Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to add my support to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Connecting People with Jobs) Bill 2010. I know that all members of the House would support measures that are about trying to assist unemployed people, particularly those who have been unemployed for a long time, to be given opportunities, given incentives and given assistance to seek work. This legislation recognises that in some cases people will need to be given encouragement and assistance to relocate, to move away from their current home and set up in another part of Australia where there are better job opportunities and more demand for labour. This is something we announced during the election just a couple of months ago. The Connecting People with Jobs initiative is a two-year relocation trial that will encourage 2,000 long-term unemployed job-seekers, I believe people who have been unemployed for 12 months or more, to move from areas of high unemployment and relocate to take up a full-time job or an apprenticeship in a place with greater opportunities.

Those people who are eligible to take part in the Connecting People with Jobs trial will be eligible for $3,000 if they move to a metropolitan area and an additional $3,000—so up to $6,000—if they move to a regional area. Members who, like me, represent regional areas, particularly those that are experiencing skills shortages in many sectors, will really welcome that. There is also recognition that job seekers who are moving with their families will need some added assistance, so there is $3,000 on top of the base rate for those job seekers who are moving with their dependent children. Employers who are participating in this trial will also be given a wage subsidy as part of the encouragement that we are trying to put in place, firstly, for long-term unemployed people to seek these opportunities and, secondly, to add to the incentive for that relocation to take place.

The bill that is before us today does not actually put in place the relocation trial. This legislation puts in place the ‘stick’ part of the ‘carrot and stick’ equation. We have also announced that under the Connecting People with Jobs trial there will be a penalty for people who take up the additional payments to relocate but who subsequently do not continue in that full-time employment. This is based on the principle that compliance is a very important element of our social security system and, where people are given benefits—particularly, in this case, quite substantial incentive payments—those must come with conditions. We are requiring cooperation from people who take up this opportunity and receive those payments. This bill will impose a 12-week non-payment period on those job seekers who leave their full-time employment within six months of starting, either voluntarily or because they are sacked for misconduct. At the moment unemployed people can be subject to an eight-week non-payment period if they leave work without a reasonable excuse, but, given the additional benefits and incentives that are being paid to the 2,000 job seekers participating in the Connecting People with Jobs trial, we are going to extend that non-payment period to 12 weeks to act as a disincentive for people to walk away from jobs after they have relocated.

It is very important to note that this penalty will not be imposed recklessly or without due consideration by Centrelink. Centrelink retain a very important discretion as to whether they reduce or do not impose this 12-week unemployment non-payment period. They will be able to take into consideration matters such as the exact reason for a person leaving a job, whether they will suffer undue financial hardship and whether a person is in a group of people classed as being particularly vulnerable. I think all members would see that this penalty cannot be placed on people as a blanket penalty. We would hope that, if given the opportunity to relocate, people would take that with a good attitude and a positive determination to make it work, but we understand that relocation to a new job and a new home comes with stresses and difficulties, so we have to keep a pretty open mind about how that penalty would be imposed.

Not only do I want to speak on this bill to give my support to something that I think is a very sensible and constructive measure; I also want to talk about it from a local point of view. This trial is about connecting people with jobs. In my own local context I want to talk about connecting people with jobs but also connecting people with communities and with their families. The place that I represent includes a lot of coalmining towns. There are fantastic job opportunities, there is great demand for people to work, but also quite a lot is asked of the people who take up those jobs and work in the coal industry.

Increasingly, the coal industry is being based on fly-in fly-out operations or drive-in drive-out operations. The coalmining towns of the Bowen Basin that have housed the mining workforce, have built strong communities and have raised families for the last 30-odd years, are now starting to stand up and say: ‘This is enough. We want to claim our communities back. We want to speak up on behalf of our coalminers to say to the companies that increasing and exclusive reliance on fly-in fly-out or drive-in drive-out operations is placing a strain on people that has to be recognised. It’s all very well for that money to go into the bank, whether it is on an individual level or a company or even state or national level, but we really can’t ignore the price that some individuals, families and communities are paying in order for the industry to continue to be structured in the way that it is.’

This has really come to a head in the community of Moranbah. People might have even seen this on the 7.30 Report. On Tuesday night there was a terrific story, and I really thank the ABC for the effort and time they have taken to come out to Moranbah to get to know the people there and put the community’s story out there for everyone to see. Moranbah is the community that has really taken the lead in this fight against exclusive fly-in fly-out operations. It is a very strong community, one of the first mining towns that were set up in the Bowen Basin, and I guess it has the critical mass to take a stand.

At issue is BMA—BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance—and their application to start a new mine called Caval Ridge, near Moranbah, and to operate that with a complete fly-in fly-out workforce. Where that is different from what has happened in the past is that all the mining towns have had work camps, donga arrangements, dotted around the Bowen Basin, but they have been primarily for contractors, and this is really the first time that a company have said that they will not make provision for accommodation and will not have anyone permanently located in Moranbah. They are going to run this new Caval Ridge operation as a total fly-in fly-out operation.

I have attended two of the community meetings now. At the first one there were about 300 people; at the second one there were 400 people. There will be another meeting next Wednesday night. I have never seen anything like this in Moranbah, where really all aspects of the community, people from right across the board, have come together. It is the small business people in town, the council, the workers themselves, their families and the union, the CFMEU, all coming together. They are being quite reasonable. They are not saying, ‘You can’t have any fly-in fly-out workers.’ BMA put in an application to the Queensland government initially for the environmental impact statement for this mine on the basis of 30 to 70. They were saying, ‘We’ll have 70 per cent fly-in fly-out and we’ll have 30 per cent located here and provide them with accommodation et cetera.’ The community are being quite reasonable and saying, ‘We accept that,’ but BMA are now going back to the state government and saying, ‘Actually, no, forget the 70-30; we’re going to go with 100 per cent fly-in fly-out.’ So, quite understandably, the small business people are saying: ‘It’s all very well for BMA to want to come and make money out of this community, but we’ve actually invested a lot of our money into our businesses. If you have a complete fly-in fly-out workforce, people are basically just driving past, the money goes out of town and you’re not putting anything back into the community from a business point of view or from a social point of view.’

Mr Deputy Speaker, I understand that you are giving me some very generous latitude, and I thank you for that. Particularly when this bill refers to connecting people with jobs, I want to join with the people of my electorate in Moranbah, Collinsville, Dysart and all of the mining towns as they really start to take the fight up to the mining companies and say, ‘Yes, it’s all very well to connect people with jobs, but it can’t be at the cost of their connection with the community and their families.’ We are really starting to see what is happening at the other end with the social problems that occur in places like Mackay and to a lesser extent Rockhampton. I am sure that many people in your electorate on the Sunshine Coast, Mr Deputy Speaker Slipper, would be starting to participate in a lot of this fly-in fly-out activity. It really is starting to take its toll on what have been terrific, strong communities in my electorate, whether in terms of the number of car accidents, the number of road deaths or the number of broken families that are starting to become the casualties of what otherwise is a prosperous industry that is very important to our country.

So today I want to add my voice to those of the people in places like Moranbah and other communities in the Bowen Basin to say that I think that this is really just the start of this fight. Of course mining towns will continue to work with the mining companies, but they do not want to be exploited by the mining companies; they want some of these social and community dimensions to be taken into account alongside the expansion of this industry. In closing, I note that the Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare is here. I commend her for this initiative announced during the election and give my support to this bill.

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