Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017 and enthusiastically support the amendment moved by the member for Jagajaga. This Turnbull government legislation includes several measures announced in the 2017 budget, with the primary purpose being the aggregation of several payments into one jobseeker payment and the establishment of a drug-testing trial and the removal of exemptions for jobseekers who experience substance dependence. Unfortunately it really is no surprise that the Turnbull government has chosen to go down this road. We've now seen punitive measures like some in this bill being taken in a wide range of the Turnbull government programs. Remember, this is the government that unleashed debt collectors on pensioners and people on disability support, for money that they did not even owe. Remember, this is the government that said the only way to end the problem of youth unemployment was to make young Australians wait six months before being able to access any income support or to make them do $4 an hour internships that would not even have a guaranteed job at the end. This is a government that is so vicious in the way it treats people, particularly those who are the most vulnerable in our community.

There are several measures within this bill that Labor will oppose. As such, I say up-front: we do not support this bill from the Turnbull government, a callous, disconnected government. In particular, one of the most disgraceful elements of this bill is contained in schedule 12: the establishment of a trial of drug testing for jobseekers. This measure provides for a two-year trial in three regions: Mandurah, Canterbury-Bankstown and Logan, just to the south of my electorate—and I commend the member for Rankin for his passionate speech prior to me.

These trials involve mandatory drug testing for 5,000 people on Newstart allowance and youth allowance. The government plans to use a two-step process to select individuals for testing. First, the government will profile a group of people who they deem more likely to use drugs; and, second, it will then randomly select individual recipients from this profiled group. The tests will then be conducted by third-party drug-testing providers. The government has not announced the cost of this, nor does it know the detail of the types of tests that will be conducted.

Under the process set out in the bill, a person who tests positive to a prescribed drug will be subjected to income management for a period of at least two years and they will also be subject to ongoing random drug tests. Labor always welcome proposals from the government to address drug addiction. We know that this is a problem in our community. But these proposals actually have to have people who can find treatment and work together—the people and the treatment service provider need to be matched up. That is what will produce the best solution for each individual.

Last week, the Senate committee investigating this proposal heard that half the number of Australians who want treatment for drug and alcohol addiction cannot access it. I said that correctly, Deputy Speaker Bird: half of those. Why is that? It is because service providers cannot keep up with the demand. We've heard many people talk about the scourge of ice in our communities, particularly in the bush and regional parts of Australia. The Department of Social Services also admitted the Turnbull government did not source information regarding the current waiting time for treatment services in the trial sites and don't even know how long the 120 people they estimate will test positive may have to wait for treatment. If you know anything about the treatment of drug addiction, when people are ready you need to act urgently. We are going to have a red flag raised, but we don't have any idea how long it will take for people to be actually treated.

This proposal from the Turnbull government only seeks to window-dress a complex issue. It is a three-line slogan for the newspapers rather than something for the good of Australian society. Virtue-signalling to the Right of your party does not help one person beat their addiction. It is faux concern writ large. Deputy Speaker, you might recall that drug testing has been part of the international welfare debate for a very long time. Advocates for such a punitive measure often argue, without any basis in evidence, that drug testing does a number of things, like somehow ensuring that people are ready for work or sending a message that drug use is unacceptable.

It is a shame for this out-of-touch Turnbull government that very few industry experts, stakeholders or even local councils of the proposed trial sites support the policy. I now understand why the Turnbull government didn't bother to consult any of these people, because they would not have liked what they heard. In fact, the Logan mayor, Luke Smith, had to hear about this decision on the ABC. The government could not even pick up the phone. That's right—not consulted by the Turnbull government; he heard about it through the media. As reported in The Courier-Mail this week, Councillor Smith is rightly concerned that this testing regime is being forced onto vulnerable locals. He is worried that it will cause problems with homelessness or crime in the community, and this minister has done nothing to alleviate these concerns.

If the Turnbull government had bothered to consult drug and alcohol experts like the Penington Institute or social services groups like the Samaritans, they would have heard these exact concerns. Groups like these who have a long history in this area have been putting forward this serious issue and many more in publications, position papers and media releases for quite some time. The Turnbull government has been unable to provide any evidence to support the establishment of their drug-testing trial. Medical professionals, the drug and alcohol treatment sector and the social services sector have raised significant concerns about these measures—not only the impact it will have on jobseekers but that it won't be effective in identifying those with a serious problem or provide them with any treatment.

The AMA, as the peak professional organisation representing medical practitioners in Australia, submitted to the brief Senate inquiry the following:

… the AMA considers these measures to be mean and stigmatising. The AMA considers substance dependence to be a serious health problem—

I'm glad that the health minister is here to hear the AMA's concerns—

one that is associated with high rates of disability and mortality. The AMA firmly believes that those affected should be treated in the same way as other patients with serious health conditions, including access to treatment and supports to recovery.

…   …   …

The AMA is concerned that the approach could inadvertently result in increased incarceration for welfare recipients with a substance dependence.

