Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise in this House to speak to what I believe is yet another misguided piece of welfare legislation proposed by this government, the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. This legislation will further restrict the availability of the pensioner education supplement for some welfare recipients and enable the recovery of debts incurred through financial case management. It will also make some changes to the way in which income is assessed for certain CDEP recipients. Finally, it will allow for the government to put rehabilitation services out to tender—a process this government has arrogantly already begun before this legislation has passed through this place.

Welfare to Work is an issue that I am extremely passionate about. Many of you in this place know that I have spoken about it many times, both here in the chamber and in my community. This bill shows that after 11 long years those opposite are still focused on punishing welfare recipients, particularly those on the disability support pension. This bill shows yet again that this government just does not understand the needs of people with disabilities and their carers. The government’s focus seems to be more about putting additional obstacles in the way of disabled people and moving them from one welfare queue to another.

Labor believes that those in our community who can work should work. Those people with disabilities should be cared for and assisted by government to reach their full potential in life, including in the workplace. But this government has not put in place any steps to assist these people with a good, solid transition from welfare to work. Rather than punishing people, we should be training them. After all, a person can only get a job if their skills are in demand. Sadly, many people with a disability are being denied the opportunity to get the skills that employers require.

The Welfare to Work package of bills that we saw come through this place in recent times has had a huge impact on the lives of people with a disability in my electorate. When the last raft of changes came into effect mid last year, my electorate office received many calls from people with disabilities who are on DSP, or from their carers. I can recount a particular case, one of many. In this instance it is the case of a young disabled man who wants to work. He works part-time in the hospitality industry, and he wanted to work more hours. For him work does not provide just an income. For him and many others similar to him, work provides an enhanced sense of self-worth, independence, social inclusion and social acceptance. Despite all of the obstacles and extraordinary challenges he faces in his life, he simply wants to get on with the job. For his elderly mother, her son’s work provides some hope for his quality of life into the future, long after she is unable to continue as his primary carer, long after her passing.

This fine young man was offered more hours at his workplace. He wanted to work, so he accepted the additional hours. He then went off his payment because he did not want to be a burden on the government purse. After some months, however, he and his employer found that he just could not cope with those extra hours. It was simply too much for him. He had to reapply for his DSP but he found that he now came under the new Welfare to Work rules. His activity test dropped to 15 hours per week. He is faced with spending the rest of his life, virtually, on the dole. Won’t that be great for his self-esteem in the long term! How will his special needs be catered for on the dole? The short answer is that they will not be. At that point he came to our office. After the involvement of my office and the actions of local Centrelink managers, we managed to have him ‘grandfathered’ under the old provisions. We managed to prevent him from being disadvantaged by this government’s draconian Welfare to Work legislation and by that terrible transition from the old system—you would be virtually forgotten by this government under that system now—and the new system. Sadly, we could not save others in a similar way from the disastrous impacts of those laws.

Many of the provisions in this bill, I believe, are equally misguided. Whilst I fully support the ability of the government to recover welfare overpayments—of course I do—a review and appeal mechanism must be in place. I believe that the government has deliberately omitted review and appeal procedures for debts incurred under financial case management. We have often heard over the past few months the Prime Minister say in this place, ‘What do you expect us to do—let these debts go?’ Of course we do not. But we also believe in a fair, proper and transparent process.

My electorate office deals with more complaints and more inquiries about Centrelink than any other government agency. I am sure many members’ offices are very similar to mine in that regard. As part of the advocacy services that we supply, we organise appeals on behalf of Centrelink customers. We have a pretty good success rate in relative terms. Time and again I have seen debts that have been raised against welfare recipients waived or reduced by thousands of dollars because, upon proper review, it has been found that the person complied with all Centrelink requirements and acted in good faith. The mistake was not theirs and they should not have been punished for it.

But don’t take my word for that: when the Australian National Audit Office completed a review of Centrelink cases last year, they found that in 30 per cent of cases Centrelink had in fact made an error. Almost one in three people walking into their local Centrelink office may have mistakes made in their cases. Through this bill, those opposite want to deny them any right of review and appeal if their overpayment is the result of the financial case management system. This is an outrage.

