Belinda Neal (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for clarifying that vexed issue for us today, Mr Deputy Speaker! I rise in the chamber in support of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Employment Services Reform) Bill 2008. This bill amends the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 and principally concerns the introduction of a new job seeker compliance model. The bill will introduce a new social security compliance structure for approximately 620,000 people receiving Newstart allowance, youth allowance, parenting payment or special benefit for those who have participation requirements. The measures contained in this bill will restore balance, fairness and equity to the job seeker compliance regime. Not only will the compliance regime be made fairer but it will also function more effectively.

Over the past decade the former Howard Liberal government presided over a harsh regime based on inflexible punishment of apparently non-complying job seekers. This rigid and increasingly flawed approach saw serious breaches punishable by an eight-week, non-payment period more than double from 1,600 to 3,200 people in the financial year 2007-08. Not only were noncompliers deprived of all financial benefit for that eight-week period but they were also effectively locked out of the job seeker system. There was no requirement for them to seek work at all during that period, nor was there any requirement for them to make contact with Centrelink or their employment service provider.

Under the former, Howard government, this perverse compliance regime amounted to a double disincentive to good outcomes for the unemployed: the system punished noncompliers but did nothing to improve their chances or their likelihood of finding solutions. This system was a manifest failure, especially for the vulnerable and disadvantaged unemployed. The greatest tragedy was that, despite falling unemployment levels in the 10 years from 1999, the proportion of people on unemployment benefits for more than five years rose from 74,000 to 110,000.

Many service providers and welfare agencies have reported that the system originated by the Howard government relies on a ‘penalise first’ approach that alienates noncompliers further from help. This system can also tend to exacerbate situations of severe personal crisis for vulnerable job seekers, including homelessness. Homelessness Australia has estimated that up to 20 per cent of people who underwent an eight-week, non-payment period lost their accommodation or were forced to move to less appropriate housing. I know this has been noted by many speakers before me. It is a point that is extraordinarily important. The current compliance system has resulted in many thousands of eight-week penalties which have produced no productive outcome. In addition, the breaches are non-discretionary and they are irreversible. Job seekers suffer an eight-week separation from their participation requirements, which produces no benefit to anybody.

The bill before us today, however, proposes changes to the existing regime that will actually encourage participation. Participation is the goal of the new system proposed in this bill, and the measures contained within it will do much more to ensure compliance. The bill retains an appropriate balance between participation and penalties for noncompliance. This balance between carrot and stick is evident in the detailed provisions of the bill. To encourage a work-like culture in the provision of employment services, a no-show, no-pay arrangement has been introduced. Failure to attend a required activity, without a reasonable excuse, will see noncompliers incur a penalty of one-tenth of their fortnightly payment for each day of nonattendance. Failure to connect with a required job seeker activity, without a reasonable excuse, will invoke a mandatory reconnection activity. If this is not attended, it will cause a financial penalty of one-fourteenth of payment for each day missed. The eight-week, non-payment period penalty will be retained but only for persistent and wilful noncompliance, such as missing three appointments or six days of job seeker activities or refusing a suitable job. There is no room in this legislation for tolerating those people who deliberately rort the system. Once penalised, a job seeker will have to undergo an intensive compliance activity of up to 25 hours per week.

Under the existing system, a job seeker need have no contact at all with employment services during an eight-week penalty period. In contrast, the new system requires them to actively look for work during that period, to take responsibility for their own action and to reconnect with the job seeker network. Another measure in the bill ensures that a job seeker can have their payments re-instated if they participate in a compliance activity. This could not happen under the old system, where the eight-week breach was irreversible. One of the significant differences between the old system and the new system is that job seekers will be asked, during their compliance activity stage, why they are not complying. They may, for example, have recently become homeless, a circumstance which can have devastating personal consequences and can materially affect a person’s ability to participate and seek work. Of course, the new arrangements contain hardship provisions that may be applied at all stages of this process. There is a strengthened safety net that protects vulnerable job seekers.

The measures I have just outlined mean that the employment services bill brings into existence a strong but fair and equitable compliance regime. The stark contrast with the Howard government’s policies on employment services cannot be clearer. When the present opposition was in power, it had no concept of fair and reasonable reciprocity between job seekers and the government. On the contrary, its compliance system was harsh, inflexible and punitive. The facts are these. During the year 2006-07 there were approximately 16,000 eight-week non-payment penalties applied to non-compliant job seekers who had failed to show up for scheduled appointments. In 2007-08 this had doubled to around 32,000 eight-week non-payment penalties. The opposition’s position in relation to the treatment of Australians seeking employment is uncharitable and punitive. It is not only harsh policy but also a failure—a failure because, instead of decreasing the number of non-compliant job seekers in the network, this system doubled the numbers of disenfranchised and marginalised job seekers. These people had an eight-week breach slapped on them and had to find the means to live without any income support whatsoever. It is hard to believe that the numbers of people wilfully and deliberately thumbing their noses at the system could have doubled overall in the space of just a year. In my electorate of Robertson, over this period the rate of applied penalties rose by a staggering 79 per cent.

