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

I am pleased to speak in support of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Employment Services Reform) Bill 2008. The Rudd government made a commitment to a fairer, more compassionate Australia, and since November last year we have been reshaping society on a number of fronts. I think it was the Hon. Paul Keating, the former Prime Minister, who said that when you change the government you change the country. We have certainly seen that in Australia and more recently, in the last couple of weeks, in the United States. It is amazing to look at what has happened in the United States.

Today I will refer to a little bit of literature to illustrate how much things have changed in the United States. One of my favourite books is The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass. If you look at when that book was written and then move through to one of my top five books, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, or Samuel Langhorne Clemens, you see in that narrative the way that Huck treats the slave Jim and how controversial that book was. It is obviously a great work of literature, but at the time, in the late 1860s and 1870s, it was quite controversial. I did my honours thesis on The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Alex Haley. It is strange that you could have an autobiography written by someone else, but in the story presented by Malcolm X, or Malcolm Little as he was originally known, you see how the United States has changed its relationship with what they call the original sin—that is, slavery. The United States was based on slavery, despite the fine words in its constitution and in the Declaration of Independence. When we look at 2008 with Barack Obama being elected President of the United States, we see how much that story has changed. Surely that election in 2008 represents, more than any other, how when you change a government you change a country. Thankfully, that is what happened in Australia in November last year—we changed the direction of the country.

I will now take us back to Australia in 2008 and the Rudd government. We are creating a new industrial relations system—a much fairer industrial relations system that is bringing fairness back to Australian workplaces. We are delivering a better, fairer deal for pensioners and carers, we are stepping up to our obligations to boost international aid and, through the bill that is before the House, we are putting an end to the harsh and unfair compliance system put in place by the Howard government for people receiving social security payments such as Newstart Allowance, Youth Allowance, the parenting payment or special benefit. The previous government’s welfare reforms were more about penalising non-compliance than encouraging compliance. Unfortunately, it seems to be true to form for the Liberals to be all stick and no carrot. They have no faith in an Australian’s capacity to hear their better angels. They are more interested in penalising people rather than appealing to their better nature.

Unfortunately, the Howard-Costello government blindly pursued these reforms despite the warnings of numerous welfare agencies. The National Association of Community Legal Centres described the Howard system this way:

… at the core of the regime is an illogical and counterproductive eight week no payment penalty. It will be applied not only when a person commits a third offence (such as failing to attend an interview or a training course), but also as an immediate cut in payments for a “more serious offence”, including:

• refusing an offer of a suitable job (without a reasonable excuse);
• resigning without a good reason;
• failing to participate in full-time “Work for the Dole”, and
• being dismissed from employment due to misconduct.

For the first time this harsh no payment regime will apply to parents with children and people with disabilities.

Back in June 2006, the National Association of Community Legal Centres also warned the coalition government that they would see a surge in no-payment penalties. Once again the coalition ignored the NACLC’s advice. I refer to an article on the ABC News website by Simon Lauder on Wednesday 19 December 2007, with the heading ‘No sound legal basis for Centrelink penalties: Ombudsman.’ The article says:

The Commonwealth Ombudsman, Professor John McMillan—

very well trusted and respected—

says, people were effectively forced to breach their obligations because they could not lodge their regular paperwork while they were being investigated.

“Once a participation failure was under investigation, in some of the complaints to my office Centrelink officers had refused to accept the continuation form, which meant that the person would certainly be in breach and unable to demonstrate their continued eligibility for payment,” he said.

…            …            …

“But it certainly put the person in a real quandary about how they could reconnect and get the payment and what the future held for them.”

“These were people now not receiving any payment and clearly, in some instances, in quite distressing circumstances.”

Unfortunately that meant that we had a tenfold increase in the last three years. In 2004-05, there were only 3,800 non-payment penalties. However, last year there were more than 30,000 non-payment penalties, double that of the previous year.

These are not just figures and statistics; they are actually real, living, breathing people like you and like me, and as a result of these penalties many of them have suffered terribly. Homelessness Australia estimates that at least 30 per cent of people who had an eight-week non-payment penalty imposed lost their accommodation. In other words, last year more than 3,000 people would have ended up living on the street as a result of these penalties, and as anybody who has ever worked in or visited a homeless shelter knows this can begin a spiral that takes somebody’s life out of control and into a world where nobody ever wants to know them, a life where stench and the loss of dignity are commonplace.

Many Labor MPs, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, went to visit homelessness shelters between the election and the commencement of parliament. It certainly was quite an experience for me to return to a place that I used to take school kids to to help in the soup kitchen and to see, 10 years on, some of the same people and certainly hear some of the same stories and understand how horrible a life it is when suddenly you do not have a roof over your head. Those 3,000 stories, which I have merely touched on, must be quite horrific.

This bill before the House introduces a fairer compliance regime. It amends the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to introduce a new compliance framework for around 620,000 people. The coalition system was more about penalty and less about support. However, the approach contained in this Rudd government bill is much more carrot and much less stick.

Firstly, the legislation introduces new no-show, no-pay failures. If a job seeker fails to attend a required activity such as Work for the Dole training or to seriously complete a job interview, they will lose one-tenth of their fortnightly payment for each subsequent day that they do not attend. This does not affect payments such as rent assistance or pharmaceutical allowance but will apply to Work for the Dole supplements. Next, this bill retains connection and reconnection failures. This will apply when a job seeker, without reasonable excuse, fails to attend an appointment with an employment service provider or does not meet their Jobsearch requirements. There is no financial penalty. However, the job seeker must attend a reconnection requirement. If they fail to do so, they will incur a one-fourteenth reduction in fortnightly payment for each day that they fail to so comply.

Further, eight-week non-payment penalties will be imposed for persistent and wilful noncompliance. This will only be as a last resort and accompanies a new, comprehensive compliance assessment. For example, if a job seeker refuses an offer of suitable employment, Centrelink will impose a serious failure. Also, if a job seeker misses three appointments or six days of activities such as Work for the Dole, Centrelink will consider whether their participation requirements are suitable, whether they should be referred for a job capacity assessment or whether a serious failure should be imposed. That is, we will look at the individual characteristics of the person in front of us. Obviously, with this personal touch comes dignity and the person is much more likely not to get into that spiral that I talked about of becoming just another homeless person. Nevertheless, a serious failure will result in an eight-week non-payment penalty. As I said, we have mainly focused on the carrot but there is still a stick to be used if necessary.

