Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Minister for Workforce Participation) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and cognate bills, which relate to a budget that delivers continuing responsible economic management for this country, ensuring a more financially secure life for all Australians. Labor’s sustained economic mismanagement left us with a $96 billion debt in 1996, with an annual $8 billion in interest payments, which is equivalent to nearly a third of our aged care budget. The coalition government has successfully managed to rein in Labor’s debt, paying it off, so that now we can invest Labor’s lost millions back into ensuring the wellbeing and better life prospects of all Australians.

The OECD regularly reports that the Australian economy is performing well, with our unemployment rate amongst the lowest of OECD countries. But it has not always been this way. I would like to remind the public of the dismal record of Labor in government and contrast that with the Howard government’s strong performance, particularly in relation to work.

In December 1992, under Labor, unemployment peaked at 11 per cent; compare that with the current rate of 5.1 per cent—a 30-year low. Faced with up to 19 per cent interest rates, farmers lost their farms and the food- and fibre-producing assets that it had taken them generations to build. Under Labor, low-paid workers—the very people that that Labor government claimed to represent—experienced a 3.1 per cent reduction in real wages. The coalition has delivered low interest rates and an increase in real wages of 5.8 per cent in just five years.

Our employment has grown by an average of 210,000 people a year for the five years to March 2006. Today over 10 million Australians are in work, with more than seven million in full-time employment. So, as Minister for Workforce Participation, I am particularly proud to be able to continue to help deliver greater opportunities for a better life for all Australians through last year’s budget initiatives, which have been continued through the 2006-07 budget funding. This government has committed $3.8 billion in job finding, employment support and work readiness training for the more than two million people of working age on welfare who are able to work at least part time in this great country. We have called this strategy Welfare to Work. Welfare to Work focuses on parents, the disabled, the mature aged, the long term unemployed and Indigenous Australians, giving to them an additional incentive and extra support to help them step back into the workforce or get that first job.

Along with other developed nations, Australia is experiencing an ageing population and low fertility rates. By 2045, one quarter of our population will be over 65, and our fertility rate is half what it was in 1961. In the next five years alone, Monash University’s Workforce tomorrow research shows there will be a labour shortfall of nearly 200,000 workers. But many industry sectors are experiencing a workforce shortage right now—for example, in mining and hospitality and tourism. But there is a pool of potential workers out there, willing to work but needing a hand up, not wanting to spend a lifetime on a handout. In 1965, only three per cent of working age adults depended on welfare payments as their main or sole source of income. Today, one in six working age adults depends on welfare payments as their main source of income. We aim to give more of these working age Australians a real chance to participate fully in our economy and in our society—through work.

What does Welfare to Work entail? For example, currently parents on parenting payments are not required to re-enter the workforce until the youngest child turns 16. From 1 July this year parents on welfare whose youngest child turns six will become eligible for comprehensive assistance to get back into the workforce. Perhaps it will be the first time they have been able to take a paid job. Over the two years until their youngest turns eight, parents will be able to undertake work related training while they continue to receive parenting payments or look for a job—all supported through our Job Network members, and those members have over 1,000 sites across Australia and have been competitively selected to be the best in the business to give that help.

Parents will only be required to work for 15 hours a week as a minimum, and this will be conditional on accessible and affordable child care being available. Over 80 per cent of people receiving a single parenting payment are women. Welfare to Work also offers a chance for us to break down the stereotypes that have traditionally locked women out of some industry sectors—for example, the building trades, the transport sector, mining and natural resource management. So parents returning to the workforce will find a hand helping them to reskill and rethink what their life career prospects might be. At the same time, they will find that more child-care places are accessible and subsidised to ease their way, particularly with the coalition government’s investment of $60 million over four years to create an additional 25,000 child-care places. These places, in particular, will handle after-school and holiday care.

Long-term unemployment, as we know, does not simply mean reduced economic circumstances for the family. It is also about social isolation, low self-esteem and stigma. When unemployment becomes intergenerational, it is particularly difficult for the children of the unemployed to engage in the world of paid work. We know that some of our Indigenous Australians, in particular, are facing their third generation of never being a part of the Australian workforce. This government intends to break the cycle of hopelessness and helplessness to give the most disadvantaged a chance to realise their full potential. Many of these are parents who have not finished basic schooling or education before they became full-time carers, but some others are disadvantaged through being disabled.

