Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015. The member for Denison, with respect, is all complaints and no solution. For those three years he was, of course, pivotal. He had a very significant and influential position in this parliament with the balance of power. To complain now, when he is effectively irrelevant, is just beyond the pale.

Before I get on to the bill before the House, in respect of the Shipping Legislation Amendment Bill 2015, one MUA job that might be saved on a coastal shipping vessel potentially will cost two, three or five jobs, often in other unionised workplaces, whether that be at Nyrstar in the member's own electorate or whether that be at places like Norske Skog in my electorate. As Ray Mostogl from Bell Bay Aluminium has articulated more clearly than anyone in this place has done previously, when we lost our international shipping service by virtue of the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Bill 2012—which, I have no doubt, the member the Dennison supported—his costs of shipping went up 63 per cent. Deadweight tonnage on Australian flagged ships has continued to fall under the changes that were made in 2012. I said in my contribution the other day that I will give the benefit of the doubt to the MUA and even to those on the other side that the bill was well intentioned, but they have failed. Tasmania is the island state in the island nation. It depends—blind Freddy could understand—more on shipping than many other parts of the country. I just simply do not understand how a Tasmanian could come into this parliament and say that losing our international shipping service is a benefit.

Everything this government has done since coming to power in 2013 has been about supporting job seekers and supporting the economy to grow more opportunities for more people. At the end of the day, our system of welfare is one of mutual obligation between the taxpayers of Australia and those recipients. That is the basis of our system, and Australian taxpayers understand and appreciate that. We all know—or, at least, some of us know—that the best form of welfare is a job, whether it be for the individual concerned, their family, the community to which they can be a more constructive contributor or the nation more broadly and the finances of the Treasury.

We understand that the issues for those people who are unable to find a job because of mental health are enormous. But, again, everything this government is doing is to support them. That includes the Innovation and Investment Fund. The member for Denison should know about this because his electorate benefited from that $13 million program. With contributions from the private sector, it turned into $40 million. That created 400 jobs as recently as in the last 12 months in our state of Tasmania. It also includes the $60 million contributed to irrigation schemes in the state. It is not about accessing water in those areas of the state that are dry and that with the inclusion of water can create more products; it is about the surrounding towns. It is about the dairy, vegetables, fruit and finishing of red meat products that can occur. It is about the families that have come to those towns in rural and regional Australia. That is what it is all about. It is not about the TFES, for example. That is $204 million to expand the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme. It is not about that economic infrastructure. At the end of the day, it is about enabling our state to compete on a level playing field and create more jobs.

There are also the coastal shipping reforms I have just mentioned. What makes one job on an Australian flagged coastal vessel worth more than one job in the member's own business, for example? What makes it worth more than farmers in my electorate or a job in, as I mentioned before, Norske Skog or Bell Bay Aluminium? I do not understand.

The small business and jobs growth package was focused, as the name suggests, on creating more opportunities for more young people. It was to encourage small business. As the member for Denison rightly said, we depend so much on small businesses within our state. That was a $5.5 billion package in the last budget. It was well received all around Australia because it was about encouraging small businesses to have a go. It was about encouraging small business through the instant asset write-off program that allowed them to immediately write off assets up to the value of $20,000 and tax concessions of 1.5 per cent for incorporated small businesses. And 70 per cent of them are incorporated. There was a $1,000 tax deduction. That was all designed to make those businesses more profitable and give them more incentive to employ more Australians.

There was the renegotiation, for example, of the job services provider contracts. That is not specifically related to the legislation that we have before the House, but it was about not having an up-front payment when you got people on the books. It was about delivering outcomes. That is something that is starting to change. I went into the MAX Employment office in Bridgewater the other day. It is not far from the member's own electorate. They are seeing within their own processes and procedures the things they need to do. Whether it is a part-time job or a seasonal job, there are benefits to the people there. The structure of payment now is that they will get paid only when they get people into work, not when they get them on the books.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the free trade agreements that we have negotiated with South Korea, Japan and China. I have said to Minister Robb that the China agreement could be redescribed as the 'Tasmania-China free trade agreement'. The member for Denison should know that very well. These have enormous benefits to our state, whether it be to the university in the member's own electorate or whether it be to farms, small businesses, agricultural producers and manufacturing businesses within mine. That is everything that this government has been focused on.