I want to also put on the record right now that I defend the overwhelming majority of workers in Centrelink. It is not an easy workplace when you consider their workload level, the heavy burden of duty that they carry, the continuous changes that they have to keep up to date with and the stress of dealing with customers in some cases. I am not having a go at Centrelink workers. As for those who make a mistake, we all make mistakes, including me. My point is that Centrelink is a government agency working under government direction. I am pretty safe and secure in saying that many Centrelink workers sometimes do not like the job they have to carry out, but they are there to do it.

I want to now talk about the provisions in the bill relating to the outsourcing of rehabilitation services. I have no objection to these services being provided by the private sector, providing that service levels are not diminished. I find three elements of these provisions most disturbing. The first is that it will be the Secretary of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations who will approve private sector providers. I would like to know what level of expertise the secretary has in assessing the rehabilitation of people with a disability. Will this authority be delegated, and, if so, to whom? My second concern is that private providers will be allowed to operate for up to 12 months without being accredited under the Disability Services Act. In other words, for the first 12 months they will be able to operate under this legislation with no accreditation. To ensure that appropriate levels of care are delivered, we must have accreditation from the first day. You cannot be half pregnant; you are either accredited or not accredited. I cannot understand how you can have a system in which accreditation comes in a year after the system has begun. That is a basically stupid policy, and that has not been clearly understood. I do not understand how you can logically defend it or why you would.

Another concern in this area is the arrogance this government has shown in beginning the tendering process with the private providers before this bill has passed through the parliament. It shows contempt of the highest order for the democratic processes of this place. The next thing we know debate will be removed entirely. What is the point of debate if the government have already begun the process? It proves to me how much arrogance has crept into this government if they believe this is how they can behave.

Finally, I want to touch on the changes to the pensioner education supplement contained in this bill. We on this side of the chamber have argued consistently that we should be doing more to provide welfare recipients with training opportunities. Our position could not be further removed from that of those opposite. Labor recognises that the best path to a job is to have the skills that employers demand. We should not be restricting these training opportunities, and that is exactly what this bill will do. Not only will it restrict people from undertaking further training; it will prevent them from continuing training that they have already commenced. That is crazy. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to go out there and talk to people with disabilities and fully understand that they would love to have a different life to the one they have. In so many cases, all they ask is for a fair go, some support and the training and encouragement to be put in place to see what they are capable of doing.

People receiving the pensioner education supplement already face significant barriers to entering the workforce. Preventing them from completing training adds another obstacle on their path to prosperity, self-worth and social acceptance. I do not know what the government hopes to achieve from these provisions in the bill, apart from saving a few dollars in the short term. That is a pretty pathetic motive. The long-term costs to the people forced to abandon their training, the local communities in which those people live and the nation as a whole will certainly outweigh any short-term gain. I strongly believe that this government needs to re-examine its whole attitude to Welfare to Work. Disabled people and other pensioners need a hand up to get into the workforce. They need encouragement, support and training. They do not need to be backhanded by a government which, after more than a decade, has not delivered one initiative, in my view, to adequately improve the lot of disabled people.

I will conclude my remarks with an observation. Over the years of this government, I believe that people with disabilities have been derided and held in contempt by a lot of the comments that have been made in this parliament—particularly by the Treasurer, but by others as well. They have said things like: ‘Get off your butts. You’ve all got bad backs and you’re malingerers. Get out there and do something and stop being such a huge cost to us the taxpayers holding the taxpayers’ purse.’ That is so confronting and so insulting.

At the end of the day, what have we seen? We saw Welfare to Work legislation come through this parliament that basically excluded the 780,000 people who happened to be on the DSP at the time. The people the government complained about have been removed from the equation. We then had the disastrous transition period, which I referred to when I spoke of the case of the young man in my electorate who was a DSP recipient under the old system. He did everything in his power to work full-time but could not. When he had to re-apply for the DSP, he came under a whole new set of tests. It was quite unfair and put him in a terrible position. Thank heavens we were able to save him from that. I hate to think how many others are out there who were not able to be saved in a similar way. Now we have this legislation coming in affecting the people who are on the DSP today. I say that that is three strikes for this government—a failure in three cases on Welfare to Work. All they have to do is go out and talk to people in the community to understand that their approach is so wrong. We are so far removed from that approach. The divide between us and the government on this issue could not be wider.

See this speech in context