security law are required to ensure that the policy intention of the Welfare to Work changes is achieved. These amendments are contained in the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Other Measures) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006, which I am speaking to today. Terminology and provisions in social security law will be replaced, amended or repealed to clarify the policy intention in relation to particular Welfare to Work measures.

It has certainly been interesting sitting here and listening to the contribution by the member for Throsby on this legislation. She started out by talking about the mean-spirited approach of the Australian government and the impact of this and other legislation on those who are disadvantaged in our communities. But let us just look at the record. Let us look at what previous Labor governments have done to the Australian workforce and community. Under the Labor government’s administration we have had the highest levels of unemployment and interest rates at 18 per cent plus. Compare that with what has been achieved by the Howard government—the lowest rates of unemployment in over 30 years and low interest rates that enable many more people to get into homes, to the point where we have long waiting lists for houses. It is an incredible suggestion that we are mean-spirited. We are providing employment for all—that is, everyone who wants to work—with employment levels at about 5.1 per cent. Talk about mean-spirited!

Let us just look at the net wage increases over the last 10 years. Wages have increased by something like 18 per cent under the Howard government, but during the term of the previous Labor government they increased by just over one per cent. So who is the better government to provide the best advantage, the best opportunity and the best employment outcomes for all Australians? I think the electorate out there have been voting with their feet in the last four elections, because they know who is doing the right thing by them.

This bill contains a number of provisions which effect minor changes in some areas of social security law, such as amendments to allow parenting payment partnered recipients who have a temporary incapacity exemption to have access to the pharmaceutical allowance. The bill will also allow single principal carer parents who are bereaving the death of a child and are receiving Newstart allowance or youth allowance to continue to receive the same rate they were receiving before their child died for another 14 weeks after the death of the child.

This bill also recognises the special circumstances of partnered parents receiving parenting payment who have a partial work capacity due to an illness or disability. It will give them access to various benefits and concessions on the same basis as Newstart and youth allowance recipients who have a partial capacity to work, including the pension concession card. These and other measures in the bill build on the announced Welfare to Work policy and ensure consistency across working age payments.

The Welfare to Work legislation is built on three main principles. The Howard government believes that people who have the capacity and are available to work should do so. There is nothing better than a job. The best form of family income comes from a job rather than from welfare. Services provided to people who have an obligation to seek work should focus on getting them into work as soon as possible. I would have thought that these principles were basic commonsense, but it seems that the Labor Party have a problem with this, although they seem to have no alternative policy. In fact, Labor are a policy-free zone when it comes to addressing welfare dependency and increasing workforce participation. Anyone in our society who cannot work should be provided with a pension, but I would think that the number of people who cannot work is very low.

The Howard government introduced the policy of mutual obligation in relation to welfare payments, and I am proud to support that policy. It is a policy designed to encourage people to work if they can, to ensure that people do not come to rely on government handouts and to ensure that people who are receiving assistance from the community contribute to the community where they can. The Labor Party is opposed to this policy—a policy which rightly has the support of the vast majority of Australians.

Part of the Welfare to Work package is a change to the parenting payment, requiring single parents who receive it to return to work for at least 15 hours per week once their youngest child reaches school age. I am sure that most Australians would wish they had the luxury of waiting until their youngest child went to school before returning to work, but the Labor Party thinks this is unfair, that it is punishing the parents. In a second reading debate on 30 November last year, the member for Jagajaga said:

This is not the Australian way. Australians look out for each other when they are down on their luck. We give people a hand so that they can get back on their feet.

There is no doubt about that. Australians do look after each other and give a hand to get people back on their feet. However, the member for Jagajaga thinks the best helping hand for single parents is to leave them out in the cold, on welfare, until their youngest child turns 16, offering them no encouragement to enter the workforce earlier to maintain or develop their skills. Welfare to Work gives parents a 10-year head start, helping them to build their work skills, to gain work experience and confidence and, most importantly, to move away from reliance on welfare.

With the skill shortages that we are experiencing across Australia today, we do not have the luxury of allowing people who are capable of working and who are willing to work to sit on the welfare fence. Australia’s unemployment rate is at a 29-year low at 5.1 per cent. There is now a shortage of workers, not a shortage of jobs as we experienced under the previous Labor government with an extreme level of unemployment. The shortage of jobs will only accelerate with the ageing of the Australian population. The potential shortfall of Australian workers over the next five years could be as high as 195,000, according to research by the Centre of Policy Studies at Monash University.

Currently, Australia’s participation rate for working-age people is 73.6 per cent. This is well behind other OECD countries such as Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. In order to meet the skill and labour shortages we will experience in the future, we need to ensure that as many Australians as possible are able to participate in the workforce to their highest level of capacity and availability. The Howard government has introduced Welfare to Work as one part of a comprehensive approach, along with a focus on vocational and technical education and training to safeguard Australia against these future problems. It works in harmony with Work Choices for a caring Australia that puts opportunity and employment in the reach of everyone.

The measures contained in the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Other Measures) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 will cost $6.5 million over four years. These measures will ensure the proper delivery of the Howard government’s Welfare to Work legislation, and I commend the bill to the House.

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