Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017. This bill is a comprehensive reform of Australia's working-age welfare payments. The system will be simpler and focused on getting people off welfare and into work. A new framework will better identify and support vulnerable people, like those with drug and alcohol abuse issues, and support them to get treatment.

It's likely that your position on these important reforms will depend on how you see the purpose of welfare in our society. Is working-age welfare compensation for the situation someone finds themselves in? Or is it an investment in their future? Is working-age welfare a socialist redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to non-taxpayers? Or it is a safety net designed to help people when they need it?

For me, working-age welfare is an investment in the future. It's about making lives better. I am a compassionate conservative and one who's very proud that Australia has a safety net to support those in need. But, sadly, our welfare system fails many. The concept of mutual obligation does, and must always, underpin our welfare system. We require welfare recipients to look for work or attend training, but, if you're as high as a kite or bombed out of your brain on drugs, there's no point in attending interviews for jobs you'll never be able to get. This cycle of failure is dangerous and real.

This bill will introduce a two-year drug-testing trial across three locations and will test 5,000 new recipients of Newstart and the youth allowance for illicit substances like ice, ecstasy and marijuana. This drug-testing trial is compassionate in making sure people with drug problems can get the help they need to beat their addiction. The bill also introduces a new single jobseeker payment called the JobSeeker payment, because that's exactly what it is. This one payment replaces seven existing payments and streamlines administrative processes. Non-compliant jobseekers will also face real and real-time penalties. This bill benefits jobseekers, their families, the community, and our economy.

On the matter of the new JobSeeker payment, multiple working-age payments are a product of many years of ad hoc changes that have created a welfare system that is hard to understand and administer. This new JobSeeker payment is simple, combining seven current payments and supplements. From 20 March 2020, Newstart allowance, sickness allowance, wife pension and bereavement allowance will cease, and most recipients of these payments will transition to the JobSeeker payment, aged pension or carer payment, depending on their circumstances. Widow allowance and partner allowance will cease from 1 January 2022, and all remaining recipients will transition to the aged pension. Just one JobSeeker payment will ensure that all people of working age who can work will have a clear understanding of the purpose of their payment. This safety-net funding is there to do what the name says—it's a jobseeker payment for jobseekers. It's there to help people find work and to accept jobs where they are available. Replacing seven existing payments with one working-age payment is a critical step in reforming our welfare system. It will make long-term employment the goal of all Australians receiving working-age welfare.

So perhaps the most important part of this legislation relates to jobseekers with substance abuse problems. For the first time, people on a JobSeeker payment who are undertaking treatment for drug and alcohol problems can have the treatment count as part of their job preparation plan. Why? Because being drug-free is an essential step towards employment. The federal government will also introduce a two-year drug-testing trial across three locations and will test 5,000 new recipients of Newstart and youth allowance for illicit substances like ice, ecstasy and marijuana. Testing new jobseekers for drugs is not about stigmatising people. Those opposite want you to believe that when you're detected with drugs in your system, you'll lose your payments. That is not the case. It's about making sure that those people with drug problems can get the help they need to beat their addiction and to get on the right path towards securing a job and building a better future for them and their family. Drug testing will help; it can be the intervention that people need to make a positive change in their lives.

The community is very supportive of these measures. Millions of Australians are used to accepting drug testing for jobs in mining, construction, transport and many of our large corporations. Common sense says that, as hardworking Australians, we can also rightly expect taxpayers' money to be invested in helping people find work and not be wasted on life-destroying drugs. Jobseekers who test positive to a drug test will have their payments placed on income management for 24 months. There will be no cut in income, but there will be assistance to spend their funds wisely. This is designed to limit the use of payments to fund further harmful drug use. Jobseekers who test positive will also be subject to a second drug test within 25 working days. If they test positive to more than one drug test, they'll be referred to a medical professional with experience in drug and alcohol treatment, who will assess their individual circumstances and may put in place a treatment plan.

Substance abuse is a significant problem for many people on welfare and is directly impacting on the ability of many jobseekers to find work. As part of the drug-testing trial the government will provide a dedicated treatment fund of up to $10 million. It is not just the testing that is being trialled; the support services are being trialled as well. If it turns out that the support services and the additional support services are insufficient, that is a lesson that will be learnt in this trial. This funding is in addition to the Australian government's commitment of almost $685 million over four years to reduce the impact of drug and alcohol misuse on individuals, families and communities. Drug-testing new recipients of Newstart allowance and youth allowance will help make lives better by supporting people to beat their habit, to get off drugs and into work, and to become active members of our community.

