Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

Centre Alliance will oppose, for the third time in this place, legislation that is seeking to drug-test welfare recipients. I've spoken previously at length on Centre Alliance's views on this proposed legislation, which does not have published costings. We will not, except in the most exceptional of circumstances, support legislation where the government does not share with us and the taxpayer what the cost is. It is reckless for us to make important decisions about taxpayers' funds without knowing how much of Australia's people's money we're spending, and we've been very clear on this point.

During the consideration of the welfare reform bill in the last parliament, I examined the evidence for and against drug testing of welfare recipients in great detail, and I can only assume that this legislation, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2019, is likely to have a significant financial cost given the cost of similar programs in the United States. Drug-testing programs have often been abandoned in the United States as they've proven to be highly ineffective in discovering drug addicts, completely failing any reasonable cost-benefit analysis benchmark. For example, in 2015 research undertaken by the ThinkProgress project of the Center for American Progress discovered that collectively 10 US states spent more than US$850,000 on their testing regimes but uncovered only 321 positive tests. In more than one of those American states, not a single positive test was found. Based on America's experience, it costs approximately US$2,650 for each positive test secured. How much will it cost us? Experts suggest it will cost in the order of $1,600 per test for each recipient.

As Centre Alliance's spokesperson for the Social Services portfolio, I know that Centre Alliance negotiated a balanced and centrist view on the welfare reform bill and that we ended up with a reasoned position based principally upon the advice of our top Australian medical experts in addiction and the expectation of taxpayers that people who are on jobseeking payments are actively looking for work and are required to address their barriers to doing so. In the minister's second reading speech, the minister advised there were 8,638 jobseekers who participated in drug or alcohol treatment as part of their mutual obligations. This shows that the policy levers from that legislation are working, because the previous reforms that we put in place in this place mean that alcohol and drug addiction can no longer be used as an excuse for not engaging. So one has to really question why we are now going down the path of populist drug testing—and that's what it is.

We know that people on Newstart who have a substance addiction problem now have the choice of fulfilling their Centrelink job search activity requirements like any other Newstart recipient or putting their hand up and going down a treatment pathway so that they can get their life back on track and become job ready.

Because we have already made effective changes to the drug-testing bill, I believe this is an exercise in ideological wedge tactics. It is not an exercise in evidence based policymaking. I'll be quite clear here: Centre Alliance are not a welfare rights party. We are a centrist party that makes decisions based on evidence and sound policymaking. There is no evidence for this, and this is not sound policymaking.

The reason the government is doing this is to distract from the fact that Newstart is so woefully pitiful as a payment that people can't survive on it. There are now calls from right across the community and from the business sector—I think even former Prime Minister John Howard has come out and said this—that we need to raise Newstart. The reason the government is bringing this legislation into this place is purely as a distraction. It is nothing more.

The member for Clark talked about robo-debts. Robo-debts are causing enormous harm in the community. We know people are taking their lives. They open the letter. It is the last thing they can possibly bear with, and they choose to talk their lives. That is shameful. It is shameful that we are doing this. My office and the member for Clark's office—and I'm sure the offices of many others in this place—are spending a good amount of our time supporting our constituents to have these false debts reduced or waived. This should not be happening. So I urge the government: halt your robo-debts program. You are causing enormous damage to the most vulnerable people in Australia.

I want to talk about Newstart recipients. Newstart recipients are generally older Australians, particularly women who have raised children and older women who are struggling to enter the workforce. They are existing on Newstart. It's really hard to even say whether you should call that an 'existence'. The amount on Newstart is so low that you can't afford to rent even the most basic, modest accommodation anywhere in Australia and also eat. So when you're talking about people being 'dole bludgers'—as many people do in this chamber—remember that you are talking about, essentially, older women in your community who are experiencing great difficulty getting into the workplace because they don't have the skills. They've been looking after family and they don't have the work experience and they often don't have a wide range of qualifications. It is exceptionally difficult.

I would just like to draw the attention of the chamber to the Jobs Availability Snapshot 2019. It was released this week by Anglicare Australia. If we have a look at the snapshot's findings of people seeking work—people who are unemployed in Australia—there were 704,700 people in May this year. There were 1,160,700 people who were underemployed. The number of job vacancies right across the board was 174,000. Of the level 5 jobs—these are the jobs that we consider entry level, where you do not need to have a huge range of qualifications—there were just 18,000. Just 10 per cent of jobs nationally were available to people who do not have qualifications.

We are really setting people up to fail when we don't support them properly with a payment that allows them to get qualifications, and to be able to live properly and to be able to afford to buy clothes to go to that job interview. How humiliating must it be to go to your jobactive person and, on bended knee, ask for a $30 Kmart voucher so you can go and buy a $10 skirt and a $10 shirt—and hope that there are some shoes on clearance—because you just got that magic job interview? And when you go to the job interview—you're a 55-year-old woman, and you have nothing much you can put on your resume. Sure, you did an enormous amount of volunteering, you've been at the school canteen for 10 years and you've raised three fantastic children on your own, but you know you're not going to get the call back. How humiliating must it be? We can do better in this place. As the member for Clark said, we're a wealthy nation. We can do so much better than this.

I seek leave of the House to table the Anglicare Australia Jobs Availability Snapshot 2019.

Leave granted.

Thank you. Centre Alliance stands ready to support legislation that meaningfully seeks to address drug addiction. We recognise the importance of incentives but we will not support policy that is grounded in short-term political gains rather than in evidence, regardless of how many times the government seek to pass it through this House. To those on the government side that wring their hands and say, 'Yes, I know, we need to raise Newstart': push for it in your party room. We need to address this in this place this year. We are failing Australians by not doing so.

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