Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This bill, the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015, is more of the same from the government. We now have a new Prime Minister, a new leader, but unfortunately we have the same old policies being put forward by the same tired government with the same speakers coming out time and time again, reiterating what they have said many times in the past. This proposed legislation seeks to put in place measures that were announced in the 2015 budget to strengthen the job seeker compliance framework by providing stronger and more immediate consequences for job seekers who do not meet their mutual obligations.

This bill seeks to allow a job seeker's participation payments to be immediately suspended if the job seeker fails to enter a job plan. On the face of it, that sounds very reasonable. A person should immediately enter into a job plan. But what sort of consideration is undertaken in that job plan? Is it something that the job seeker has input into, or is it something that they are basically told they have to do? I hear regularly that a person's background, training, skills and interests are not considered in this type of job plan. The consequences of this is that you are sending people off to interviews and setting them up for failure. They go to the interview and they are rejected, even if it is a mutual obligation such as the Work for the Dole program, for instance. If that person is not suitable, if that person does not have the personal requirements that are needed for that job, if that person does not have the skills that will be needed for the job, they will be told, 'Thank you for coming to the interview, but we do not need you. You will not be suitable for this job.'

I will give an example. I heard recently of an aged-care provider in the Shortland electorate to whom a number of participants for a Work for the Dole program were referred. An aged-care facility is a place where there are a lot of vulnerable people. One of the people that were referred was somebody that had a criminal record, and it was not a criminal record for something minor; it was for a major assault. This was a person that demonstrated that they would be unsuitable to work in an aged-care facility. But the person's job plan had been put in place, and the job plan identified Work for the Dole, and the JSA identified that it was appropriate to refer this person to an aged-care provider. This demonstrates very graphically that the detail that goes into designing a job plan is not sufficient. It is all about getting people back to work. It is not about considering the long-term benefits for that person who is a job seeker. It is just a matter of referring a person to a job and saying, 'Welfare's better than work,' rather than looking at why that person has been a long-term beneficiary of welfare.

The reasons for a person receiving welfare are very complex. For people unable to secure a job, people who have been unemployed for very long periods of time, it takes more than going to an employment provider and having the provider say: 'We're going to develop and implement a plan for you. This is what you're going to do.' It takes a lot more than that to get a person into work. You need to identify the barriers that prevent a person from actually accessing a job. You need to work out why that person has been unemployed for such a long period of time. Once you have identified that reason, then you need to look at the steps that need to be taken along the way to get a person to the point where they will be employable and where they can actually enter the workforce. It is absolutely pointless to refer people off to interviews and to develop a job plan that does not actually look at all the issues. All that is happening is that that job seeker is being set up for failure, and it is costing the government money because the employment provider can say that they are doing this work.

A penalty will also be borne by the job seeker if it is determined that they acted in an inappropriate manner during a meeting. That can be imposed as well. The bill also allows a job seeker's participation payment to be suspended when a job seeker fails to participate in an activity without a reasonable excuse. It would be suspended from the instalment period in which the failure is determined, not from the following fortnight as is currently the case. I have had numerous constituents come to me and tell me that their payment has been suspended. I had one person come to tell me that their payment had been suspended because their car broke down on the way to an interview. They showed me proof of this. It took them quite a significant amount of time to get their payment reinstated. During that period of time, they really struggled. Another constituent had to attend a funeral. Maybe the death of a family member is not deemed important by this government, but this constituent believed that attending their father's funeral was vitally important. If they had not attended their father's funeral they would have had to live with that fact for the rest of their life. They informed the employment service beforehand but, still, their payment was cut off. There are numerous mistakes that are made along the way too. I feel that the compliance is all on one side of the record.

There is nobody in this House who believes more strongly than I do that every person who is unemployed should have the opportunity to get a job. I have spent a very big part of my life helping people find jobs. But this is not the way to go about it. This is punishing people and not taking into account the whole picture and every detail that is needed to get that person to work.

The bill seeks to allow a job seeker's participation payment to be suspended immediately, as I have said, if it is deemed that that job seeker is not putting in place appropriate job search efforts. I refer back to the first example I gave of a person who has a serious criminal record and has been very long-term unemployed. That person needs a plan that deals with a number of issues. They need an employment service that understands the issues that are preventing that person from entering the workforce. They need special assistance. They need a special plan. They do not need to just be in a situation where they are jumping through hoops. Jumping through hoops will not lead to anyone actually securing employment.

A job seeker who fails to accept work will no longer be able to have their penalty waived by re-engaging and undertaking additional activities, even if that would cause hardship. This is very harsh legislation. It is legislation that is not about the person; it is about this government trying to cut their deficit, a deficit that has doubled since they came to power. It demonstrates that this is a government that are not about the people. It demonstrates that this is a government that does not understand real issues that affect real people when they are looking at engaging in the workforce and obtaining employment. Nothing more graphically demonstrates the failures of this government to engage, consult and consider all the issues than this piece of legislation.

The opposition have previously supported similar moves that closely align suspension of penalties incurred in relation to missed appointments—and this is the point I would like to make. We should be protecting the rights of the job seeker to allow them to have that reviewed. It is very simple: they should have the right to have the decision reviewed. We want to protect the rights of the job seeker to show a reasonable excuse. Surely attending your father's funeral should be considered a reasonable excuse if you present the funeral notice—but no. We want to prevent the government's attack on the scope of 'reasonable excuse'. This government is bloody-minded. It is harsh. It does not consider the person. Labor's protection and approach has been very successful in reducing the average suspension time for missed appointments. A reduction of suspension times means that a person is not thrown into financial hardship. It means that the government is listening to people and actually trying to get on with what all of us in this House want—and that is for people who are unemployed to find a job.

It is really hard in our society to survive without any money. If you lose your job, you have no money. If you have no parental support, how do you pay for your food? How do you pay for your housing? You can go and seek assistance from one of the charities. I see this as the government shifting their responsibility onto charities. If the charities can help you, they will. But the suspension period really does create a lot of hardship for that person. It can lead to them losing their accommodation, if they are paying rent, and many other aspects of their lives can be impacted on.

I will end where I began. This is a government that may have changed its leader but it is a government that has the same policies, the same philosophy and the same ideology. It is a government that is not about creating employment and getting people into jobs. Rather, it is a government that is about cutting the budget deficit, a deficit that has doubled since it has been in power.

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