The big difference between the new system and the harsh Howard-Costello regime is that a non-payment period is reversible, depending on the circumstances. Under the current system, once a job seeker receives an eight-week penalty, they are not required to have any contact with Centrelink for that period and there is nothing they can do but ride out the eight-week non-payment period. That is often a very traumatic time, when they must turn to charities for support—or, even worse, to loan sharks and the like to get them through, where they pay exorbitant interest rates.

The government believe that job seekers receiving taxpayer funded income support should work hard to find work and that job seekers who refuse to do so should be penalised. But we also believe they should be given the chance to explain themselves and to redeem themselves. This is the fundamental difference between the Labor Party’s approach to humanity and the Liberal and National parties’ approach to humanity. I know this from having spent a lot of time working for one of the community organisations in my electorate, the Kyabra Community Association, which deals with people in housing stress or people who, just because of their refrigerator breaking down, can end up living in their car. Circumstances have got to that point. A simple little payment like that can trigger someone being in rental arrears. Once they are in rental arrears they are on the black mark list for tenancy and they cannot get a house. They end up couch-surfing or, if they have kids, living in their car. My electorate is a reasonably well-off electorate, but people still turn up at the Kyabra Community Association needing money for petrol so that they can drive on to another park. It is incredible.

Every morning when I go for a walk around my suburbs, I see a homeless guy who sleeps in the street in front of the shopping centre in Moorooka. It is incredible to hear his story. He is still able to receive payments; he is definitely not starving or anything like that. He chooses to live in the outer suburbs rather than in the city, where it is a lot tougher on the streets and people get rolled a lot more. He is able to stay in the outer suburbs. That is why it is so important that the government get these policies right. The cruel policies that were put in place by John Howard and Peter Costello were not appropriate. They looked good for that little bit of public posturing that John Howard like to put out there to show how tough we were on ‘dole bludgers’. But, unfortunately, they had horrific consequences and destroyed people’s lives. The Rudd government’s approach is much fairer.

What we need to remember is that the overwhelming majority of job seekers do the right thing. There are a few who deliberately rort the system, and they should be penalised, but it should not be presented as if all of the people seeking work are an evil underclass. This is especially the case with the tighter economic times in front of us, when we will be looking to blame someone. Certainly, members of my family have been unemployed. I have even been to a CES on occasion—not for very long. That was the good thing about being a teacher and a lawyer: there was always plenty of work around. However, the new system before us provides a safety net for vulnerable job seekers to ensure that if they do the right thing and meet their Job Search requirements their payments will be reinstated and they can stay on their feet.

In line with this government’s priorities, this bill also contains particular measures to improve the compliance regime in the bush. As someone who comes from the country, I am particularly interested in how this applies. The previous government, the coalition, failed to stand up for their electors in rural and regional areas. That is why we saw so many Labor people whose electorates touch on the bush being swept into power in November last year—because the National Party had betrayed the bush. I remember the National Party when I grew up; they stood up for the bush. Now they are too closely aligned with the Liberal Party. In fact, in Queensland we do not even have a National Party anymore. We have the Liberal National Party, or LNP. In inner city Brisbane, in my electorate, I go to functions and there is a Liberal National Party councillor attending with me. It is quite strange. It is like being back in St George, really.

The new system in front of us will ensure that Centrelink considers a job seeker’s individual circumstances. So we are going from having a sausage machine to treating people with dignity and as human beings. For example, if we are looking at a job seeker in the bush, we look at the availability of transport, which may impact on a job seeker’s ability to attend meetings and meet their participation requirements. It is one thing to say in the middle of Brisbane that you can catch the train or, in Melbourne, that you can catch a tram. For places like St George or Cunnamulla the nearest town is 300 kilometres away, so petrol—or even getting a car—is a significant consideration. That is why we have a much fairer approach to the specific job-seeking circumstances of people in the country.

As we all know—or certainly everyone on this side of the chamber knows—the world has changed significantly, economically, over the last few weeks. The global financial crisis has meant that the floor has shifted for so many people and so many businesses. So many decisions that were made by people with the hope and optimism of the beginning of the year have changed significantly. So as we face these uncertain times as a nation, when growth is forecast to slow and unfortunately we might see a rise in unemployment, we need to make sure that, with the few levers the government has, we get the mechanism just right. Now, more than ever, we need to see a fair employment service that focuses on our most disadvantaged job seekers.

I return to what I talked about at the start: how when you change a government you change the direction of the nation. I said that about the Rudd government. I also said that about the government of Barack Obama, who will be inaugurated as President on 20 January 2009. That will be 200 years after Abraham Lincoln was born, and I think that is the theme the new regime will be going for on that day. It is amazing how much things have changed since Abraham Lincoln made the Gettysburg Address, probably one of the most famous political speeches ever. It was a two-minute speech that followed a two-hour oration from someone no-one remembers. Some other politician had gone on for two hours, probably trying to filibuster or expand to fill the day—you know how politicians are asked to do that on occasion!—so everyone was dozing off. Then Lincoln got up and made that brilliant, incisive speech that defined what America was about. Now here we are, 200 years after Abraham Lincoln was born, with a black American President, Barack Obama, being sworn in on 20 January. I hope to be able to watch that on TV, although I think I might have a new child by then, so that might keep me busy—but maybe, hopefully, it will give me time to watch the TV.

These are incredible times. As I said, it is amazing to see how times have changed, from the story of the life of Frederick Douglass, a slave who became one of the great African-American activists, through to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnwritten by a white person, but one of the most confronting books about slavery and probably up there with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which I also think is a great work of literature though not of the quality of Huckleberry Finnthrough to The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Incidentally, that is one of Barack Obama’s favourite books. It is not on many of the lists, where he goes through more mainstream literature, but he has said elsewhere that it is one of his favourite books. I am impressed by that. It is certainly a book that moved a lot of people, and the Spike Lee film is true to the book.

To return to the legislation before the House, the change of government has changed the direction of policy and we can see that we have a much fairer employment service that focuses on our most disadvantaged job seekers. I commend the bill to the House.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And I commend the member for his efforts.

