Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation and Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

The concept of mutual obligation is one that the Liberal and National parties are proud to take credit for. We pioneered mutual obligation in the area of employment services—the Job Network—over the opposition of the Labor Party in every case. The introduction of activity requirements and the dole diaries—all of these were measures which were opposed by the Labor Party.

Last year, we, the former Howard government, introduced legislation to quarantine the welfare payments of parents who did not ensure their children regularly attended school. So the concept of welfare quarantining is not one we are opposed to; it is one that we introduced—it is one that we support. There is a remarkable lack of consistency in the approach which is taken by the Labor Party on this issue.

When we were in government, the Labor Party was quick to criticise our Welfare to Work reforms, which were implemented by the former Howard government. It must be stressed that the measures we put in place were not designed to punish people. Rather, we believed very strongly that people should accept personal responsibility. We believe that, if you are supported by the welfare system, you can and should contribute back whatever your level of capacity.

When we look at the approach that the Labor Party have taken on this and look at the approach they take to the suspension of welfare payments, there is a double standard. As soon as the government were in, one of the very first actions they took was that the Minister for Employment Participation rushed to write to all employment service providers—all the providers of Job Network and the other employment services—and urged them to go easy on job seekers who did not meet their mutual obligation requirements. So they were urged not to breach people who did not turn up for job interviews, who did not turn up for meetings with their employment service providers or who did not turn up for their work for the dole activities. Before the new government had even completed their review of employment services, before they had even shaped the new employment services that they wanted to operate from 2009 onwards, the Minister for Employment Participation had already signalled that he did not want to see anyone breached, he did not want to see anyone reported and he did not want to see anyone penalised for not meeting their activity requirements. This letter was followed up by a letter from Malisa Golightly from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. It reiterated taking a more lenient approach on those who failed to attend appointments with their employment service provider, failed to attend interviews with potential employers or failed to attend Work for the Dole activities.

What this lack of consistency demonstrates is a much wider truth. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Kevin Rudd is very fond of the small picture. Paul Keating was someone who liked to paint on a big canvas. He was the Tom Roberts of the Australian Labor Party. He liked to paint on a big canvas. He had the big vision. Kevin Rudd reminds me much more of the guy who gets in the Guinness Book of Records writing the Lord’s Prayer 25 times on the back of a postage stamp. This is one of the problems that you have when you just pick up some thought bubbles and try to merge them together. We have the extraordinary thing after nine months where what we see with the Rudd government is that the sum of the parts is less than the whole. We have the left hand of the government not knowing what the right hand is doing. After nine months it is very clear that the government has run out of ideas and has run out of steam.

In the area of employment, the suspension of welfare payments for those who fail to meet any of their work obligations has in essence been abolished. But now Labor are saying that they want to adopt this system for parents if their children wag school. The logic of this escapes me. On one hand an adult job seeker who fails to attend an appointment, an interview or a mutual obligation activity on more than three occasions without a reasonable excuse will no longer be penalised; yet, if a child skips school, the parents may incur a non-payment period. We believe that parents are role models for their children. But we also believe that Labor should have a consistent approach to the quarantining or suspending of welfare payments. For whatever reason, the Labor Party are sending different messages to different constituencies. It is a very mixed message.

In concluding this speech, I want to make a couple of points about something that very few members of the government have mentioned: we do have, in every state and territory, truancy laws. These laws are not effective but, more importantly, they have not been enforced by the state and territory departments of education. We have information from the Bureau of Statistics that suggests that nationally there are 20,000 children of school age who are not in school. While we support the principle of this legislation, we have to question how effective, how practical, it will be. We are looking at just one set of payments going to the parent rather than looking at things like the truancy laws and the enforcement of them that is done at a state and territory level.

I would say not to expect too much from this legislation. The Minister for Education in her second reading speech, said:

It is anticipated that a very small number of parents will have their income support payments suspended and even less, if any, will have their payments cancelled.

So we are asked to believe that we will see big changes of behaviour without much of a stick being offered in terms of the welfare payments. The expectation is that we may actually see no-one having their welfare payments cancelled from this. If the legislation does operate in this way, it will be very similar to the state and territory truancy laws that are there. The laws are there and you can see them. They are good laws; they just do not work. They are not effective and they are not enforced.

Finally I would just like to say how clear it is that this is one of the problems of running a government by thought bubbles and just waking up one morning and deciding, with the hollow men, what you will come up with for the next media cycle. It does not offer much of a theme for the Rudd government. There is a remarkable lack of consistency in the way they deal with welfare payments and the quarantining and suspension of them.

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