Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

This so-called welfare reform bill, as we've just heard from the member for Kingston, is really about the government trying to play politics. It's really about the government trying to pick on vulnerable people. You would have thought that they'd had enough of that, because they have tried much of this before.

There are three measures in the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017 that I am particularly concerned about and that I want to talk about today. Similarly to the previous member, I am particularly concerned about the change in the activity test for 55- to 59-year olds. People would know that at the moment people over the age of 55 who are out of work and are receiving Newstart can go and volunteer for 30 hours per week. That's 30 hours per week in which they are going out in their own time—paying for it themselves, often with transport—to get to their volunteer posts out and about in the community, to do good things supporting other vulnerable people, and this government wants to penalise them. It is just astounding. You would think it would be a sensible measure if, indeed, there were jobs out there for over-55-year-olds but there aren't. We have heard from many on this side the concerns around that and age discrimination.

I've been holding forums around the country with older Australians as part of my shadow portfolio duties, and one of the things that are raised with me every single time is the discrimination that older Australians face when trying to get work. The report Willing to Work, put out by the former Age and Disability Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan, says:

The right to work, free from discrimination on any basis, is a fundamental human right. Too many older Australians … are denied this right and as a result are prevented from enjoying the independence, dignity and sense of purpose that work brings.

Sadly, in Australia today this is still true. The report is only a year and a half old. It clearly shows the discrimination that older Australians face when trying to seek work. Many of these older Australians have been employed for most of their life. Indeed, many of them have been made redundant after years and years of work in the same job and then need to reskill. First, those reskilling programs are not available for most people and, second, it is so hard for these people to re-enter the workforce, yet when they're out there volunteering, trying to support other members in the community, the government is trying to penalise them. I do not understand where the government is coming from on this. The age discrimination commissioner's report says their survey found:

… 27% of people over the age of 50 had recently experienced discrimination in the workplace. One third of the most recent episodes of discrimination reported occurred when applying for a job.

They go in, they put in their resumes and their CVs and they get knocked back. They continually get knocked back on the basis of their age, even though that is not what they are told. Many of them, as you heard from the member for Kingston, don't even put their age on their CVs or resumes anymore, because they know that they will be discriminated against because of their age. And this government wants to penalise them even further. So I am really concerned about this aspect of the bill.

The other part of the bill that I am concerned about is in regard to the demerit provisions for Newstart jobseekers and the way in which they will work. I am particularly concerned that the government has removed the ability of employment service providers and, indeed, Centrelink to use their discretion and to waive demerits when there are exceptional circumstances.

I have seen this government try to move this bill two or three times before, and we've had to knock it off two or three times before because, of course, we know that doing things like that only leads to more homelessness. It only leads to more issues in the community because the people that the government is talking about penalising are already extremely vulnerable. And the government has no evidence that cutting more people off welfare or Newstart payments is actually going to improve their ability to find a job. What it actually wants to do is disengage people and not use its discretion for waivers when people are really vulnerable. I'm really concerned that this will actually have adverse impacts on those vulnerable members of our community.

The third part of the bill that I wanted to talk about today is of course the one that has been raised so many times in this place, and that is about the drug testing of welfare recipients in those trial sites. We've heard from so many experts, from the AMA to ACOSS, that this will not work. We've got no evidence from the government that this will work and, indeed, all the evidence from overseas would suggest that it won't work. We've also heard, unfortunately, that the government yet again hasn't done its homework. The government hasn't done its homework in terms of what services are available for those people whose tests do come up positive to say that, yes, there is alcohol or drug addiction. Indeed, has this government actually put in more support services in those trial sites? What are the waiting lists already for those people in those trial sites when it comes to seeking support for their addictions today?

Quite unusually for the government, they of course are making a hash of this just like they do everything else. They cannot implement any policy without mucking it up. We see it time and time again. We see it with this welfare reform bill; we saw it with the NBN; we saw it with the census; and we're going to see it, no doubt, with the household survey. They cannot organise anything. We've had minister after minister come in here and try to do more and more welfare reform that just leaves more and more people vulnerable. Quite frankly, I've had enough of it and my constituents have enough of it. It's about time the government stopped picking on vulnerable people and actually got on and did their job properly, because people out there in our communities know that there are not enough jobs for every jobseeker. They've got to stop picking on vulnerable jobseekers, go out there and create more jobs with less underemployment and less casualisation of the labour force. They need to improve wages growth. Indeed, they've got a lot of work to do, and this welfare reform bill doesn't do any of that. All it does is continually pick on vulnerable people.

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