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to rise today to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Employment Services Reform) Bill 2008. I am not sure that I can quite follow the contribution made by the member for Moreton. It was quite an extraordinary piece! But I will do my utmost to talk to this very important legislation. This bill distinguishes Labor from Liberal. It distinguishes the conservatives from the progressives. It is an example of two different philosophies. The Liberals and the conservatives have always fundamentally believed that disadvantaged people have only themselves to blame and, therefore, the only way to help the disadvantaged is to punish them. The conservatives believe the only way to deal with the disadvantaged is to blame them, shame them and vilify them.

Labor have a different view. We believe disadvantage arises for a multiplicity of reasons. We believe helping people with disadvantage makes us a stronger community. We believe the conservatives’ view of punishing the disadvantaged is not just old-fashioned but also totally counterproductive. It leads to demoralisation. It puts families at risk. It puts workers who deliver these services at risk. Ultimately, it costs us more as a society and it costs us more as an economy. Labor believe in justice and encouragement. Labor believe in providing fairness and incentives. And we believe in evidence based social policy. This bill redresses the failures of the current system imposed by a former, mean Prime Minister. The purpose of this bill is to ensure compliance through a more understandable and equitable means of encouraging participation. This legislation establishes a framework that makes job seekers more accountable for their efforts to find and keep a job but also provides encouragement and support along the way.

Encouragement, support and accountability are the values of this bill. The Rudd government is introducing these measures as part of a $3.9 billion package of reforms to the Australian employment services to commence on 1 July 2009. This legislation provides a new compliance framework for approximately 620,000 people who receive Newstart allowance, youth allowance other, parenting payment or special benefit and have participation requirements. This bill will amend the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to give effect to the measures announced in the 2008-09 budget. These reforms are critical because over the past 10 years employment services have been operating under a policy and administrative constraints that have failed disadvantaged job seekers in the extreme.

Just over 10 years ago the unemployment rate was 7.7 per cent. Whilst unemployment is now around 4.1 per cent, a significantly higher proportion of job seekers are highly disadvantaged and long-term unemployed. The increased proportion of long-term unemployed is a direct result of the previous, conservative government’s flawed policies. I want to make a specific point here. Let us think about it. We have had a significant increase in the proportion of long-term unemployed when we have had the longest-lasting economic boom in the nation’s history. What an opportunity that has been missed. What sort of heartless policy did the previous government put in place? We had a unique opportunity of economic good times to help the long-term unemployed, and what did the conservatives do? They punished them. They created a greater problem than was required. The conservatives’ punitive social policy hurt the unemployed, and it has cost our society, I believe, dearly. People who, for example, suffer from mental health issues or other disabilities such as language or literacy issues have found it even more difficult to work, due to the nature of this current framework.

The current policy has created a harder core of long-term unemployed. But it is not just the unemployed and the disadvantaged who have suffered under the conservatives—business has suffered, too. These policies and constraints have also failed employers who desperately need skilled workers to fill vacancies. Australia is experiencing skill shortages in a number of critical areas and is looking at a shortfall of up to 240,000 VET qualified workers by 2016. It is vital for our economy and the future of economic growth that unemployment services and the compliance regime that underpins them work.

This legislation is not about providing a free ride. That is the rhetoric of the conservatives. That is the ugly myth that the conservatives promoted to justify their punishing regime. It is absolutely too true that Australians believe that if you are on taxpayer funded income support then you should work hard to find work. The first goal of the new compliance system is to ensure job seekers meet their participation requirements and make every effort to get themselves off welfare and into the workplace. Job seekers who will not look for work will have their support reconsidered, and this is one of the key differences between the old legislation and the new. The new system will give job seekers the opportunity to explain the circumstances that led to the breach. In the case of the alleged breach, a job seeker will be asked why they are not conforming. This has the effect of providing an opportunity for both sides to discuss the issues. It is an opportunity to get a better understanding of why the breach has occurred and to give the job seeker a chance to respond. Centrelink will use a comprehensive compliance assessment to determine whether there are good reasons for a job seeker to not be complying—for example, someone who is in stream 1 but has recently become homeless and should therefore be in stream 4. Where an eight-week non-payment period is applied, the new compliance regime will encourage job seekers to take responsibility for their actions and to re-engage.

Redemption is often the turning point—it can be invigorating; it can reinstil the confidence to continue. By humanising the process and recognising the breach, both parties can go forward, instead of welfare organisations being left to pick up the pieces and the front-line public servants being left to deal with the rage through the process. Australians with the right support and encouragement are more likely to overcome an extended period of unemployment. The key is to get the positive outcome, to avoid a welfare mess. Madam Deputy Speaker, excuse me, I have to pause for a moment. I have a dry throat.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is perfectly all right.

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The alternative is disengagement; a downward spiral of human misery; a costly welfare process. Of course, keeping people engaged also provides better access and a window of opportunity for welfare organisations and our employment service providers to use their professional judgement. Under the current arrangements, job seekers who have failed to take part in an activity or program miss at least a fortnight’s pay before action is taken. In other words, there is a problem—which may be for any number of reasons—yet, instead of support, the first thing a person would get under the previous regime was a kick in the guts. In many cases, that is goodbye to hope; that is a downward, sometimes irreversible, spiral—often a personal crisis, a mental health decline, a physical health decline.

According to Homelessness Australia, up to 20 per cent of people who underwent an eight-week breach lost their accommodation or were forced to move to less appropriate housing. Let us pause and think about that: 20 per cent of people at the end of eight weeks of loss of payments lost their accommodation and had to go to worse accommodation. How is that good policy? Does this help people to get back to employment? Does it help families in distress? Does it help the children of these people? No. The penalise-first approach costs the individual and the community. It costs us in welfare, it costs us in health and it throws many people over to already overworked charity organisations.

The new compliance arrangements encourage participation and re-engagement as quickly as possible, in stark contrast to the current system. The new arrangements strike the right balance between participation and penalties for those job seekers who do not comply. A key element of the new system is a similar work-like culture to employment cultures. I will finish at this point because my voice is gone.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for his sterling effort. That was remarkable.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While I say it is a great pleasure for me to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Employment Services Reform) Bill 2008, I feel great sympathy for the member for Corangamite for the condition of his voice. This is a great piece of legislation. It is something that everybody in the community should be really proud of. I believe it is a great piece of legislation because it really restores some balance in the employment participation area. If there is one thing that Labor can be truly proud of with this it is that we want to strike the right balance between fair and decent participation for job seekers, the unemployed, so that they have access to the right job network type of system to make sure they have the tools at their disposal not only to look for work but to gain work and that those who do not participate or meet their obligations to the community are penalised in a proper and fair manner. I think that is a reasonable position to take. It is a reasonable position to strike a balance between encouragement and incentive, and penalty and punishment. I have to say that it is quite sad that, for the past decade or more, that just has not been the case. I say that is sad because I think it has actually provided a great disservice to fair dinkum job seekers who are trying to do the right thing. The majority of Australians understand quite clearly that if you are out of work you should genuinely look for work and find a job because it is always better to be in a job than to be unemployed.