I have seen firsthand how drugs can burn even the closest of bonds, and I've seen the intersection of welfare and drugs in our community. Through my high school years my parents took full-time care of my nieces, who were aged around five and six. My nieces were living in a drug-fuelled, welfare-funded, abusive environment with their mother. My nieces' mother and her friends would laugh at my parents as if they were mugs. Their attitude was, 'Why would you work for money when the government gives it out for free?' My nieces' mother and her friends are not representative of the vast majority of people on welfare. My parents were no mugs. They were decent, hardworking Australians. They expected their taxes to be invested in making Australia even better, not simply redistributed to those who will not apply their own effort to improve their own lives.

I don't believe for a second that the life—if you can call it that—being lived by my nieces' mother today is one she would choose, a life that resulted last year in her being critically ill in a hospital ICU. Hate is a very hard word, but the hatred that I had for my nieces' mother because of the environment she put my nieces in was something that I'm not proud of. And there is the resentment that I have for my brother for not fulfilling his obligations and commitment to his children. But when I've reflected on this bill I've considered that, albeit that my nieces' mother chose to take drugs, she certainly didn't choose the life that she has today. Back in her day there was no drug testing. There was no intervention to provide the help that she needed. It was simply set and forget. I'm absolutely of the view that the intervention and support we are hoping to test could have made a big difference to my nieces' mother and to my family.

This bill also includes greater compliance measures that will create a simpler, fairer and certainly more effective system that ensures jobseekers, firstly, understand and, secondly, meet their mutual obligation requirements. Multiple working-age payments are a product of many years of ad hoc changes, which have created a welfare system that's hard to understand. The complexity leaves many areas of our welfare system open to exploitation. Two-thirds of jobseekers attend all appointments or miss only one every so often. At the other extreme there are a small core of jobseekers who are gaming the system by attending appointments only to reactivate suspended payments. Those jobseekers are otherwise healthy, able individuals who have no underlying reason for persistent noncompliance, other than the enjoyable lifestyle provided care of the taxpayer.

Jobseekers who wilfully and repeatedly fail to comply with their agreed job plan will face real and real-time penalties. There are two simple-to-understand phases of compliance—a demerit point phase and then a three-strike phase. Jobseekers will accrue a demerit point if they do not have a valid reason for failing to meet a requirement. Job providers will assess the situation after a third demerit point is accrued, and the Department of Human Services will also do so after a fourth. At either point, if a jobseeker is found to be unable to meet their requirements because of some underlying issue, those requirements will be adjusted. It's about helping people.

If a jobseeker accrues four demerit points within six months, they will enter the three-strike phase. The first strike is a loss of half of their fortnightly payment if they miss a requirement without a reasonable excuse. They will lose all of their fortnightly payment if they do not meet a requirement a second time. After a third failure, they will face payment cancellation for four weeks. Once a jobseeker is in the three-strike phase, they can avoid penalties by simply meeting their mutual obligation requirements. Those who remain fully compliant for three months will reset their demerits points and strikes. This is a very strong incentive to change behaviour.

Jobseekers in either phase who refuse an offer of suitable work or fail to start in a suitable job without a reasonable excuse will have their payment cancelled and will face a four-week non-payment period before they can receive a payment again. This penalty recognises the seriousness of refusing to work and the importance of reducing reliance on welfare whenever reasonably possible. The new compliance measures are considerably simpler than the current system. It will be easy for jobseekers to, first, understand and, second, meet their mutual obligation requirements

I'm in this place to back hardworking, aspirational Australians who want to apply their effort to get ahead. I believe that if you are a young person on welfare you can be a hardworking, aspirational Australian who wants to apply your effort to get ahead. I also believe that, if you've chosen to take drugs, you may not necessarily have chosen the life that will lead to, and that we need to be there as a government to intervene to give that person the opportunity to direct their life in a more positive direction. For me, working-age welfare is an investment in the future. It's about making lives better. Working-age welfare is not a socialist redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. It is not compensation for where someone has found themselves in life. A failure to identify and assist people with drug dependency leads them to rot in the cycle of lifelong welfare dependency. We should not be blinded by ideology in this chamber. We should give a chance to trial drug testing and the important intervention that this will create to identify and help those people that need help.

This bill will deliver a simpler system for people receiving working-age payments, providing greater incentive for people transitioning to work and enforcing stricter compliance. This bill will better support people on welfare with substance-abuse issues. Labor and the Greens must reconsider their opposition to this trial—for goodness sake, this is a trial! It might work. It might fail in some respects, but let's give it a go and learn. Let's not close our minds to an opportunity to provide someone with the support they need and to also provide someone with the intervention they don't know they need. I call on Labor, the Greens and the crossbench members of parliament to support members on this side and pass all parts of this bill.

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