Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Liberal Party and National Party's relentless demonisation of people in this country who access our welfare system is something that needs to stop. It has to stop. Think what the research by the member for Fenner shows, that a dollar spent in the Australian social security system does more to reduce inequality than a dollar spent in any other welfare system in the world. It's not perfect but our system is helping people. The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017, rather than helping people as the previous speaker suggested, is actually about hurting people, demonising them for the circumstances in which they have found themselves.

For many people, our welfare system provides a safety net that allows them breathing space to get back on their feet—just. Yet what we see as an appalling attack on people who have found themselves at their most vulnerable, those opposite seem to see as a success. I hope that anyone who says that the government and the opposition's policies cannot be differentiated, that they're both the same, as you sometimes hear people say, are listening because what I'm about to say shows that we are chalk and cheese. The Turnbull government is successfully creating a conversation that refers to single mothers, people with disabilities, people with mental health issues, especially chronic mental illness, older Australians, people from diverse backgrounds, people who are poor, students, carers—all these groups—as dole bludgers, as leaners, as a problem to be shamed and monitored and punished at every single opportunity; that they must be reminded of their place, as if the act of asking for help from the state is not humbling enough for nearly every person.

Only this week I spoke to a resident of the Blue Mountains who had recently lost his job. While he has prospects of other work, right now he is struggling. A father of two children, he described for me how he had sold off many of his possessions, exhausted his savings and was now forced to apply for Newstart to tide him over until he finds a new job. He doesn't want to be on welfare. He wants to be self-sufficient, and I hope he will be soon. He is possibly at his most vulnerable and we need to be treating him with dignity, not derision. Those opposite have politicised welfare for their own political gain, taking cheap shots. I wonder at their sense of invincibility, as if they are somehow of a different species, human perhaps but a human who can't fall ill, who can't have an accident, who can't experience bad luck in life.

I wish this bill was a one-off act from the government, but their utter disrespect for people who desperately need a leg-up is in their DNA. They wanted to make young people wait six months before receiving unemployment payments. They reduced family payments. In fact, look at the 2014 budget or the omnibus bill from earlier this year to see their default position—and now the latest attacks. Let's start with the proposal to introduce a mandatory drug-testing trial for recipients of Newstart and youth allowance which (a) won't work, (b) has no support from any health or medical professionals nor community organisations and (c) is going to cost a lot of money. Dr Marianne Jauncey from the Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs sums it up well. She says:

At a time when we desperately need money for frontline services, it's being spent in a way all the available evidence tells us won't work.

We on this side are open to working with the government on genuine attempts to help people battling drug and alcohol addictions, but we will not support blatant attacks that have absolutely no basis in evidence. Despite the judgemental rhetoric from those opposite, the experts tell us this will not help people overcome their addictions. Instead, they say, it will push them into crisis, poverty, homelessness and potentially crime. While there is much more I could say about this particular measure, I know it has received plenty of attention from my colleagues and will continue to, and so I will look at other sections of this bill, which are also awful.

One part of this bill that I don't want to see slip through unnoticed is the proposed changes to current activity requirements for people aged 55 to 59 on income support. Under the current activity test, you can fulfil the requirements of 30 hours work a fortnight by volunteering. Volunteering is an effective way of not only contributing to our society and supporting great organisations so that they can continue to carry out the excellent work they do but also giving the individual involved personal benefits. It can act as a pathway to employment; it provides vital connections and a sense of community; it enables the development of new skills; and it keeps people healthy and active. Of all those things, I think the connection to other people is absolutely vital. We know that people in communities that are connected are resilient, and that their overall mental health is better. That's the sort of reform we should be looking for.

It is ironic to me that we have a parliamentary friends of volunteering group, yet this measure attacks the basis on which that group operates: that volunteering should be valued. Leep is a volunteering organisation that operates in my electorate of Macquarie. They've written to me expressing their concerns with the government's changes. One part of their letter caught my attention, and I would like to read it to you now. They said:

Volunteering is the backbone of a robust, safe and engaged community. The benefits that it brings volunteers, organisations and the broader community deserve to be highly regarded and appreciated at all levels of government.

Unfortunately this government's proposed changes do nothing to support the volunteering industry. The changes require that a minimum of 15 hours of the 30-hour activity test for 55- to 59-year-olds is spent on job-related or job-search activities, rather than volunteering. Volunteering is ruled out for those 15 hours. Prioritising finding work would be a great option, if there were jobs around, but unemployment in my electorate is about twice the level of that in the Prime Minister's seat of Wentworth. There are too many people for the available jobs, and the over-55s are not necessarily going to be the ones chosen first. Once out of work, the length of time a person aged 55 to 59 spends looking for work is 73 weeks—or more than a year—compared to the overall average of 40 to 50 weeks.