On our side of politics, from Labor’s point of view, we believe very strongly that people who can work should work, and they should always be actively out there contributing to society—contributing to the community, contributing to the tax system and playing their part—and that for those who do not, who would deliberately shirk their responsibilities, who for one reason or another do not meet their obligations, there ought to be some sort of penalty. We do not walk away from that. We do not walk away from the fact that those who deliberately abuse the system should be penalised in some way, punished in some way, because they are dependent on the goodwill of the taxpayer and taxpayer dollars. We do not make any bones about the issue of dealing with people who deliberately and repeatedly shirk their responsibilities, who do not meet their part of mutual obligation. They have an obligation to society to be out there and, if they cannot find work, to at least genuinely be looking for work or enter into training programs—to participate in the system. I think that is the bare minimum, the minimum requirement: that they actively seek employment or actively participate in training and actively engage with the requirements that they need to meet as put by their case manager or someone else.

So let us be clear at the outset of the debate that this bill is not about somehow weakening or growing soft or taking just a lighter view. This bill is actually about fairness, about restoring balance, about doing the right thing. It is about doing the right thing for job seekers and it is about doing the right thing in terms of the taxpayer and the taxpayer dollars. But what is wrong and what is sad is when you have a government, the former Howard government, enter into arrangements where job seekers were either harshly penalised or otherwise harshly dealt with in a manner which did not encourage them to participate. You had a contrary, contradictory system, which implied that it was trying to get greater participation from job seekers yet instilled and compounded a penalty system which actually discouraged people from participation; it actually removed them from the system.

So we had a situation where the former Howard government gave the impression to the community that it was out there doing its bit, that it was being tough on job seekers, those who are unemployed, but their policy and their punishment regime really did not encourage job seekers or in any way give people an incentive to participate. When, for whatever reason, people were breached, they fell through the system and their entitlements were removed for a period of eight weeks—nonpayment for eight weeks. What did it actually mean? It meant the government washed their hands of that person, completely washed their hands of them, and walked away from them. No longer was that person required to participate, no longer was that person required to connect, no longer was that person required to engage. It was merely a punishment system: ‘We will punish you by taking away from you any source of income that you have without consideration of its impact.’ But at the same time, which I think made it much worse, there was no compulsion from the government to require that person to do anything during that eight-week period.

Where is the sense in that? If you are going to punish someone, fine; do that. Breach them, take away their payment, but do it in a fair manner and then require them to make amends, to rectify that position. Look at why they are in that position; what should they now be doing? You cannot just wash your hands of them and say, ‘Right, for eight weeks we’re not paying you; we don’t want to see you, we don’t want to know you; go and sit on your hands idly and do nothing.’ That was all that was required. That was all that the previous system contained.

We on this side of the House have a different view, and we have maintained that view: people should participate. There should be incentives in place to make them participate and there should also be penalties in place for people who do not want to participate. I fear that, while that is common sense and that would make sense to people listening, it is not just about punishing someone; it is also about trying to address their behaviour. Perhaps there is a particular issue for them. But if they just do not want to work they deserve to be punished by having their payments removed for a period of time. During that time, people should be retrained or required to participate, not just disappear for a period of eight weeks.

I will get into the detail of some of the impact of that policy of the previous Howard government, not only on the job seeker but also on the community, on the Job Network agencies and on the charitable organisations that look after people who cannot look after themselves or who find themselves in desperate circumstances. I think the great tragedy of the Howard government’s ideology on this was that it was just about punishment. It was about removing somebody’s income for a period of time. There was nothing else in the former government’s policy that encouraged people to do anything, bar sitting on their hands. The former government’s policy was: ‘We’ll take the money off you. Now go away; we don’t want to see you.’ That was the clear message and the clear policy.

What we are doing today through this bill is finally restoring some balance between participation and penalty. We believe that both should occur and both should occur in a balanced manner. The Social Security Legislation Amendment (Employment Services Reform) Bill before us today is a positive step for welfare compliance. It is in stark contrast to what we saw from the now opposition for more than a decade. What the Rudd government has done is to introduce legislation that will give effect to measures that were announced in the budget, and they are designed to introduce a new job seeker compliance system. The changes are part of a broader scheme—New Employment Services, a new scheme that will begin on 1 July 2009.

The reality is that the welfare penalty system, the punishment system, just did not work. It did not encourage anybody to seek work—in fact, it was a disincentive. If you think about it in practical terms as to what it would mean for those who may be doing the wrong thing—and there is always a bludger here or there, and they should be punished; we are not disagreeing with that—not everyone should be thrown into the one basket. If you are going to punish someone, do it with measure and do it with some recourse in mind—some sort of rehabilitation, some sort of avenue to say, ‘We’re going to do something extra. We don’t want to just continually punish a person over and over; we want to get them into a job. We want to get them to participate. We want to get them to contribute to the tax system.’ Shouldn’t that be the goal? Or was it the goal of the previous government, the Howard government, to simply punish people? ‘Blind punishment—outcome irrelevant.’ It is just about withdrawing their payment for a period of eight weeks.

I am sure that some people who received a number of breaches and had their payments removed for eight weeks said, ‘I’m not happy. Whether I was in the right or in the wrong, my payment has been removed for eight weeks and I now don’t have to do anything. I can just sit at home.’ Maybe, out of spite, some of them did do that. ‘Stuff them all,’ might have been the view of some people, ‘If no-one’s going to require me to do anything during that period, I’m not going to.’ It is the wrong message. It did not carry with it any incentive and it was bad government policy, bad public policy, bad welfare policy. It was bad work participation policy, and the evidence of that is all around us. It is all around us in the simple statistics that come out of the Job Network and out of Centrelink. During the period of change when the Howard government introduced this penalty system, this punishment system, there was a doubling of the amount of non-payment periods from previous years. It seems that at the same time the punishment came in there was this zeal from the then government to enforce it even harder. The old system was a populist policy of ‘three strikes and you’re out’. That always sounds good. You can always carry on and hype it up. The old ‘three strikes and you’re out’ always sounds good, but what does it achieve? What does it do? What is the outcome? What is the intended public policy outcome from the government?

