Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am just picking up on a few of the comments made by the previous speaker. With any luck we will not see him in the next parliament.

Part of the legislation that we have before us today—Social Security Amendment (2007 Measures No. 2) Bill 2007is very good. I support wholeheartedly the part relating to the carers of children who are blood relatives. It exempts relatives other than parents who are caring for children from participation requirements in certain circumstances. It tightens the assessment on work capacity for people with disabilities by replacing existing administrative guidelines with ministerial guidelines contained in legislative instruments, and it transfers responsibility for the assessment of medical impairment from medical officers to job capacity assessors. That is something I am not quite so supportive of. I worked with people with disabilities for many years, helping them to access the workforce. If I were still doing that job, I would be put in the position of being a job capacity assessor. I see some problems with that, and I believe that we really need to have medical officers involved in that assessment process. I will touch on that a little more as my contribution continues.

The bill extends participation exemptions to principal carers who receive income support and relatives who are not the parents. I think this is long overdue. I am sure that members of the government have been approached by grandparents. The grandparents group here in the ACT recently released a book setting out some of the problems that grandparents have in caring for their grandchildren. I think that anything that makes it easier for grandparents to care for their grandchildren should be embraced by the whole of the parliament. It is a phenomenon that is happening more and more in our society these days. In my own family, my mother-in-law had to care for the four children of one of her daughters as they grew up. The parents died and she embraced the responsibility of rearing the four children. I know how hard and difficult that can be, and legislation that supports that is good legislation. Anything that improves the lives of people who are trying to contribute to our society in any way should be supported. These measures provide greater support and they remove requirements from families who are already struggling.

The area of this legislation that I am not so pleased with relates to the role of the job capacity assessors. Job capacity assessors should be part of the process of assessing whether or not a person is eligible for a disability support pension. Sometimes they can add information that can help in that determination. In the past, I have been in a position where I have made vocational assessments—I have assessed a person’s cognitive ability to undertake employment and I have worked with occupational therapists who would also fit into that job capacity assessment role. I know that that information is valuable. But I do not think that I, an occupational therapist or a physiotherapist—or maybe somebody who has no formal qualifications but has been appointed as a job capacity assessor—would have the expertise to determine whether somebody who is suffering from an advanced form of cancer, a heart condition or any number of conditions is able to undertake work. I did not have that expertise and I do not think that they would have it.

Our office was contacted by a person who had advanced breast cancer and a very, very short life expectancy. She had been knocked back from receiving a disability support pension. It was only after a lot of work with the doctors that we were able to get together the kind of information that Centrelink needed to be able to make that determination. On the other hand, a job capacity assessor could very easily make an error. They would not have the expertise to determine whether someone with that type of cancer could find employment. The person may look normal and may be able to complete requirements. I could give them a cognitive assessment, an occupational therapist could give them a functional capacity assessment and the person may be able to pass those assessments. Based on those assessments the report could be forwarded to Centrelink saying, ‘This person should not receive a disability support pension.’ I think that it is flawed. I think that the government really should look at that very carefully. I have not been a fan of the changes to the Welfare to Work legislation. I am very, very supportive of a person being able to enter the workforce and I am supportive of the government creating every opportunity for a person to get a job.

As somebody who has worked in that area, I find that the legislation can, in some ways, hinder people moving forward. It is a very punitive approach and does not empower a person to go forward. Too much time is spent meeting the requirements and not enough time is spent getting the training and the support that a person needs. Some of the changes have led to pretty horrific outcomes. The son of one constituent who came to see me suffered from an intellectual disability. The doctor supported the mother being on a carer’s payment, but Centrelink felt that the young person was not disabled enough. The mother was forced to go out to work or she would have no income. The young person also suffered from epilepsy and had a fetish with water. This young person filled the sink in the bathroom with water and then had a fit. He fell forward into the washbasin and subsequently died. I see these sorts of problems being exacerbated. We should be legislating to see that such things do not happen. I strongly argue that, whilst job capacity assessors play a very important role and add an extra dimension to assessments for disability support pensions, they should not replace medical practitioners.

I also strongly argue that the welfare reform that we have is not real welfare reform. It simply moves a person from one welfare payment to another and puts in place a whole lot of hoops that a person has to jump through, rather than doing what is essential if you want somebody with a disability, or a single parent, to move into the workforce—that is, to provide the training and the assistance they need to move forward. Welfare reform should not be about putting people on lower payments; it should be about training them for the future so that they can contribute to our nation, make a real commitment and be part of our workforce and society in a very meaningful way. These changes have not done this. They have made the system a lot more complex. They have created a lot of angst for people like the young man who came to my office the other week and who has received a disability support pension for many years. Once again, he suffers from an intellectual disability. He went to the bank on pension day to withdraw his money to pay his rent and buy his food. When he got to the bank there was no money in his account. When he got home there was a letter in his letterbox from Centrelink saying that his disability support pension had been stopped. His mother rang Centrelink and they discovered that he should have attended an appointment two weeks earlier. Unfortunately, Centrelink had forgotten to send the letter to tell him that he needed to be at that appointment. The mother was told that it was still his fault and that he should have been at that appointment even though he did not know about it. Of course, his pension was reinstated, but the situation created an enormous amount of anxiety for this young man.

We should not have a system that punishes people who are doing the right thing. We as a nation should be providing support. We have moved down the track and are in that position at the moment. I know that members on the other side of the House would be hearing very similar complaints from constituents as I am hearing. As I have said all the way through this debate, I am absolutely passionate about people with disabilities being able to enter the workforce—for them to have a job. Over the years I have argued with employers to give a person with a disability a chance. But the changes that have been made by this government will not help those people; these changes have created fear and anxiety. Those Australians who are struggling need our support. Instead, we are blaming the victim.

I strongly support this legislation in providing support for carers. We should be not only supporting relatives who care for children but also doing everything in our power to make their lives easier. It is a good change. It is legislation that improves the quality of life not only of the carers but of the children. The carers will be able to care for them, give them more than they could have and remove stress and strain from the families. The government has gone down the right track. I implore the government to go back and look at its decision to change the way disability support pensions are assessed. It is flawed, it will create a lot of anxiety, mistakes will be made and it will lead to administrative costs. If the government were to really look at this properly, it would change the legislation.

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