Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Select Committee on Workforce Australia Employment Services, I present the committee's report entitled Your future planning: interim report on ParentsNext together with the minutes of proceedings.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—This was a tough inquiry. Many times, over months, it felt like we could never find a way forward. ParentsNext is polarising, more so than any other aspect of employment services that the committee has so far grappled with. ParentsNext has been the subject of considerable controversy, including two parliamentary inquiries since 2018. Many Australians don't know about this program, yet there are nearly 100,000 parents forced onto this program right now. Ninety-seven per cent of them are women, and about 70 per cent are single parents.

Many people love ParentsNext. They think it's the best and most flexible program and want to keep it just as it is, and they outlined to the committee how it has helped them. Yet many others think it's something close to evil and that it must be scrapped, describing the compliance process as re-traumatising and akin to coercive control. With such strongly and genuinely held views it has proven uncommon, through the inquiry, for people to see the perspectives of others with different views, or even to engage in the middle. But the people that we met with, that we spoke with, that we sat with and heard from and learned with over many months, right around the country, were consistently inspiring—parents who loved and hated ParentsNext and everything in between, but also the workers who chose their often difficult and usually low paid jobs to support parents. Many of them had lived experience themselves as vulnerable single parents; hence they chose this work. We thank them for their, at times, raw honesty and vulnerability. I acknowledge the Deputy Chair and the member for Monash who is here today as well. Those conversations directly inform our report and will stay with all of us as we continue our work through the year.

The committee's conclusions are nuanced and its recommendations comprehensive. This report is genuine and thoughtfully made, faithful to the evidence and the result of a deep, shared reflection by all members of the committee, whichever side of the House they sit on. The Australian government, we concluded, has a responsibility to support and empower parents to achieve full social and economic participation. This is not merely a moral imperative but an economic priority.

ParentsNext, as it is today, grew out of earlier efforts started under the former Labor government to help young teenage parents and then highly disadvantaged single mums with positive net outcomes. The committee's conclusion is that the continuation of a program, or we say 'pre-vocational service', to support vulnerable parents is essential. ParentsNext, however, is now locked into such a punitive frame and does too much harm for the good it also does, with onerous participation requirements and a harsh compliance regime. So the committee is clear in our view that parents, usually though not always mothers, have a right to choose to actively parent their babies and very young children, and this right should not just be available to wealthy parents. Caring for young children is work which used to be valued more in its own right. A mandatory focus on preparing parents of very young children for future employment is a very patriarchal view of caring. It doesn't take into account the enormous diversity of the needs of children in different families. As everyone who has multiple kids knows, you have the perfect child and then you have the monster child. You may love them equally but they have completely different needs and take inordinately diverse amounts of time.

We therefore make 30 recommendations, including:

The recommendations and the committee comments set out proposed draft design parameters to inform both a replacement service and more immediate interim changes to the current program that we are requesting, including that—and I'll just highlight a few of them; I'm not going to read all 30 recommendations—where funding is limited the government should prioritise a better quality service to fewer people rather than compromise on the key design principles. There should be much greater use of support and incentives to encourage voluntary participation, including possible cash payments and a new 'Skills Passport' which we proposed—a use it or lose it entitlement to provide extra support to vulnerable parents, usually single parents, to engage in education, training and skills. Onerous reporting rules should be scrapped for all participants. It's really important. Participation requirements should be radically reduced, as it is unreasonable to require parents caring for very young children to engage in a pre-employment program. Currently women with nine-month old babies are forced into this program and if they don't report every fortnight, or whatever is in their plan, they have their payments cut off or suspended. We don't think there is a public policy basis for that.

Compelling evidence was received though that if there are no participation requirements at all then many of the most vulnerable parents would not engage, particularly women suffering coercive control, family violence, many First Nations women, many in my electorate from different cultural backgrounds where leaving the home may not be encouraged. So to see these women not engage brings a very high risk of long-term unemployment and poverty later in life. I know the deputy chair has spoken passionately about his concern for the fast growing number of women over 45 experiencing long-term unemployment and homelessness. We propose, as draft principles, that participation be fully voluntary when a parent's youngest child is under three, with a face-to-face check-in by Services Australia required in the months after the youngest child turns two. It's bit of a safety net for that early screening. In the years between three and six years old, there will only be minimal requirements to attend periodic appointments and to meaningfully participate, which does not mean regular reporting on activities. There should be a more intensive targeted service for vulnerable teenaged and very young parents. There's a stronger public policy basis for an interventionist approach by the government, the states and society for children who, effectively, haven't finished year 12 and are having children.

The targeted compliance framework should be scrapped for all parent participants. Payment penalties, cancellations and full-payment suspension should be removed entirely, as parents should never be left with no money. We consider that a new mechanism is needed to underpin requirements, proposed to be a partial payment withholding, a holdback of a small percentage of the payment, which should not apply to family tax or other payments. Importantly, the holdback would be fully paid back once compliance requirements were achieved. That may be a concept that has application elsewhere in the social security system to remove the harshest full-payment suspensions that leave people with no money in the bank, not able to pay the data on their phone, not able to pay the rent and not able to buy food until they get a compliance issue fixed.

An important matter of principle for the committee—again, it will have not only cost implications but also be a red line, if you like—is that decisions impacting a participant's income support payment should only be made by a government official, not by a staff member of a provider agency, and should not be automated via an IT system. Government, we also believe, should seriously consider reducing the competition between providers in a replacement service and explore having a public sector agency—probably Services Australia, not the department for employment—deliver the service in at least a few employment regions. That doesn't have to be from government officers; it might be from staff outposted to local community and family centres, where some of the really good services seem to operate.

We also believe that skills and competency standards to reprofessionalise the sector should be introduced in the replacement service in a sensible, realistic way—one that values lived experience. Over 20 years, not only the employment services sector but also this part of it has been deprofessionalised. Well under half of consultants have post-school qualifications, and, frankly, they are largely low paid and female dominated. So we think there's a case to reprofessionalise over time.

ParentsNext, in our view, is not as bad as many say it is but not as great as others claim it to be. We set out the draft design principles as a result, as I said, of deep reflection and thought. The committee encourages those who may be involved in the co-design process in designing a replacement service to accept the values and key design principles that we've outlined in this report; to respect the wisdom and the positive intentions of the incredibly diverse range of stakeholders who will be involved with the service; and not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The committee also thanks the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, the Department of Social Services and Services Australia for their constructive engagement with the inquiry. I acknowledge the member for Parramatta, who is here, who was a member of the inquiry and who will continue with us through the rest of the year in looking at the broader employment services system; the member for Mayo; and the other members of the committee. We urge the government to carefully consider the report and to act on the committee's recommendations. These include the release of a transition plan by July 2023 that outlines changes which can be made immediately and in the short term—things which would have to wait for a replacement service; the time line for the co-design process; and the minimum time required and necessary for contract extensions.

In closing, I particularly thank the deputy chair; he and I travelled the country for this inquiry. I can say proudly that there has not been a shred of partisanship in this inquiry or, indeed, in this report—there's not a shred in the Hansard. Partisanship is not how we approached it. I thank all my colleagues on the committee for their engagement and for their collegial approach to the inquiry.

by leave—I move:

That the House take note of the report.

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