Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008. People that know me well would know that, by nature, I do not really favour punitive approaches. Those that know me who have heard this bill described that way might wonder why I am standing to support it. I would like to explain to those people that I, too, was concerned when I first heard about this bill in brief. I went digging, well and truly, into the detail of it. I found a bill that is not punitive by nature—in fact, quite the opposite. It provides a quite interesting approach to assisting parents who are clearly struggling with the role of parenthood. True, it has that punitive action of the suspension of welfare payments for 13 weeks, and that is probably the loudest bit, the bit that is most easy to understand and the part of the bill that has attracted the most attention. But it also has quite interesting ways for the community at large to identify children who have currently, effectively, fallen off the earth—fallen out of the system altogether—and to identify children who because they are not attending school. It provides a capacity for Centrelink to assist parents to do better in a range of ways over a considerable period of time and, as a very last resort, it provides the capacity for Centrelink to remove welfare payments until the parents comply. I would say that it also allows Centrelink to reinstate those payments with back pay when the parents do comply, in most circumstances.

I would like to spend the time that I have explaining what I see as the positives of this bill and what protections are in the bill to guard our community against those excesses that the critics are most afraid of. For a start, there are at least 20,000 children in Australia who are not attending school—I say ‘at least’ because it is very difficult to collect figures on children who are not enrolled at school. I think everybody would agree, both critics of the bill and those who support the bill, that as a community we must act to find ways to improve the lot of those children. I think we would all agree, including those who support the bill, that there are a range of reasons, explanations and circumstances, and sometimes just excuses, why parents fail to provide their children with access to school.

There are no doubt a small number of parents who just do not care but there are also others afflicted with drug and alcohol addictions, people with mental illnesses, some parents who are so drowning in the role of parenthood that they are unable to cope, people suffering depression and people just lacking the skills of parenting. Of course, some parents have children with issues of their own that elevate the degree of difficulty of parenthood to the point that they simply cannot cope. I think we would also all agree that it is best that we have options to deal with the range of issues and conditions which leads to such bad parenting and that we have very careful case management that allows for flexibility in the application of those strategies. In this bill we have that. This is not simply a punitive bill. It allows for the identification of children who have fallen out of the system; it allows for the assessment of the conditions under which those children live with their parents; and it creates pathways to assist those parents to improve their parenting skills; and, as a last resort, it allows the punitive action of suspending welfare payments, with the incentive there as well of the reinstatement with back pay of those welfare payments when the parent complies.

It is, of course, the last resort that worries people—that suspension of payments. I would like to point out two things about that. Firstly, the suspension of payments is not unique to these circumstances. Throughout the Centrelink system that mechanism is used in a range of ways. There has been at times, under the guidance of different governments, a quite aggressive, one-size-fits-all approach to that; and there is no doubt that, when that approach has been taken, it is an extremely aggressive and destructive method. But that is not always the case. There are cases in the Centrelink system where that last resort is used with quite some sensitivity and with effect. Also, there is already a last resort at state level, which is called prosecution, for failing to send your children to school. It is not something that historically has been used much in recent years, but since April this year in New South Wales, where there have been legislative changes, there have been 154 attendance prosecutions launched for 191 children. That is 10 times the number that were launched in the same period last year. My personal view, and I suspect others would agree with me, is that that particular punitive approach which is growing so quickly in New South Wales is a far harsher regime than the one which I am describing. In this bill, as I said, suspension of payments is a last resort. A pathway to that last resort is available to Centrelink from that identification of the child who is not enrolled. Many opportunities will be provided over a long period of time to assist parents to move themselves off that path and put their children back in school.

There are two essential elements to the strategy. The first is enrolment in school itself and the second is attendance. In seeking to improve both, this bill introduces Centrelink into the equation. That is really quite interesting because it expands the responsibility for educating our children from just the parents and the school to a larger organisation within the community. I think that is incredibly important. In our communities there are two institutions that wear the greater problems that surround them. One is hospitals and the other is schools. With hospitals, for example, if there are not enough aged-care beds, if there are not enough community nurses, if there are not enough doctors working 24 hours or if you cannot get enough bulk-billing then the hospitals actually wear the consequences of failure in policy surrounding that area. It is the same with schools. If there is insufficient attention paid to supporting people with mental health issues or with increasing drug and alcohol problems, or if there is insufficient attention paid to large policy failures like the decisions made long ago to build large public-housing estates, then all of these issues come to rest in our schools—they are first visible to the broader community in schools. But schools do not cause them and schools alone cannot solve them. So I am incredibly glad to see that the responsibility for assisting parents and children in this area is being expanded to the greater community.

