Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Exactly—multiplied by four. You do not need to have gone to university to know that particular fact. One would expect someone who has gone to high school to know that particular fact, but unfortunately the opposition do not know that fact, in particular the member for Mitchell. The opposition leader does not know that fact either. Even though he started by supporting the position originally, we are now clearly in the situation where the opposition leader has totally walked away from initial support of the stimulus package. So the opposition are walking away from jobs. They have said, ‘Too hard, we can’t deal with this issue. We’re leaving the field completely.’ The Rudd government is committed to jobs. It is committed to doing as much as it can to cushion this economy from the global financial crisis.

I turn specifically to the Social Security Amendment (Liquid Assets Waiting Period) Bill 2009 to look at what this legislation is about. We need to understand what the liquid assets waiting period is. It is period a person must wait before they can be paid income support if they have liquid assets above threshold amounts. Liquid assets can include cash on hand, shares and debentures, term deposits and other money available at short notice. Liquid assets do not include superannuation and termination payments which have been rolled over or are going to be rolled over directly from the person’s employer or proceeds from the sale of person’s principal home in some circumstances. The liquid assets waiting period, LAWP, may be waived in full or part where a person is in severe financial hardship.

There are key changes in this bill. It will double the maximum reserve of the LAWP to help people who have low levels of liquid assets and become unemployed. In my electorate, unfortunately we are all too familiar with unemployment. We already have double the national average of unemployed and have had that consistently, so these issues are very important to the people of Dobell. The liquid assets threshold for single people will be increased from $2,500 to $5,000 and the threshold for couples and people with dependants will be increased from $5,000 to $10,000. The maximum duration of a LAWP will remain, however, at 13 weeks.

We need to look at the reasons the government is making this change. The changes will allow many people to access income support more quickly and reduce the extent to which they must expend or draw down their liquid assets such as savings before getting income support. These families will not be expected to cash in life insurance to surrender values in order to support themselves before being able to access income support. This is an important and permanent change.

This will mean that life insurance policy surrender values are not taken into account for the purposes of calculating any applicable liquid asset waiting period or determining severe financial hardship. Under current legislation the surrender value of a life insurance policy is a liquid asset for the purpose of social security law, which means that people are expected to cash in their life insurance policy in order to support themselves before being able to access income support. Cashing in the surrender value of a life insurance policy disadvantages the policy owner as the surrender value is generally well below the amount paid in premiums. The person’s family or other estate beneficiaries may be further disadvantaged in the future by no longer having life insurance cover in the event of the person’s death. This amendment will ensure that income support recipients are not unreasonably disadvantaged by having to cash out their life insurance policies before they can access assistance.

Supporting Australian jobs by stimulating the economy and investing in skills we need now and in the future is crucial to our capacity to ride out this global financial crisis. That is the reason the government has spent $42 billion on the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. This plan is a critical down payment on our path to recovery and to building a competitive advantage in the emerging postwar world recession. We are reforming employment services to improve opportunities for every Australian to participate in the workforce and to help build a more productive and competitive economy. As I said earlier, even as we speak today we are having tradespeople on the Central Coast telling us that the economic stimulus package is working and that jobs are there. The problem they have on the Central Coast will be making sure there are enough tradesmen to build the schools that are going to be built in my electorate—as will probably be the case in electorates right around Australia.

It was clear today in question time that the only hope for the citizens who live in the opposition seats is that they get a visit from a government member who might be able to go out and advocate on behalf of their citizens to make sure that schools are built in that area, that someone is out there looking after the economy and the schools in those electorates. It is quite clear from question time today that the opposition have absolutely no interest in that whatsoever. We on this side of the parliament take this responsibility very seriously. The government stimulus package is out there. It is working in terms of jobs in my electorate. I would say that it will work throughout the Australian economy.

Following extensive consultations last year, the Rudd government is undertaking a complete overhaul of the existing Job Network and will introduce new employment services on 1 July this year. These services will be demand driven, personalised and focused on addressing the real barriers to employment that each job seeker faces. There will be a much stronger focus on equipping job seekers with the skills and training required to gain a job and meet the labour needs of employers. In light of the global financial crisis, the Rudd government has acted quickly to reduce the impact on workers and their families by providing intensive employment services to newly redundant workers. On 24 February 2009 the government announced a further commitment of $298 million over the next two years so that newly redundant workers will be immediately eligible for intensive employment services. Compare that to the opposition’s approach. The opposition still want to have Work Choices, where workers were not even entitled to redundancy payments. Again, the contrast between this side of the parliament and those opposite is absolutely stark.

These workers will receive immediate personalised assistance, career advice, referral to available training places and job search help. A personalised employment pathway plan will set out the services and training that they need to find a job. Providers will be able to purchase services and training for them through a $550 credit. In addition to providing early access to a personalised employment service, the government will invest a further $75 million in 10,000 new training places through the Productivity Places Program. The additional 10,000 places will bring the total number of extra places for workers made redundant as a result of significant economic changes in their industry to 20,000 people. The $2 billion Productivity Places Program is a major long-term commitment that will deliver more than 711,000 training places over five years. Already more than 80,000 Australians have enrolled in a training course through the program since April of last year.

The Rudd government has amended social security laws to introduce a fairer compliance framework for approximately 620,000 people who receive Newstart allowance, youth allowance, parenting payments or special benefits and to introduce participation requirements. The key features of the new compliance framework are a more work-like approach with no show no pay participation failures, retaining an eight-week non-payment penalty for persistent and wilful non-compliance, a new comprehensive compliance assessment before any eight-week non-payment period is imposed, fair opportunities for payments to be reinstated if job seekers participate in an intensive compliance activity and new hardship provisions to replace financial case management.

This is an important piece of legislation which amends the social security liquid assets waiting period. It is part of a package of programs that has the Rudd government addressing the financial global crisis—making sure that we are putting jobs front and centre of our response, making sure that the Rudd government are there to protect and cushion communities around Australia as much as we possibly can from the global financial crisis. This important piece of legislation should be supported. I commend the bill to the House.

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