The number of people on the disability support pension in Australia has nearly doubled since 1996. While current DSP recipients are grandfathered from the Welfare to Work changes, as of 1 July 2006 people who apply for the disability support pension will be assessed professionally and comprehensively to see whether they can work at least 15 hours per week in a normal occupation in a normal workplace. Those unable to work at least 15 hours will continue to receive a disability support pension, because every country like Australia intends to keep a strong safety net in place for those who do need the social security support either for a short time or for all of their lives so that they can live and look after their families. But, of course, with those who can work, such as those who may be on disability support pension and are able to work at least 15 hours, we will support them to take up at least part-time work. Those who were on the DSP before July 2006 can volunteer to access the Disability Employment Network services if they want to be helped into work. In fact, thousands have already accessed this special help.

There are currently over 135,000 people with a disability seeking a job through the government’s Job Network and Disability Employment Network. Since July 2005, over a 12-month period, Australian government employment services have placed over 50,000 people with a disability into a job. This is a great outcome for people with a disability, whether it is a disability relating to their mental health status, a physical disability or one associated with some other illness—let us say a psychiatric illness. All Australians deserve to work to their capacity. We know that, while there might be myths about some not wanting to work, they are in a tiny minority in this country. Since 1996, the Howard government has nearly doubled the spending on services for people with a disability to $410 million.

In the Welfare to Work package, there is an extra $554.6 million over four years to assist people with disabilities to move into work—with targeted initiatives, for example, for people with a mental illness and for businesses employing a person with a disability. We acknowledge that it might mean modifying the workplace to do things like build a ramp, change the lighting, introduce different software to the computer systems or help other coworkers understand the special needs of their new workmate. This $554.6 million will also help provide specialised assistance for people who need rehabilitation from drug or alcohol addiction or who might have a problem with homelessness or some other personal life crisis, like domestic violence. The funds will also help more people with a hearing impairment. We have had marvellous success with introducing greater access for the hearing impaired to Auslan interpreters in the workplace. It has been found that these Auslan interpreters have been of such benefit that we boosted the budget for Auslan interpreters for the hearing impaired. There are also practical benefits, such as a higher mobility allowance for job seekers and those newly placed in work to help them pay the cost of transport to and from work.

In Australia we have become focused on retirement at 54.9 or so years of age, in particular for public servants—as in the past their superannuation has tended to be designed to give them the greatest benefit if they leave at about that age. Other Australians expect a 65-year-old to exit their full-time or part-time jobs. This loss of the 55- to 65-year-olds from our workforce represents a huge loss of industry experience and energy, which our country can ill afford. For women over 55, this is a particular problem, given they are often alone and are least likely to have adequate superannuation or savings to help sustain them independently for another 25 years after retirement.

The Mature Age Employment and Workplace Strategy announced in the 2004-05 budget provides $12 million over four years to help increase workforce participation for mature age workers in particular. We want to change the mindset in Australia where people in their 60s are considered to be of retirement age. Rather, we would prefer individuals consider their own wellbeing, their own energy levels and their own interests in their occupations and continue to work for as long as they are physically able to—and in Australia that is often well into their late 70s, if not older again. We hope to cut down those stereotypes, which talk about older Australians being better suited to the beach than to the bench in the workplace. The Welfare to Work initiatives home in on the mature age unemployed person, acknowledging their special needs and giving them tailored support—such as upgrading training and job skills development—especially where they have been out of the workforce for a long while.

I also want to refer to our new Work Choices or industrial relations reforms. They make it much more likely for an employer to be able to give a different workplace commitment to employees who perhaps want to work part time because they are moving towards retirement age, who might want to job share, who might want to work in some seasons and not others or who might want to work on weekends and not weekdays or vice versa. Our workplace reforms introduce these flexibilities to make sure that employees and employers can better match precisely the needs of the industry sector and the capabilities and interests of the employee to lead to a far greater participation in the workforce and a stronger economy.