It was not always possible for Centrelink to be involved. This bill makes it possible. Back in 2005 there was a trial of a welfare truancy program. In fact there have been a number of recent trials but the one I am referring to in 2005 was at the Halls Creek school in Western Australia. The remote area service and Centrelink commenced a trial of a no school, no welfare program and around 16 parenting payment recipients and their children with attendance problems were asked to attend an interview at Centrelink. Those who did not turn up risked having their payments suspended. A number of recipients had their payments suspended during the two-month period when the trial was running. But the trial was stopped because of concerns that there were no provisions under the SSAA to suspend payments for failure to turn up to an interview when the interview was not regarding payment eligibility or participation related issues. In other words, the trial was stopped because Centrelink did not actually have the authority at the time to participate in this area.

This bill brings Centrelink into the picture and it does it in the following way. The first element is enrolment. All parents receiving income support who have children of compulsory school age who receive income support and who live in the selected locations for this trial will need to provide Centrelink with information about their child’s school enrolment. This is not just about one parent. Any parent who has custody of a child for at least one day a week will have to provide Centrelink with that information. Parents who fail to provide enrolment information without a reasonable excuse will need to engage further with Centrelink and Centrelink will engage further with them. Those parents may have their income support payments suspended until they enrol their child or provide information acknowledging that that has occurred. For that first stage of simply enrolling your child, there is a rapid imposition of that punitive action. That stage involves simply enrolling your child or having a reasonable excuse as to why you have not.

The second element, which is attendance, is much more complex, as you would all appreciate. Parents receiving income support will also be expected to ensure that their children are regularly attending school. In instances where a child is not attending regularly, the relevant state authority can inform Centrelink. At this point, Centrelink is able to and is required to interact with the parent or parents to develop a plan which improves the parenting capacity and which ensures that the children are enrolled or attend school.

Centrelink must now help parents by raising the issue through letters, phone contact, referrals to appropriate services and Centrelink social worker support and must give parents the incentive to do their best to ensure their child is receiving the best possible education. Parents who remain in contact with Centrelink and remain on that path, who work with their child’s school and who do their best to keep their kids in school will continue to receive the financial and other assistance that they require. But the government will not stand by and do nothing if the parents are enabling their kids to wag school or are not participating in improving their capacity to be good parents. Parents who are not taking reasonable steps to improve their child’s school attendance may have their income support payments suspended until such time as they can show they are doing so. So, again, there is a pathway between the identification of a child and that last resort where Centrelink provides considerable assistance to parents.

There is debate on the last resort, as there should be. There should always be debate on issues of children and education. Children, of course, do not wait. A year in an adult’s life is one thing, but a year in the life of a five-year-old or a six-year-old impacts on that life forever. So we cannot stand around and wait for adults to get it right. Some believe that the program will work and some are quite dismissive of it.

I wish to point out again that this is a trial and a very important one. Results in the selected locations will be carefully monitored and evaluated to provide an evidence base for further action. So if this program is expanded nationally it will be done based on the evidence from this trial. As I said earlier, there have been other trials and the results have been quite interesting. In the case of the Halls Creek trial in 2005, which suspended welfare payments for those persons who failed to attend an interview, there was a reported increase in school attendance rates from 54 per cent to 80 per cent, which is quite significant, although I would point out that the numbers in that trial were quite small. A subsequent trial—the engaging families trial—also involving very small numbers, did not see improvement in school attendance rates. The results of those two trials were mixed.

Some critics of the bill state that case management, rather than sanctions, is most effective in preventing truancy. But, again, this bill does not provide for one or the other; it actually provides for a combination of both. It provides Centrelink with both options. It allows for the identification of children who are at risk of falling outside the system. It allows for case management and the development of strategies with parents to improve their parenting abilities. It provides sanctions as a last resort. There are three steps. Two out of three are relatively easy. Identifying the children is relatively easy and the last resort is actually easy. The most significant part in this bill is the part that allows Centrelink to engage with parents. That middle part will develop over time as well, as we look at best practice and we identify mechanisms to assist families in distress. The legislation puts in place the capacity for case management and the options available to assist the full range of parents to do better in their parenting. I commend the bill to the House.

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