The Australian Council of Social Services, the peak body for community services, in their budget snapshot from May opposed the measure, saying:

… the Budget continues to demonise people with a range of new welfare crackdown measures. No expert in drug and alcohol addiction has supported the random drug testing of social security recipients. Trials elsewhere have failed to achieve any positive results. ACOSS strongly opposes this measure.

You heard earlier the contribution from the member for Jagajaga who provided an extensive list of organisations that do not support this measure.

In addition to the organisations I've already mentioned, we have the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australasian Chapter of Addiction Medicine, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, St Vincent's Health Australia, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia, Harm Reduction Australia, the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales, the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association, UnitingCare Australia, Homelessness Australia, the St Vincent de Paul Society, Wayside Chapel, Anglicare, Catholic Social Services Australia, the National Social Security Rights Network, Odyssey House, Jobs Australia, Community Mental Health Australia, the Public Health Association of Australia and the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, to name but a few.

What an extraordinary job Prime Minister Turnbull has done in gathering the opposition of each and every one of these organisations. If only his own political party were as united behind him. All of these organisations either oppose or have strong concerns about the Turnbull government's proposed drug-testing trial. This Turnbull government policy does not enjoy the support of the relevant sectors' experts and stakeholder groups. It is just another attempt by the harbour-side mansion gang to demonise jobseekers without any basis in evidence and likely at significant cost to the budget. This change will not help people to overcome addiction. This is not how addiction works; instead, they'll be pushed into crisis, they'll be pushed into poverty and they'll be pushed into homelessness and potentially even into crime.

Let's look to overseas examples. Drug testing of income support recipients has been tried in several countries. Surely, the government department turned their mind to that and looked through the evidence to see where it has been effective. In 2013, the New Zealand government instituted a drug-testing program among welfare recipients. In 2015, only 22 of 8,001 participants returned a positive result for illicit drug use. This detection rate was much lower than the proportion of the general New Zealand population estimated to be using illicit drugs at a cost to their budget of approximately NZ$1 million. Similar results were found in the United States. In Missouri's 2014 testing program, of the state's 38,900 welfare applicants, 446 were tested with only 48 testing positive. In Utah, 838 of the state's 9,552 welfare applicants were screened, with only 29 returning a positive result. These are costly initiatives that drive people into poverty and crime and that taxpayers must fund. It is a waste of taxpayers' money.

In my role as the deputy chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I've looked at this bill and evaluated it with respect to our commitments and international obligations to protect human rights. The committee reported that the proposed drug testing limits the established right to privacy and seriously questioned whether this limitation can be justified by the Turnbull government. The randomised drug test is not reliant on any reasonable suspicion that a person has a drug abuse problem. You've heard about the process. It will be randomised. Any selected person is forced to disclose private medical information to the third-party external firm contracted to conduct the testing and subjected to an invasive medical procedure. If they test positive once, even if it was the first time they had used an illicit drug or if it was a false positive, their payments are quarantined for two years. Furthermore, it is unclear if there will be adequate privacy safeguards as to the medical and drug related information disclosed to a privately contracted provider of drug tests.

By its very design, this proposal seeks to limit the privacy rights of a large group of people in order to identify a very small number of people who might have a drug problem. For example, in relation to drug testing in Florida, only 2.6 per cent of welfare recipients tested were found to have used drugs, despite exposing a significantly large number of people to these invasive drug tests.

The Human Rights Committee reported that the drug-testing proposal limits the established right to social security—which, I point out to those opposite, is a right—and seriously questioned whether this limitation was possible to justify by the Turnbull government. The statement of compatibility with human rights in the bill's explanatory memorandum does not address the availability of less rights and restricted measures. This is particularly important in the context of the right to social security, given a strong presumption that retrogressive measures are prohibited under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that Australia is a signatory to.

The committee reported that the proposed drug-testing proposal limits the established right to equality and non-discrimination, and seriously questioned whether this limitation could be justified by the minister or by the Prime Minister. Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that all persons are equal before the law and entitled to equal to protection of the law without any discrimination on things such as race, sex, religion, political view, nationality or other status. When a person's drug use becomes an act of dependence, of addiction, this person has a disability. Not only does this fall within the other status within the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but a person is also protected from discrimination by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The Human Rights Committee—a committee that doesn't have a Labor majority—has serious questions about potential infringements with entrenched human rights: the right to privacy, the right to social security and the rights to equality and non-discrimination. But here we are: standing in the chamber with this Turnbull government legislation seeking to ram the whole bill as it stands through the parliament with these concerns not being addressed by the minister. This is yet another measure from an arrogant, divided, lost, aimless Turnbull government, a government that is unwilling to address the inequality being experienced by so many in our society and a government that is so vicious in the way it treats people, particularly the most vulnerable in our community. The way this regressive drug-testing regime is being targeted towards particular communities—particularly low socioeconomic-status communities—raises the serious question: does the Turnbull government disapprove of illegal drugs or does it disapprove of poor people? I will leave that for others to decide.

I say again the commitment of the Labor Party. We enthusiastically support the amendments moved by the member for Jagajaga. The other parts of this legislation, we do not support.

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