The coalition government has delivered results for our long-term unemployed. Compared to the Labor government, which had a peak of around 333,000 unemployed, under the Howard government this has been reduced by over 70 per cent. The last coalition budget invested an extra $360.2 million over four years, from July 2006, to increase the chances of finding work for the very long-term unemployed—all of whom can now access intensive job support programs. Our Work for the Dole program, for those unemployed for more than six months, has been particularly successful. It delivers over 40 per cent of participants into jobs or job related training within three months of the program’s completion. That is what our survey data tells us.

This program was an innovation that brought howls of protest at the very thought of mutual obligation and a community contribution being made by the long-term unemployed. The Labor Party continues to howl with protest about Work for the Dole, but the program has literally changed lives, broken down social isolation, helped people reconnect with the world of work and with team-mates, and given them a sense of a day’s work well done for the good of the community. We are continuing with the Work for the Dole program. In fact, we are extending it to a 12-month option for those who have been unemployed for more than a year.

We also recognise that unpaid work experience can lead to a full- or part-time job. Sometimes if someone is disabled or has been out of the workplace for a long time, both the employer and employee need to spend several weeks in each other’s company, seeing if the job really suits. But an outstanding issue has been the cost of accident and personal liability insurance. As part of the 2006-07 budget, 70,000 job seekers over the next four years will have their accident and personal liability insurance paid by the federal government as they undertake real life work experience. Hopefully, this will improve the chance for the work experience to lead to that first job, or a job after a long break from the work force.

Another group of highly disadvantaged Australians, when considering their capacity or ability to gain a job, are our ex-prisoners or ex-offenders. Each year, over 25,000 people leave prison and, unfortunately, very often step into the ranks of the unemployed. Obviously, they then survive on income support. About one-third of these ex-prisoners will return to prison within the year, two-thirds eventually reoffend at some stage. As a government, we want to give every assistance we can to ensuring that offenders are given a chance, while still completing their sentence, to have their work skills assessed, to gain additional workplace based skills, to be put in touch with the jobs and to support them overcome other disadvantages or barriers they might have to getting a job when they step out of the prison. In particular, we will aim to rapidly reconnect our ex-offenders by offering the support of our Job Network services to adult prisoners on day release—in other words, long before their final sentence date comes due. We will focus on prisoners who are in areas where there are workplace shortages, but, of course, that is now right across the country.

We hope this initiative also assists our Indigenous prisoners, who represent a significant proportion of the Australian population in jails. The rate of unemployment amongst Indigenous Australians as a whole is, unfortunately, far higher than for non-Indigenous working age adults. Indigenous employment centres have already assisted around 3,600 people to find work. Indigenous Australians, especially those in metropolitan and large regional centres, will now be encouraged to make use of all of our Australian government employment services, not just the CDEP program.

The CDEP program will also have a much sharper focus on work for the individual, rather than simply a community development focus for the future. In particular, young Indigenous people will be aimed or directed towards completing their education, rather than leaving school prematurely and stepping straight into CDEP payments, which, too often in the past, has become a lifelong dependency.

The removal of remote area exemptions for some remote communities also acknowledges the existence of new and often booming local employment opportunities where once there were few jobs. These remote area exemptions come after close consultation with the communities and in recognition that there is now real work in places in Australia through the mining boom, through hospitality and tourism, through the fishing and pearling industries, and natural resource management—jobs that have not been there in generations past, but which need to be grasped now as real opportunities for Australians who live way beyond the tram tracks.

In conclusion, this budget is about a greater opportunity for work for all Australians. It recognises that most Australians of working age do want to participate to the full in our economy, which, in turn, gives them a strong sense of their own self-worth and gives their children a sense of how their parents contribute to the greater good. It is just too sad to see that in the past, some 10 years ago, intergenerational unemployment saw people simply parked in welfare. That was their destination for their working age life, until they moved on to the old age pension. We intend to offer 2½ million Australians, through Welfare to Work, an opportunity they may never have had before. Never has the economy offered more work opportunity. I commend this budget to the House and say that I look forward to 1 July.

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