The policy of the Howard government failed because the application of an eight-week non-payment period as a response to a technical administrative breach is fundamentally flawed. It does not recognise the wide variety of events that have led to noncompliance. It cannot recognise blameless noncompliance because the measure is mandatory and non-discretionary. Herein lies the fatal flaw. A punitive act employed as a means to ensure compliance fails when a large number of non-compliance situations arise from circumstances largely beyond the individual’s control. In simple language, there are situations where calling Centrelink is not the first thing on your mind. They are crisis situations that occur in life when you have little time to deal with anything but the immediate emergency. When a person loses their job or is hit by some other major catastrophe, this has a roll-on effect on the stability of their home and family. This can have serious, adverse effects on their self-esteem and their coping mechanisms as well as their ability to change their circumstances.

There is nothing more time-consuming than being homeless, jobless or both. Living hand-to-mouth, moment to moment, borrowing cash from family or friends to see you through and putting in applications for rental accommodation in a market with vacancy rates of less than one per cent, as there are on the Central Coast—nothing can be more exhausting. Yes, there are circumstances when letting Centrelink know about your changed circumstances is the last thing on your mind. On the scales of justice, this noncompliance does not actually constitute a breach of the implicit social contract between you and the rest of society that you undertake when you receive participation payments as a job seeker. For those individuals who wilfully and persistently seek to dodge their responsibilities and refuse to participate in employment and employment-readying activities, the eight-week non-payment option remains. What will be interesting to see in the coming years is the number of breaches recorded for wilful and persistent noncompliance.

I pause to consider the competing claims made by the parties in the parliament. Some honourable members have fallen into the trap of typifying welfare recipients, particularly many job seekers, as dole bludgers. I quote National Party senator for New South Wales John Williams from his maiden speech on 15 September 2008. He referred to some unemployed people as ‘simply getting a free ride on behalf of taxpayers of Australia, and it is about time they received a touch on the backside with a cattle prodder to get them off their butts’. This statement reveals simple and blunt language, of course, but also the prevailing attitude of the opposition. It is not a truthful or accurate portrayal. Is the senator saying that grandparents under the age of 65 who have primary care responsibility for their grandchildren are in fact dole bludgers?

In my electorate I have spoken to members of the community who find themselves in difficult straits trying to juggle primary carer responsibilities with the obligations required by job-seeking appointments and interviews. That is not because they are lazy or wilfully avoiding responsibility; quite the opposite. These are individuals who have taken on a second parenthood when their own children, for whatever reason—be it death, mental illness or addiction—have become unable to parent their children. These grandparents have become full-time parents but they are not fully recognised for the role that they play. Meanwhile, they must keep up with the narrow and non-discretionary obligations placed on them by the current legislation. Relief for this group must be found. The legislation before us today goes some way towards providing room for circumstances such as these, but further work still needs to be done.

The old and hackneyed stereotype that the opposition still holds about job seekers is just too simple and fails to really look at the circumstances that lead to individuals becoming chronically unemployed. Without intelligent examination of the socioeconomic, educational and health circumstances affecting people experiencing these difficulties, the opposition has systematically marginalised and derided large numbers of people. These are people whose only crime, perhaps, is having a mental illness or having experienced a life crisis with which they have failed to cope. The current employment services regime, put in place by the former Howard government, makes for bad public policy. It has led to mounting pressure on the charitable and community sectors, which are seeing the increasingly negative impacts of harsh policies as people pile into homeless shelters.

Many who experience an eight-week non-payment period do not stay afloat. It is also recognised that the mandatory application of the eight-week non-payment period has increased the likelihood of individuals losing their current accommodation and standing a much higher risk of becoming homeless. The Welfare Rights Network has reported:

The relationship between this penalty—

the eight-week non-payment policy—

and major dislocation, including homelessness, relationship breakdown, increased mental stress, illness, violence and crime is both categorical and direct.

This is simply not acceptable. Government policy should never contribute to such outcomes. Policy should not be the device by which hardship becomes poverty and disadvantage becomes disenfranchisement. The Rudd Labor government is committed to social inclusion and a fair balance of mutual obligation that takes into account the full circumstances of the people involved.

The previous government’s policy did not improve compliance for job seekers; it systematically failed to do so. Fear is not simply a motivator that will keep job seekers reporting to the employment services when life’s problems crash in upon them. The Rudd government is determined to do better. I quote Sally Sinclair, from the National Employment Services Association, who, on 24 September, said:

A major improvement [introduced by the legislation] will be the introduction of Comprehensive Compliance Assessments to ensure that we have a safety net for vulnerable job seekers. These assessments will identify if a job seeker cannot comply as a consequence of complex life circumstances such as domestic violence, cognitive impairment and mental health issues, rather than being wilful in their failure.

The government’s policy takes adverse circumstances such as these into account. It directs agencies to pause a moment and ask of job seekers: ‘What is going on? What are your circumstances?’ Not everyone on the dole is looking for a free ride. Many are experiencing personal difficulties. That is why the safety net is there. There is no doubt that there should be a reciprocal relationship between unemployed people needing assistance and society providing them with interim support. The terms of that support—where it ceases; what triggers can rightly show the intention, or lack thereof, of a job seeker—are all subject to debate. The government believes that the measures contained in this bill strike a sincere balance between positions. They do not deny the possibility of wilful noncompliance, but neither do they unjustly aggravate the dire circumstances of individuals caught in tough times who are just trying to find their feet. I commend the bill to the House.

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