I think I have some idea. Firstly, it was just about the politicking, because ‘three strikes and you’re out’ just sounded good. Who cares about the job seeker? Who cares about work participation? Did it achieve a goal; did it actually achieve an outcome? In public policy and in government, you should at least have some goals and outcomes to say, ‘We’re trying to achieve this end, we’re going to do it through this public policy and we’re going to penalise people along the way and reward people along the way.’ What was the intended outcome? One would have to assume that the intended outcome of a penalty system for job seekers not participating would be to encourage them to further participate, to actually go and get a job, and, if they cannot get a job, to attend training, to further attend courses or to at least participate, turn up to interviews and do all of that.

Was that the outcome of their penalty system? No. In fact, there was no change; none at all. Participation rates did not go up, turn-up rates did not go up and the number of people actually finding more jobs did not go up as a result of this policy. So I think it is clear to anyone who understood it or who perhaps was impacted by it that in the end the government were not interested in actually getting people into jobs. They were just interested in penalising them because it looked good—‘three strikes and you’re out’, that sort of image. There are always a few who think you have just got to keep punishing people without a view to actually reforming some of their behaviour or actually getting them into a job in the first place, which might actually help.

The previous government, the Howard government, also did very little to actually look at the specifics of the problems that people might have had, why they could not comply or did not comply. For a whole range of people there were some very serious issues. We know as a matter of fact, from a number of agencies, that around 15 per cent of those people who received an eight-week non-payment period and lost their income for eight weeks actually had a mental illness and really struggled. They really struggled with daily life and, for their troubles, the already complicated life and struggles they had were further complicated by having eight weeks—two whole months—of any income removed from them. No consideration was given to their plight.

There were a further five per cent who were already in very unstable housing arrangements, which complicated their ability to turn up to a job interview or to participate in some way. And I have got to say this, even though it is pretty hard: the government did not care; they were not interested. It was never about trying to improve the lot of these people; it was just about punishing them and having this populist image out there of being tough—‘We’ll just keep punishing people’—but never really taking into consideration just what impact their policies were having on ordinary people. In the end, punishment for punishment’s sake is always bad public policy. Punishment should be about sending clear messages that people need to change their behaviour. If you can do that punishment in a measured way and escalate it up rather than have an all-in, all-out type method, then you have got some hope.

The previous government’s policy was ‘three strikes and you’re out for eight weeks’, a non-reversible decision which left people in a position where they could not really alter what had taken place—whether they were right or wrong, and there would have been both. There would have been some times when they were in the wrong and deserved it and other times when they had some really genuine extenuating circumstances, but you could not do anything about it. Under our policy, it is an escalation process. We will actually work with that person. We will breach them and we will give them a penalty and we will punish them, but we will escalate it up. We will say, ‘Here’s your first punishment and it will be commensurate with what you have done. If you do not turn up for one day, you will lose one day’s pay.’

I think that is a fair thing. That is what we all expect in our working lives. I think that is what a fair Australian would expect: if you do not turn up for a day, you will lose a day’s pay unless you have got a very good reason—unless you are sick or there is some really good reason why you could not be there. And there are good reasons. Sometimes people cannot get there because their public transport fails them or their car fails them. We are not talking about wealthy people. We are talking about people who might be really struggling, and there are these circumstances.

By escalating it up, you give people an opportunity. You say to them, ‘We’re going to punish you today because you have done the wrong thing, but we’re going to give you an opportunity to redress that. You have an opportunity to grow and learn, to participate and do the right thing by the community and the taxpayer by further participating.’ This legislation does that. It is measured, it is structured and it is about delivering an outcome that it is in the best interests of the two most important people in this debate—one, the job seeker, who needs to actually find a job; and, two, the taxpayer. They are the two most important people in this debate.

It is not about populist policy. It is not about looking good or looking bad or ‘three strikes and you are out’ and other catchphrases. It is about actually delivering an outcome and making sure that those people who can work do find work and that, for the people who struggle to find work, we find the cause of that struggle. An effective use of taxpayer dollars means that, when we spend money on people looking for a job, we get an outcome. It is not just about penalties; it is not just about punishment. Punishment with no goal in sight is useless. We have the data and statistics on this: it did not actually effect any change. If the goal was to punish people to get them to change their behaviour, it did not work. It is as simple as that. Find anywhere where it worked. What we actually saw was a doubling, on average, if not more—and in my electorate of Oxley it went up to 109 per cent—of the breaching and penalty regime. It actually doubled. Was there a better outcome? No.

That is unfortunate. I have to say that that is unfortunate because at least if the policy had worked you might be able to stand up and say, ‘I did not like the policy because I thought it wasn’t measured and scaled and a whole range of things. I thought it was punitive. But at least it did have an impact. At least there was a 50 per cent reduction and there was incentive for people and they were encouraged to go out there and find work.’ But the outcome was the opposite. It was a disincentive. Instead of re-engaging the job seeker, it turned the job seeker against the agency. It made it even harder for them to go out and find work. For eight weeks that person understood that they would not get one cent and it was irreversible. So what did they do? They went off and sulked and did nothing. They were required to do nothing. If the government had been serious, they would have breached them for eight weeks, taken their payment away from them for eight weeks and then said, ‘Now you will attend this or there will be further breaches. You now will participate and you will understand that you need to meet your obligations.’ But the government did not do that. Their policy was just about the punishment; it was not about participation, reconnecting or doing something for the taxpayer. As a taxpayer, I think there is an expectation that my tax dollars will be spent in a way that means they are not continually respent on the same problem because you cannot fix it. Fix the problem. Deal with the core issue.

We are not defending anyone who is a shirker. If you are a shirker and you are not meeting your obligations, you will be penalised. Under our policy and legislation the penalties still exist, but they escalate through. We are going to give people opportunities. We are going to make sure that we work with them. We are going to make sure that, in the end, the goal is good public policy. It is about saving taxpayer dollars. It is about getting people into the workforce and making sure that they contribute to the tax regime in this country and to the community. (Time expired)

Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is certainly a pleasure for me to get up and speak today on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Employment Services Reform) Bill 2008. I would like to commend the member for Oxley for his impassioned speech. He understands the nature of his electorate very well and how the current legislation has certainly had major impacts on electorates like Oxley. It is not unlike the electorate of Forde where we do have a lot of dislocation and problems that are enhanced by the draconian approach of the current legislation.

