Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the measures in the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017. The complexities and detail involved in this bill are unsurprising, given the high importance of its subject matter and, indeed, the impact any changes to Australian welfare will have on those Australians most in need. As a result of this, the bill was referred to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for review—a review which I believe was completed yesterday and will be tabled later today in the Senate. I look forward to reading the committee's report, and I thank the lawyers involved for the work they've done on it.

In the meantime, it is important to note that this bill includes several measures from the 2017 budget that overlap and intersect across the portfolios of social services, employment and human services. Some of these measures have merit and are integral to the task of the ongoing development of the welfare system—that it ensures payments are sufficient and are going to targeted areas of need in order to maximise the limited resources of the Commonwealth. However, there are a number of other measures in this bill that are concerning for a number of reasons and which will exert undue and unreasonable pressure on some of Australia's most vulnerable people. While these measures are included in this bill in its present form, I cannot and will not provide my support for it and neither will my colleagues. Again, I stress the importance of the Senate inquiry into this bill and look forward to the recommendations that may see some of the measures drawn out and looked at individually.

I'd like to take time to outline some of the more aggressive measures in this bill that are specifically my reasons for opposing it, and how some of these measures will impact constituents in my electorate of Brand. Firstly, schedule 4, the cessation of bereavement allowance: this is a short-term payment available for a maximum of 14 weeks for individuals whose partner has died. Paid at the rate of the aged pension and subject to the same income and assets test, this payment has been used as a means of relieving the initial financial impact of the loss of shared income as well assistance for the initial stages of grief. Schedule 4 replaces the bereavement allowance in its current form with some short-term access to the jobseeker allowance, which is paid at the lower rate and is tied to a means test. This lower rate, $535 per fortnight, is the same as the Newstart allowance and means that future recipients will receive $1,300 less over the 14-week period than under existing arrangements. This is no small amount for the most vulnerable in our community. Subjecting people in a vulnerable position to further financial hardship is an awful thing to do, and it doesn't help in the naturally fragile emotional environment which any bereaved person finds themselves in.

My electorate is home to a large number of elderly couples—as all of our communities are—and I cannot imagine voting for a bill that doesn't provide the utmost support for these fine people when they need it most. I call on the government to remove this schedule and to provide stability and certainty to those who have suffered the loss of their life partner. If ever we've seen this government choose to make budget repair off the back of the vulnerable, we see it here—taking the allowance off elderly pensioners as they deal with moving to living alone for the first time in decades. This government is taking the bereavement allowance off those needing a social safety net while giving out a $65 billion tax cut to big business. I ask you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker: what are the priorities of this government? It clearly isn't elderly couples on the pension facing loss. They're not the on government's priority list.

I turn to schedule 10, which deals with a start date for some participation payments. This schedule changes the start date at which those participating in the RapidConnect program are able to receive income support. This measure changes the start date and pushes it back to when the person had their first interview with their job service provider as opposed to the current arrangements whereby a person can receive a payment from the day they claim. It increases waiting times for a payment even if the person complies with the RapidConnect requirements.

At the start of 2016 unemployment was nine per cent in Kwinana and 10 per cent in Rockingham, both well above the national average. How on earth, then, does this latest idea ease the pressure on people by making them wait longer for welfare payments to make ends meet? Even if people have been fully compliant, they still have to wait for their payments. It's a cruel and mean-spirited move by a government who clearly have no notion what it is like to walk in the shoes of some of these people that need help the most.

This takes me to schedule 11, the removal of intent-to-claim provisions. This removes the provisions that allow people making a claim to, effectively, have their claims backdated to the time of first contact with the Department of Human Services. This will have a devastating effect on a group of people who do not have the capacity to collate the required information in the time required by the department. These circumstances could be due to homelessness, separation, hospitalisation, health issues, mental health issues or access to technology, all of which—particularly access to technology—are issues that affect my electorate. How is it possible for residents in the suburb of Baldivis to log on to myGov or Centrelink when they can't even get a reliable fixed-line connection, let alone a decent mobile connection? And the NBN remains far away in the never-never for many people in my electorate. It's just another instance where the Prime Minister's version of the NBN is failing the community.

The extension of one week to the waiting period is a long time for young people and pensioners in my electorate who live from payment to payment and tread water trying to keep their heads above the poverty line. Many of them, sadly, are unsuccessful, and this in itself then leads in many cases to homelessness and on to drug dependency.

I now come to the most controversial measure in this bill, the one that has generated significant attention in the national media and an issue that I have received a large volume of correspondence on. That is the proposal of drug testing for welfare recipients and the establishment of a drug-testing trial, which is included in schedule 12. This will seek to establish a two-year trial of drug testing for 5,000 recipients of the youth and Newstart allowances in three locations, one of which is proposed to be in the suburb of Mandurah in the electorate of Canning, which is to the immediate south of my electorate of Brand. New claimants of both payments will be included in the trial and will be forced to acknowledge that they may be required to participate in the drug-testing trials. This will be a condition of receiving the payment.

