Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's my pleasure, in continuation, to conclude my comments on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2019. I begin this evening by asking the government exactly what the costs of this bill are, because they're not contained inside the legislation. It is not outlined. Estimates are that, for gold-standard drug testing, you're looking at a cost of $550 to $950 per test. We're looking at a trial here, and there are significant costs, I would argue.

If you go to the leaked talking points that we all saw this week and you look under 'Welfare', you'll see a quote from the government that says, 'As such, the system must be targeted, sustainable and in line with the expectations of the taxpayers who fund it.' That's a direct quote, talking about welfare. Yet, if I go to the system that is the provision of Newstart, with mutual obligation and what that entails, we'd have to look at the costs and the efficacy of that system, because, of course, the minute you're in receipt of Newstart or youth allowance, you're expected to have a jobs plan and to attend jobactive.

So let's have a look at those costs. For jobactive, we are spending $1.5 billion a year. Let's look at the efficacy of that. Eighteen per cent of employers were using the predecessor to jobactive, Job Services Australia, but in 2018 that's dropped to four per cent. Four per cent of employers are using jobactive services to seek recruitment. On top of that, we've got reports of extraordinary churn happening inside this system, where jobactive services are receiving multiple payments for placing the same person into different jobs. Nearly 100,000 people had between three and six job placements each in three years. That churn means a payment to jobactive services every time someone's placed in employment, but clearly the employment's not permanent. That churn is continuing, raising the cost of these programs every year. Yet part of what we're talking about here is the efficacy of welfare and the idea that imposing drug testing is some kind of improvement in this system.

What other systems do we need to look at? We can look at Work for the Dole, which costs about $1.7 billion per annum, and the efficacy of that program. The highlight is a two per cent increased likelihood that people would move to employment, yet it's part of mutual obligation. I don't know that the Australian public quite understand that the days of people being in receipt of a Newstart allowance or one of its many predecessors, what we commonly call the dole—and obviously Work for the Dole is still a prevalent term, derogatory as it is—and sitting around the beach are over. They're not on holidays. They have mutual obligation requirements where they are required to be applying for jobs every week of every year. They are required to have a jobs plan. They are mandated at certain ages to attend Work for the Dole and do 25 hours a week, or we could go to CDP in rural communities, where they're required to do double the hours. These people are actively either getting themselves ready for work or working for that Newstart allowance.

Then we could go to one of the other parts of this program, PaTH, the internship program, at a cost of $840 million a year. In my electorate, that means kids are in receipt of Newstart and companies like Hungry Jack's are being paid money by the government to put people not in a real job but in a supposed internship at Hungry Jack's—in other words, very cheap labour for large companies and franchises all over this country. Those people are showing up and attending. That's mutual obligation.

For those who have this image of people on welfare doing nothing, I say: the exemptions around these programs are for single parents who are caring for a child under eight. They're exempt. Well, they're pretty busy during their days. People over 55 may be exempt if they apply to be exempt, but they're required to volunteer in the community. So can we just get this straight: there's no-one on Newstart sitting around and pulling on a bong in their garage. I'm going to say it out loud. So let's forget about the notion that this drug testing is being driven by anything other than putting one more layer on top of our social security system to punish the poor. I have to say this out loud.

Today, St Vincent de Paul have produced their second Households in the dark report. We heard the member for Corio earlier in the day during 90-second statements citing the figures for Corio. I was shocked and taken aback. We all knew that electricity prices were spiking, but the impact on our communities is extraordinary. We're talking about Logan City being one of these trial sites. Logan City is a lot like my community. It's an extraordinarily similar place in our country. I had a look at the figures today. Shocked as I was by the Corio figures, the raised disconnections across the last 10 years in the suburb of Werribee were the highest in Victoria, at 10,000 households. In Hoppers Crossing, it was 8,000 households. These are working families. These are people who are trying to live on the welfare support system. The completed disconnections for Werribee were 5,000 households. Five thousand households have had their electricity cut off in the last three years. In Hoppers Crossing it was 4,000 households. That's not even as bad as it gets. It can get even worse than that, because they also listed the repeated disconnections. This is households that have had their electricity cut off more than once. There were over 600 in Werribee and nearly 500 in Hoppers Crossing. These are real people with real lives, as are the people we're talking about that this government now wants to put through a drug-testing regime.

This government needs to get on with improving the economy. This is a distraction. This legislation is a dead cat that's come back for the third time because this government doesn't want to face up to the fact that it's got no answers and it's got no plan. I do not support this piece of legislation, because it flies in the face of the evidence. It goes against the advice of a long list of experts in the field. It is demeaning and humiliating. It is absolutely uncosted. It will not create one single job for the 1.9 million Australians who are looking for work or for more work. This government needs to get a plan and get this economy moving so our people can find a job and not have to rely on our welfare system.

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