It is important in the current economic circumstance that we encourage people into the workforce. This bill will encourage participation and compliance. This will be achieved by establishing a framework for a new compliance system that will make those who are seeking employment more accountable for their efforts to find and keep a job. This is very much along the lines of the policy of Labor governments generally and certainly the Rudd government in terms of a need for social reform. Looking at the previous government’s approach to this issue, I think it was just too hard. Our view, with the Labor Party’s very strong understanding of social justice, is to consider ways to support people who find themselves in the difficulty of being unemployed. The way to support people back into the workforce is not to have a penalty that is very hard and has major effects across the board.

For electorates like Oxley and Forde, the current legislation is very city-centric. It does not understand or have consideration for the difficulty that people have in their mobility around an electorate such as mine. I have spoken many times in this House about far-reaching areas to the southern end of my electorate, and those who have heard me talk about Duck Creek Road before will understand that it is an area of extreme remoteness. There is no public transport and very poor road infrastructure. That has a major effect on how we apply legislation to support people to find a way back into the workforce. I think the Howard government became tired on a whole range of issues. This was one issue that they felt it was better to leave in the too-hard basket. Essentially, it left a whole range of people finding themselves dislocated in our communities.

The Social Security Legislation Amendment (Employment Services Reform) Bill 2008 will amend the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to give effect to the measures announced in the 2008-09 budget to support the new employment services, in particular the introduction of a new job seeker compliance system. The new compliance framework will apply to Newstart allowance, youth allowance for persons who are not full-time students or new apprentices, parenting payment for persons who have participation requirements and are not new apprentices, and special benefit for nominated visa holders.

A key feature of the new framework is the no-show, no-pay penalty. This new penalty will deter noncompliance and encourage re-engagement. As I said, re-engagement is what this is all about—giving people opportunities to train their way back into the workforce. It applies to a job seeker who, without reasonable excuse, fails to attend an activity or a job interview or intentionally acts in a manner that is reasonably foreseeable which may result in an offer of employment not being made. The no-show, no-pay penalty will be equivalent to one work day of a job seeker’s basic rate of payment and any approved program of work supplement—normally 10 per cent of a job seeker’s 14-day instalment.

When you compare this with the current eight-week, non-payment penalty, which is counterproductive and has wider impacts on society, it is clear that the new legislation will better incentivise job seekers, and that is really what this is all about. The bill contains several minor technical amendments designed to clarify and improve the operation of the current payment-pending review provisions, particularly in relation to the start date of penalties following the decision to apply a penalty.

In his second reading speech the Minister for Employment Participation stated that the key reason why these changes are necessary is that the current compliance system has resulted in thousands of counterproductive, non-discretionary and irreversible eight-week, non-payment penalties. For the duration of these eight-week, non-payment penalties there is no requirement for the job seeker to look for work or to have contact with either their employment service provider or Centrelink. The consequence of this failed approach to compliance and an obvious defect in the system is the eight-week separation of job seekers from participation requirements, including looking for work, gaining skills or undertaking work experience.

My background is as a TAFE institute director, a position I held for some time. Training was a very big part of our role in society—certainly for governments at all levels. In the years of the Keating government, training was a major focus. Essentially, training to a large degree has to be part of how we support people through these changes.

The results speak for themselves. The former government system has failed on noncompliance. In 2006-07 there were around 16,000 eight-week, non-payment penalties applied. In 2007-08 this had doubled to around 32,000 eight-week, non-payment penalties. If the current system were effective, it would have resulted in decreasing numbers of penalties because more job seekers would be participating. These figures confirm that the existing arrangements are just not working, particularly in an environment of strong employment growth. Certainly in South-East Queensland in my electorate it is quite difficult for large employers to get adequately trained staff. To have people falling out of the loop at a greater rate certainly rings the alarm bells.

The change to the compliance system set out is part of the $3.9 billion package of necessary reforms to Australian employment services that commence on 1 July 2009. These reforms are crucial because in the last 10 years employment services have been operating under policy and administrative constraints that have hindered disadvantaged job seekers, their families and their communities. These policies and constraints have also failed employers, who desperately need skilled workers to fill vacancies. I have used the example of the electorate of Forde, but it applies generally to many parts of Queensland. Certainly in the resource rich areas of Queensland, where a lack of capable and competent people to perform tasks means that we have high demand, we should be able to channel people who are available into those job opportunities.

In the last 17 years of economic growth we have had improved job prosects for thousands of people. On the other side of the coin, many others have had a bleak employment outlook. As I just mentioned, we are still experiencing skill shortages—something that was not addressed by the previous government—and this has been clearly identified by the Rudd government as our priority. There is a priority for training and support. The member for Oxley has made the point very well many times that this is about giving people opportunities. Without a doubt the best social security we can have in this country is through giving people job opportunities, a career path and the ability to increase their skills.

The general wellbeing—certainly psychologically—of any person, and that person’s family and all of their contacts, depends on their self-reliance and independence, and their ability to look after themselves and to take advantage of great job opportunities without considering penalties simply because of their circumstances. The harshest element of the current system is the eight-week, non-payment penalty. It is not hard to envisage the situations that come out of eight weeks of non-payment—people unable to pay their bills or their rent. This can cause people to become destitute and dislocated, just adding to the potential for community stress and dysfunction.

As I have mentioned before, in my electorate of Forde we have a major demand on rental properties. At one stage people had access to affordable rent and there were available rental properties. If you consider that people have no continuity in their income you can imagine the stresses of being unemployed. They may then be further concerned if a breach occurs—sometimes because they did not receive a letter or because a piece of information went missing. They were very much dependent on the administrative systems being able to accommodate and understand the processes. I am sure that the staff of Centrelink were very understanding of people and their situations, but at the end of the day they had very little latitude in terms of how they could ease the distress of people who, for whatever reason, may have breached a particular condition of their payments.