There has been a lot of talk on this issue, and make no mistake: we face significant problems with drug addiction in the wider community across Australia and particularly in Western Australia. However, Labor has met with a range of experts in the health industry, including doctors, addiction medicine specialists and many community organisations, and confirmed what we already knew: it is a murky proposal. They have made it clear that they do not support the trial and have said that it may lead to a rise in crime. We cannot support it, and I and the rest of the Labor opposition call on the government to halt this proposal.'

There has been a lot of talk of financial cost and social implications in the community, but what about the simple right of human dignity? Imagine the sea of hopelessness that many will face while they continue to comply with the rules and try to support themselves and their families. Imagine for a moment what it would be like to have to go and do a urine test to try to put food on the table. It's shameful, it's wrong and it's degrading. I'd even go so far as to say it's inhumane. This is from a government that does not understand the idea of a social safety net that catches and supports those in need, instead choosing to stigmatise and demonise a group of people who rely on welfare payments just to get through the week.

If the government wants to talk about financial costs, we can go there, too. Maybe talking about the cost of these tests will make some sense, but maybe not; they've just dropped $122 million on an absurd non-compulsory survey to change legislation we here in this place could vote on right now. When those opposite are done with accusations of collusion and conspiracy, they might like instead to take a leaf from the book of our friends across the Ditch and learn the lessons they have already learned over there. New Zealand has tried this already. They already had a trial and they also have their results. In 2015 only 22 of 8,001 New Zealand participants returned a positive result. That is less than 0.3 per cent. This cost New Zealand taxpayers around NZ$1 million. In America, in the state of Utah's 2014 testing program, 838 of the state's 9,552 welfare recipients were screened, and 29 returned a positive result. Effectively, they were both a waste of money and a waste of time—and an exercise in humiliation for the vulnerable. And that's what's going to happen here as well. Those opposite seem more interested in a headline and an image that makes them look tough on drug related crime and feeds their voter base.

Instead of wasting $122 million on that postal survey, imagine what we could put that towards in the community. It could be put towards drug rehabilitation programs that actually address some of the issues that vulnerable people face. This government should be focusing on real policies to combat drug dependency—policies of education and rehabilitation. I hope such proposals will come forward. While I wait for this to happen, I remain astounded, as do my colleagues, at some of the measures proposed in this schedule, such as measures that state recipients who fail to attend an appointment will have their payment suspended or that jobseekers who refuse to take a test will have their payment cancelled and a penalty of four weeks will be imposed until they can apply again. It gets worse. In a proposal that is yet to be determined, should a positive result be detected, jobseekers will be put on income management. Recipients will then be subject to a second drug test, and, if it is positive once again, they will need to repay the cost of the tests. As we know, the details of this test are still murky and there is the risk of lower cost tests producing inaccurate results—that is, false positives. This can take the form of a recipient on antidepressants testing positive for amphetamines. For a reliable test to be undertaken, there are significant cost factors involved, with proper urine tests costing between $550 and $950 to administer. If the federal government think these people are going to be able to pay for these tests, I would ask them to have another think about that. Clearly, they can't.

Health and welfare groups have lined up to raise their concerns about this proposal, including St Vincent's Health, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, ACOSS and UnitingCare. There has been no flurry from any health or welfare group to support this—none at all. I want to ask members to think about the possibility that this will force users onto less traceable drugs such as alcohol or synthetic cannabis. What about the fact that a long-term cannabis user will test positive six weeks after they have last used the drug? What about the risk this might pose to Centrelink staff, who will deal with the threat of increased violence and aggression? That's something no-one wants to see.

I can only imagine how hard the member for Canning lobbied the member for Pearce to get this degrading trial happening in Mandurah. I think I have spent more time playing hockey in Halls Head and swimming and surfing at Florida beach than the member for Canning has spent in Mandurah. I doubt he cares for the people of Mandurah. If he cared for them, the member for Canning might have applied his efforts to programs that help people beat drug addiction rather than stigmatised and humiliated them. This is a man that talked on television about his version of what marriage is and didn't even mention love. That speaks volume about the priorities of the member for Canning.

In the short time remaining, I'd like to urge my colleagues opposite to think about striking up some empathy for the people on welfare in these very difficult positions. There seems to be a misconception floating around that people like to be on welfare and that they think it's fun to be on the dole and to be dependent on the government and the Commonwealth and living off the taxpayer. It is not fun being on welfare. In no way is it fun. It is no fun when you have to scrimp and save to make ends meet and go into Centrelink and sit on the phone for hours when there's a problem.

There is a drug problem in this country; we all admit that. There's a drug problem around the world. We could make people on welfare have no interaction with drugs whatsoever and go and do urine testing so they can receive welfare payments to feed their families, but put yourself in their shoes. How are they going to feel when we treat them in this manner? Are we just going to presume that everyone who isn't able to work is in some way acting incorrectly or not doing the right thing and not trying their best? My greatest objection to this is that it's not really dealing with the drug problem in society; it's just seeking to wrap up a whole lot of mean-spirited, misguided and ill-conceived conceptions about who the people on welfare in this country are and what they want to achieve for their families—and it's not to stay on welfare, and it certainly isn't to go through the ritual humiliation of having to do some kind of drug test so they can feed their families and put food on the table at night. It's a very depressing bill. It has depressed me a lot. I hope the government may reconsider it.

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