I've heard government members talk about a new program targeted at helping people over 50 back into the workforce, the Career Transition Assistance program. That isn't due to be rolled out nationally until 2020, but these other changes come in next year. I'd like them to explain to a currently unemployed 57 year old where the fairness is in that. Volunteering Australia CEO Adrienne Picone has said:

The tightening of the activity requirements will do little to improve the job prospects of older Australians who are an already disadvantaged and discriminated group in the labour market.

Let's not forget that there is just one job available for every 10 people who are locked out of employment or who need more paid work. You'd think that the first step in figuring out this puzzle would be to start addressing the lack of work available. That would make sense, but not to this government. No, that's not the approach they take. They like to make people look for jobs that just aren't there, and then shame them for not being able to get one. The Volunteer Involving Organisation, which also operates in Macquarie, shares my concerns and has said that it is 'most disappointing that the government is focusing on enforcing mutual obligation without a commensurate effort into facilitating job opportunities for mature-aged workers'.

The Centre for Volunteering data shows that volunteering makes an estimated annual economic and social contribution of $290 billion to the economy, a contribution that will be jeopardised by these changes. Forcing people to give up voluntary work, where new skills are learnt and old skills are developed, in favour of undertaking job search related activities, which do little to expand their skills base at times, is a move that will completely fail to improve their job prospects. There is only one winner here, and it's not the people on income support, it's not the volunteering organisations, it's not even the labour market, it's not the economy and it's certainly not the community, particularly not my community of Macquarie. The only winner here is the Turnbull government in their so-called war on welfare.

It doesn't stop there though. The Prime Minister can't help but put his Point Piper fingers in a few more pies. So who else is on the list? In what other ways can we demonise people? The government is proposing to remove the intent-to-claim provision in this legislation. As it stands, people are allowed to have their claims backdated to the point when they first contacted the Department of Human Services. As many of us know through our electorate offices and the experience of our constituents, the Centrelink system is not always the easiest to navigate, no matter who you are. Add in a few hurdles—for instance, paperwork lost in a house move—and getting that claim through can turn into a really lengthy business.

People who are illiterate, people who are homeless, children who are coming out of care, people who are sick, older Australians, people battling mental illness, victims of domestic violence and people living in rural and regional Australia a long way from a Centrelink office—all of these groups, understandably, may take a little bit longer to complete their applications and gather and present the required paperwork, and this government wants to punish them for that. What's more, if you're not great on a computer, you get extra punishment. So when it's already tough, this government wants to make it tougher. Thank you! Let that sink in for a moment: it wants to punish people's disadvantage.

Before seeing this bill I wouldn't have thought that anyone in this place would target a group of people so directly for such little gain, but this government has done thoughtless and heartless things like this before, so it should come as no surprise that it is at it again. There is another group that the government has in its sights with this bill. It hasn't even spared people who are on income support and lose their partner. The bereavement allowance is a short-term payment that supports people when they lose their partner. It's paid for 14 weeks at the rate of the age pension and is subjected to the same income and assets test. For a pregnant woman who loses her partner the allowance is paid for 14 weeks or the duration of her pregnancy, whichever is longer. Surely this is a simple act of compassion.

The government wants to replace the bereavement allowance with short-term access to the jobseeker allowance. This means that not only will a person who has just lost their partner have to meet a more stringent means test but they will also receive less financial support. A grieving husband, wife or partner will be left $1,600 worse off over the 14-week period at the hands of this government. So they lose a partner and the government makes their life even harder. This is a cruel cut, with no justification other than once again to be seen to be cracking down on welfare. This part of the bill could easily be removed by the government, and I encourage it to do so.

One other area that really concerns me is the changes that take away any discretion around penalising jobseekers who fail to attend Job Services appointments or employment without reason. This might be a jobseeker who is found to have failed to start a job that they accepted. Anyone who has faced unemployment needs support in the early days of a new job. The longer you have been unemployed the harder it can be to take that first step. Their self-confidence has already taken a battering. I can't imagine that anyone wouldn't have a level of anxiety in that situation. When you throw in the level of mental health issues that we know our society faces, these are punitive measures that are the least helpful device. There needs to be discretion around these measures.

What we have is evidence of what I can only, sadly, describe as a heartless government which looks only to hurt people, not to support them. We are better than this. There are nine more cuts to welfare recipients in these bills. They're called 'reform'. Reform should be about improving a system and supporting people more, not making their life harder. I really ask those opposite to consider: what if it was someone in your family who had fallen on hard times? They may well have fallen prey to drugs; they may well have addictions. Are you the sort of people who just want to turf people out and say, 'Too bad; you're on your own?' Or are we the country that thinks the state should step up, support people and give them a chance to turn their lives around?

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