As I said, not having the income stream for two months, and having people evicted, certainly leads to issues of hunger. While that almost seems, in this day an age, an anomaly in our society, I know, from the groups that operate in my electorate—I am sure it is the same in many other electorates—that much support goes to families who simply do not have enough food to put on the table. A large component of that is people who are not only unemployed but have, for whatever reason, been penalised for some form of noncompliance. We can see how this issue can contribute to the housing crisis and charities being overwhelmed by people needing food and clothing.

As I said, the unfortunate part of our modern society is that there are people who are in all sorts of situations at different levels. There are people who have quite generous salaries and there are people who are simply not getting by, who are highly dependent on a government system. For that reason we should not be penalising people who find themselves in that situation—not to the degree of this eight-week arrangement.

This legislation allows a more measured approach to people being penalised for noncompliance, whatever might have caused that noncompliance. It is an irony, when you consider the global financial issues that confront us now, that a major questioning at the moment is about executives on high salaries and benefits. As I understand it, one company in the US—a failed bank—had paid their top executive over $468 million over a period of 10 years, in salaries and bonuses. I remember that in the inquiry there was a great protest from that particular individual who said, ‘No, it wasn’t $460 million; it was only $320 million.’ It was an enormous amount of money. The reality is that people who were operating in that environment had major failures and were noncompliant in terms of the sorts of things they were doing and yet they still got a benefit. Yet the people who are least able to look after themselves in our society get punished in such a harsh way—through taking the very means of their existence away from them. The dependency that people have, in receiving those sorts of benefits, shows that this is not an adequate way to do this. A measured approach is certainly the way to approach it.

According to Homelessness Australia, up to 20 per cent of people who underwent an eight-week breach lost their accommodation or were forced to move to less appropriate housing. These job seekers are some of our community’s most disadvantaged people. Against the issue of the excessive executive salaries that I spoke about, it just does not make sense that people are having their means of survival taken away from them when they are breached. This issue with job seekers is one that confronts us all.

The first goal of the new compliance system is to ensure job seekers meet their participation requirements and make every effort to get themselves off welfare and into a job. As the member for Oxley said, this is about making people responsible for their actions. A system of breaching is an important part; it is part of the incentivising. But the harshness of the penalty has to be something that is very measured and I believe that this legislation will certainly resolve that. The current system provides little of deterrence or early intervention. A major concern is the lack of immediate consequence for initial failures to complete activities. It comes as one big wallop—and the eight-week breach of payments is a major wallop.

An important element of the no-show, no-pay failure is to promote a work-like culture to employment services. If a job seeker does not attend an activity that they are required to attend without a reasonable excuse, it will result in the job seeker losing one-tenth of their fortnightly payment for each day they do not attend. This does not affect rent assistance, the pharmaceutical allowance or the youth disability supplement, but it does apply to any supplement the job seeker is receiving for participating in Green Corps or Work for the Dole. As is currently the case, access to healthcare cards and family tax benefits will not be affected. When the job seeker resumes participation, it will result in a resumption of payment. Resuming participation will result in resumption of income support. A no-show, no-pay failure means that noncompliance will have an immediate financial impact, but the extent of the penalty will be in the hands of the job seeker.

Another key difference between the current and the new system is that in the current system a job seeker who gets an eight-week penalty must serve it no matter the circumstances or if they assume an activity. As I said earlier, this is draconian and certainly puts more pressure on the services, particularly the Centrelink staff who have to deal with enraged people. If you have ever looked at or joined the queue at a Centrelink office, or have an understanding of the frustration of people in this process, you will find Centrelink staff are very dedicated to their job—but it is a tough job. Adding this level of pressure is just not fair on those people who are working hard as servants of the public but are being berated by people who for some reason have been dislocated in the system. Under the new system, any job seeker subject to an eight-week, non-payment penalty for persistent noncompliance or refusal of a job offer can have their payment reinstated if they agree to undertake a compliance activity. This will generally be 25 hours a week of full-time Work for the Dole for eight weeks, but may include other similar activities as appropriate.

We need to provide encouragement to people to engage with the system and get people back into the workforce. The electorate of Forde is part rural-regional and part metro. It has quite a diverse range of communities. The lack of services and public transport means that people have added pressure when they are looking for a job. It is necessary for our economy and future economic growth that we try to get people into the workforce, and it is important now, more than ever, in the current economic climate. The current global financial situation will put pressure on all areas. Employment will no doubt be a possible victim. Manufacturing industries are usually the first affected by slowdown or some cataclysmic financial event, such as what we are seeing in other parts of the world right now. The seat of Forde has some major industrial areas—the Yatala Enterprise Area being one. It is currently one of the largest industrial areas in the country. It also has a fairly large manufacturing base. They are continually looking for workers and people with particular skills. When there is a downturn, people in the manufacturing industry are usually the first to suffer.

Contact made with my office about the system has been made by people who have been concerned about the way the current legislation has been enacted, and this is something that has been going on for many years. As a new member I very quickly became aware of the pressures that people found themselves under in dealing with the whole job-seeking arrangement.

Of the areas in the south of my electorate, which I have said before are large areas for future growth, the area of Bromelton has been announced as a state development area, which means an area of development controlled by the state. It will be a major area of investment for infrastructure in building what will be the largest industrial centre in the country. Currently I have one of the largest areas of development, in the Yatala area, but for the future it is considered that within only seven or eight years there will be 8,000 jobs taken up by that particular development in the Bromelton area. The positive side is that, with the economy running at a certain level, there are huge opportunities in my electorate for 8,000 people in what will be service and manufacturing industries. Those people would also be victims of any major change in the financial circumstances. If, for whatever reason, bad times come, we must ensure that people who are locally and regionally based who do not necessarily have the opportunity to travel out of their areas will be looked after under our systems and ensure that they will not be penalised simply because of the circumstances of where they live and issues of mobility.

As I have said many times in this House, my electorate of Forde at the northern end is only 40 kilometres out of the city of Brisbane. From that point to the farthest end, a distance of some 160 kilometres, there are seven or eight communities which are not serviced by adequate infrastructure or public transport. People who lose their jobs in regions of my electorate cannot necessarily afford to run the two cars that they need to get around the electorate. If they are out of work, a breach because of noncompliance for whatever reason puts them in an even worse situation. They do not have the opportunities that many people in the city regions have and I am sure that any member of this House who represents a country, regional or remote area will understand exactly what I am talking about. So, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, for all of those reasons I commend this bill to the House.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the information of the House, having been called today at various times Mr Speaker, Mr Deputy Speaker, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker or Mr Deputy Acting Deputy Speaker, I note that the correct term is Deputy Speaker.