The legislation before us today is another effort to encourage young people to get a job. It builds on the successful reform already implemented within the sector last year. These reforms are already working. They have improved attendance at re-engagement appointments with employment services providers from a 65 per cent attendance rate in 2013-14 to more than 90 per cent in June this year.

These very positive reforms have meant a reduction in the average time a job seeker's payment is suspended before they re-engage with the provider from 5.2 business days in September 2014 to 3.1 business days in March this year. This means that more job seekers are taking advantage of the help on offer and receiving their income support as intended and that providers are spending less time reporting noncompliance and more time actually helping job seekers look for work. To me, that make sense.

This latest amendment will pave the way for a simpler and more effective compliance framework to ensure that job seekers are meeting their mutual obligation requirements at every point throughout the job search process. The planned reforms will not only see faster re-engagement and fewer failures in the first instance; they will provide substantive financial savings to the community because of the decrease in non-compliance work required.

Getting job seekers into jobs is the key focus of employment services, but there have been significant weaknesses identified in compliance arrangements for those same job seekers. Under the current system, it can take up to five weeks from the day a job seeker fails to attend a Work for the Dole activity until the penalty is actually deducted from their income support. It can be longer if the job seeker is difficult to contact. Allowing the penalty to be deducted from the very next fortnightly income support payment, where feasible, will help create a stronger link between the failure and the consequence. This should lead to better participation in Work for the Dole activities.

Work for the Dole is, indeed, another a key part of the government's efforts to improve employment services and job seeker's employment prospects. I think across Australia it is a program that has broad general support. To make sure this is successful we have had to ensure that job seekers are attending the training activities ordered for them. Effective penalties applied in a timely manner have had the most success in achieving that. I mentioned mutual obligation. It is the basis of our system of welfare, in this country, between the recipients of that welfare—in the case of job seekers—and the taxpayers of our country.

This bill will not introduce new penalties. Job seekers who fail to participate in an activity, without a reasonable excuse, will still lose one day's pay for each day they fail to attend. This will mean that the penalty will be deducted straight away, rather than in five weeks or more, if they are difficult to contact. In 2013-14 a total of 4,342 job-search related failures were applied, but none resulted in the application of a financial penalty. This is ridiculous and we are moving to remedy and improve this compliance regime.

In the same way, job seekers who refuse to take up suitable job offers are supposed to incur a serious penalty. Currently, only 22 per cent of these job seekers are subject to the penalty, because of waiver provisions. All people have to do, to avoid the penalty, is to agree to participate in extra activities for the duration of the penalty. These are not vulnerable job seekers but have been identified as eminently employable. They have been offered work and have refused it, without good reason, to incur the penalty in the first instance. As I said, mutual obligation is the basis of our system.

Eight-week penalties for refusing work have existed since 2006 but waivers were only introduced in 2009. And guess what? The member for Denison was involved in that. In 2008-09, the year before waivers were introduced, there were 644 serious failures for refusing work. In 2013-14 1,626 such penalties applied. This increase can only be attributed to the removal of the deterrent effect of an eight-week penalty. If we bring back that penalty, fewer job seekers will be penalised. More job seekers will accept work, when offered, and go off-payment, which is in everyone's interest. All Australians should agree with that.

We need to fix the current system of job-seeker compliance, which is too slow and ineffective in responding to job seekers who are not making sufficient efforts to find work. Australians, Deputy Speaker Broadbent, and you know this very well, are fair minded people, but they reject the notion of bludging off the system, off a mate, off a system of mutual obligation—off the taxpayers of Australia. It is unacceptable that it takes months of inadequate job-search efforts before a job seeker faces any real financial or payment consequence. The bottom line is that we want to get as many Australians into work as possible, particularly young Australians.

Unemployment rates in Tasmania, and in my largely rural electorate of Lyons, are among the worst in the country. They are often the worst, particularly, among the young unemployed. This is bad for the economy but worse for the individual. Young Tasmanians need hope that they can look forward to much more than a life without a job. Aspiration. There are many in my state working hard to improve job prospects for our unemployed, from education-and-training facilities and parents—families are critical to the structure—to the Work for the Dole program, coordinators and other service providers. I had the privilege the other day of attending a wonderful Green Army project in my electorate. The attitude there of some of the young people involved will serve them well for the rest of their lives. They have, at last, hope again. They have hope in the future that this country can offer them.

This Social Security amendment will continue to build the framework around strengthening job-seeker opportunities. Australia's income-support system is there as a safety net for people who genuinely cannot find a job, not as an option for those who simply refuse to work.

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