Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the amendments. In doing so I would like to take the House back to even just a few short years ago when in Australia we had a chronic problem of long-term unemployment. This is without a doubt the most stubborn unemployment that we need to deal with in Australia. Once you have been long-term unemployed it is more and more difficult over time to get you to reconnect with the workforce. The Howard government, as well as creating two million jobs over the life of that government, had incredible success in helping the long-term unemployed find work—and that is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. We had tremendous success in tackling what is ultimately the scourge of long-term employment. This is the unemployment that can be handed down from generation to generation, that damages the social fabric of the communities where people find themselves unemployed for long periods of time.

We have an extraordinarily generous welfare system in Australia. However, to maintain this system we need to ensure that people recognise that the welfare system has to be used as a safety net. It is never intended to be a way of life. It is never intended to support people from cradle to grave. We must ensure that those who are capable of work do work and that they are given every opportunity to fulfil their potential within the workforce. That is not just for society; that is also to benefit them as individuals. In Australia we like to see people reach their full potential, and that was the whole point of what Welfare to Work was about. It was not a punitive system; it was about assisting people to get back into the workforce. And, quite frankly, appropriate compliance measures are part of that just welfare system. We have an interlocking system that is based on incentives, welfare and assistance in job search, and appropriate compliance measures are designed within the system to best meet the interests of both job seekers and the community supporting them. That was the whole point behind Welfare to Work. It emphasised mutual obligation, whereby, in return for income support payments, people were helped to find employment. But job seekers were also expected to play their part in seeking work and to participate in activities that were designed to benefit the community that supported them.

The problem with Labor’s model is that there are three types of participation failures: no-show, no-pay failures; connection failures; and serious failures. Under this proposal, connection failures will be applied when a job seeker does not attend appointments with their employment services provider or they do not comply with the requirements in the employment pathways plan. A connection failure will not incur a financial penalty in the first instance but will instead trigger a reconnection appointment, giving the job seeker 48 hours to make contact and reschedule the appointment. If they fail to attend this reconnection appointment they will lose their payments until they make contact. If a job seeker were to incur three such failures in a six-month period, they would be referred to a comprehensive compliance assessment. This no-show, no-pay proposal shows a total disregard for any sort of reciprocal, mutual obligation. Under this proposal job seekers who fail to attend a work experience activity such as Work for the Dole will lose a day’s pay. At present, that equates to about $45 a day for a single person on the maximum rate of Newstart allowance. If they incur six failures within a six-month period—that is one failure a month—they will be referred to a comprehensive compliance assessment.

I echo the point made by my colleague the member for Boothby, the shadow minister, that if a job seeker has a job interview lined up by their employment services provider and they fail to attend, this will be classified merely as a no-show, no-pay failure. Under Labor’s system they will actually be able to miss one job interview a month before being referred for a comprehensive compliance assessment. Once they have had this assessment, regardless of the outcome of that assessment, the clock starts over again. So you can miss a job interview once a month. I find that extraordinary. Our welfare system relies on having appropriate compliance measures in place. These measures water down those appropriate compliance measures and therefore they water down the whole framework of Welfare to Work and we reject them. (Time expired)

See this speech in context