Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased tonight to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Queensland Commission Income Management Regime) Bill 2017. This bill amends the Social Security (Administration) Act to enable a two-year continuation of the income management element of Cape York welfare reform in the communities of Aurukun, Coen, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge. The Cape York Welfare Reform is an initiative of the Cape York Partnership, an Indigenous organisation that has led a wide-ranging reform agenda in Cape York. Although not part of the Cape York welfare reform partnership, this bill also applies to the community of Doomadgee.

The Commonwealth government announced in the 2017-18 budget that it will extend income management in all five locations for two years, until 30 June 2017, so this bill extends by two years the income management component of Cape York Welfare Reform. Labor will support this bill following consultations with local communities and also following a short Senate inquiry that Labor insisted on so that parliament was able to receive submissions from local stakeholders in the Cape. The feedback from local groups is that income management in Cape York is working and having a positive impact on local communities. I want to detail some of those views for the House tonight. The BBN Aboriginal Corporation in Mossman Gorge says:

There is a board base of support in Mossman Gorge for the direction of the reform journey that we have been on and need to stay on. Welfare Reform has supported good progress but still there is still a lot to be done.

In their submission, the Coen Regional Aboriginal Corporation states:

Giving local people real power to hold other community members to account through the FRC—

the Family Responsibilities Commission—

gets our 100% support.

They note:

Coen now has the best school attendance of any Indigenous community school in Queensland and we are the only one that can beat the Queensland Average School Attendance.

The Aurukun Shire Council wrote:

The FRC must stay strong for our people. In Aurukun we have been down a hard road but we need to keep on going to make more positive changes.

The Hope Vale Aboriginal Shire Council, in their submission, stated:

In Hope Vale the FRC has done some very good work since 2008, especially in terms of school attendance ... The FRC and Cape York Welfare Reform have made big, transformational changes to our community and this is very clear to people that knew this place beforehand and now.

The Cape York Institute made clear:

Income Management applied through the FRC model gives Indigenous people the power and authority to help their own community members build basic capability to understand their primary obligations to their children and their community, and their obligation to use welfare payments to pay the rent and electricity, and to provide food and clothing for the household.

Further, they note:

A number of people, particularly women stay on Income Management because it protects them from humbugging. This is not a sign of further dependency, but a sign of people wanting to meet their basic responsibilities using the best methods available to them.

The Cape York Institute also expressed concern that the advances made as a result of income management in the region would be lost if the system were to abruptly end on 30 June 2017.

That last point is an important one. The existing arrangements are due to expire on 30 June, and the manner in which the government has handled this legislation is, I would have to say, disappointing. Unfortunately, the legislation has been rushed through by the government, allowing only a very short Senate inquiry. The government really should have introduced this legislation into the parliament some months ago so as to enable a much more thorough consultative process. The government knew that this legislation would need to get through the parliament before 1 July, and yet here we are in this last week and they expect it to go through the House and the Senate.

The last evaluation of the Cape York welfare reform was released in 2012. I was the Minister for Indigenous Affairs at the time, and I remember it very well. It is time that there was an updated evaluation, and that really should have been done before this extension. So tonight I am calling on the government to make sure that there is a proper independent evaluation done in the next two years so we do not have to have a repeat of this debate that we are having right now. Nonetheless, we are satisfied that the continuation of income management does have the support of the leadership of the local communities, and we will support this bill today.

I just want to comment very briefly on our broader position on income management. We believe in community driven approaches to deal with chronic alcohol abuse. Any legislation that extends income management in a particular jurisdiction must be driven and supported by the local community, as it is in these places. We understand—and this is a very important point—that the vast majority of social security recipients are more than capable of managing their own personal finances and doing so responsibly. However, where individual communities believe that income management can make a positive difference, we will certainly discuss it with them. Labor's position on income management is very straightforward: we do not believe that it should be rolled out nationally and we certainly do not believe that it should be imposed on those communities that do not want it. I have personally spoken with the mayors in each of the communities in the areas affected by the legislation. I have listened to them, and they certainly do believe that income management is a positive thing for their communities and, as I say, they support its continuation.

I was actually the Minister for Indigenous Affairs in the previous Labor government, responsible for working with these Aboriginal leaders in the Cape to deliver these very changes. The Cape York partnership work is of course based on the principles set out in Noel Pearson's 2005 Cape York Agenda. This Cape York welfare reform agenda aims to support people in the communities that we have talked about in this bill to take responsibility for the welfare of their families and their community. The primary aim is to ensure that their children are safe, fed and well educated.

One of the really interesting things about this reform has been the creation of the Family Responsibilities Commission. This was established under Queensland legislation back in 2008. As the Family Responsibilities Commission submission sets out:

Local Commissioners are Elders or respected community members who encourage individuals appearing before the Commission to take the necessary steps to make lasting changes which will benefit their health, wellbeing, home and community life.

I just want to take a brief quote from their submission. They say:

The Local Commissioners have continued to grow in local authority since 2008 with the majority of conferences being conducted in the four Welfare Reform Communities without the presence of the Commissioner or his Deputy Commissioner in the financial year to date.

All Commissioners have equal authority in the decision-making process. Decisions made at conference are made fairly and with the best interests of the client and their family in mind. The authority of the FRC is the strength of its Local Commissioners, with decisions in conference involving community members (FRC clients) being made by their own Indigenous leaders.

Having met many of the commissioners in these local communities over the years, I do want to say a very special thank you to each of the local commissioners in the four Cape York communities and to Commissioner David Glasgow for their extraordinary work over the period since 2008.

As we have noted, the primary objective of the commission, as set out in the FRC Act, is to hold conferences with community members to encourage individuals and families to engage in socially responsible standards of behaviour while promoting the interests, rights and wellbeing of children and other vulnerable people living in the community. The way it works is that the commission sits down with a community member who is a Social Security recipient living in one of these four areas and works to make sure that their lives can be improved. The FRC can direct that part of an individual's income support payment can be managed by Centrelink to pay for the priority needs of their family. The percentage of payment income managed varies between 60, 75 or 90 per cent.

Since the Cape York Welfare Reform began back in July 2008, the four communities have seen improved school attendance, care and protection of children and community safety. The 2012 evaluation of the Cape York Welfare Reform did find that progress has been made at what they call 'the foundational level' in stabilising social circumstances and fostering behavioural change, particularly in the areas of sending children to school, caring for children and increasing individual responsibility. I would say again, though, that a new evaluation is long overdue. This data now from 2012 is quite old. I do want to say, particularly at a personal level, that this is still a very new and very different approach and it does deserve detailed examination. I do hope that we will see the government properly fund an independent evaluation. I do thank the various local communities for making submissions to the Senate inquiry at very late notice; they have been important in making sure that both the House and the Senate do understand that the communities themselves support the continuation of income management in Cape York. Labor will support this bill, and I commend it to the House.

See this speech in context