Belinda Neal (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for clarifying that vexed issue for us today, Mr Deputy Speaker! I rise in the chamber in support of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Employment Services Reform) Bill 2008. This bill amends the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 and principally concerns the introduction of a new job seeker compliance model. The bill will introduce a new social security compliance structure for approximately 620,000 people receiving Newstart allowance, youth allowance, parenting payment or special benefit for those who have participation requirements. The measures contained in this bill will restore balance, fairness and equity to the job seeker compliance regime. Not only will the compliance regime be made fairer but it will also function more effectively.

Over the past decade the former Howard Liberal government presided over a harsh regime based on inflexible punishment of apparently non-complying job seekers. This rigid and increasingly flawed approach saw serious breaches punishable by an eight-week, non-payment period more than double from 1,600 to 3,200 people in the financial year 2007-08. Not only were noncompliers deprived of all financial benefit for that eight-week period but they were also effectively locked out of the job seeker system. There was no requirement for them to seek work at all during that period, nor was there any requirement for them to make contact with Centrelink or their employment service provider.

Under the former, Howard government, this perverse compliance regime amounted to a double disincentive to good outcomes for the unemployed: the system punished noncompliers but did nothing to improve their chances or their likelihood of finding solutions. This system was a manifest failure, especially for the vulnerable and disadvantaged unemployed. The greatest tragedy was that, despite falling unemployment levels in the 10 years from 1999, the proportion of people on unemployment benefits for more than five years rose from 74,000 to 110,000.

Many service providers and welfare agencies have reported that the system originated by the Howard government relies on a ‘penalise first’ approach that alienates noncompliers further from help. This system can also tend to exacerbate situations of severe personal crisis for vulnerable job seekers, including homelessness. Homelessness Australia has estimated that up to 20 per cent of people who underwent an eight-week, non-payment period lost their accommodation or were forced to move to less appropriate housing. I know this has been noted by many speakers before me. It is a point that is extraordinarily important. The current compliance system has resulted in many thousands of eight-week penalties which have produced no productive outcome. In addition, the breaches are non-discretionary and they are irreversible. Job seekers suffer an eight-week separation from their participation requirements, which produces no benefit to anybody.

The bill before us today, however, proposes changes to the existing regime that will actually encourage participation. Participation is the goal of the new system proposed in this bill, and the measures contained within it will do much more to ensure compliance. The bill retains an appropriate balance between participation and penalties for noncompliance. This balance between carrot and stick is evident in the detailed provisions of the bill. To encourage a work-like culture in the provision of employment services, a no-show, no-pay arrangement has been introduced. Failure to attend a required activity, without a reasonable excuse, will see noncompliers incur a penalty of one-tenth of their fortnightly payment for each day of nonattendance. Failure to connect with a required job seeker activity, without a reasonable excuse, will invoke a mandatory reconnection activity. If this is not attended, it will cause a financial penalty of one-fourteenth of payment for each day missed. The eight-week, non-payment period penalty will be retained but only for persistent and wilful noncompliance, such as missing three appointments or six days of job seeker activities or refusing a suitable job. There is no room in this legislation for tolerating those people who deliberately rort the system. Once penalised, a job seeker will have to undergo an intensive compliance activity of up to 25 hours per week.

Under the existing system, a job seeker need have no contact at all with employment services during an eight-week penalty period. In contrast, the new system requires them to actively look for work during that period, to take responsibility for their own action and to reconnect with the job seeker network. Another measure in the bill ensures that a job seeker can have their payments re-instated if they participate in a compliance activity. This could not happen under the old system, where the eight-week breach was irreversible. One of the significant differences between the old system and the new system is that job seekers will be asked, during their compliance activity stage, why they are not complying. They may, for example, have recently become homeless, a circumstance which can have devastating personal consequences and can materially affect a person’s ability to participate and seek work. Of course, the new arrangements contain hardship provisions that may be applied at all stages of this process. There is a strengthened safety net that protects vulnerable job seekers.

The measures I have just outlined mean that the employment services bill brings into existence a strong but fair and equitable compliance regime. The stark contrast with the Howard government’s policies on employment services cannot be clearer. When the present opposition was in power, it had no concept of fair and reasonable reciprocity between job seekers and the government. On the contrary, its compliance system was harsh, inflexible and punitive. The facts are these. During the year 2006-07 there were approximately 16,000 eight-week non-payment penalties applied to non-compliant job seekers who had failed to show up for scheduled appointments. In 2007-08 this had doubled to around 32,000 eight-week non-payment penalties. The opposition’s position in relation to the treatment of Australians seeking employment is uncharitable and punitive. It is not only harsh policy but also a failure—a failure because, instead of decreasing the number of non-compliant job seekers in the network, this system doubled the numbers of disenfranchised and marginalised job seekers. These people had an eight-week breach slapped on them and had to find the means to live without any income support whatsoever. It is hard to believe that the numbers of people wilfully and deliberately thumbing their noses at the system could have doubled overall in the space of just a year. In my electorate of Robertson, over this period the rate of applied penalties rose by a staggering 79 per cent.

The policy of the Howard government failed because the application of an eight-week non-payment period as a response to a technical administrative breach is fundamentally flawed. It does not recognise the wide variety of events that have led to noncompliance. It cannot recognise blameless noncompliance because the measure is mandatory and non-discretionary. Herein lies the fatal flaw. A punitive act employed as a means to ensure compliance fails when a large number of non-compliance situations arise from circumstances largely beyond the individual’s control. In simple language, there are situations where calling Centrelink is not the first thing on your mind. They are crisis situations that occur in life when you have little time to deal with anything but the immediate emergency. When a person loses their job or is hit by some other major catastrophe, this has a roll-on effect on the stability of their home and family. This can have serious, adverse effects on their self-esteem and their coping mechanisms as well as their ability to change their circumstances.

There is nothing more time-consuming than being homeless, jobless or both. Living hand-to-mouth, moment to moment, borrowing cash from family or friends to see you through and putting in applications for rental accommodation in a market with vacancy rates of less than one per cent, as there are on the Central Coast—nothing can be more exhausting. Yes, there are circumstances when letting Centrelink know about your changed circumstances is the last thing on your mind. On the scales of justice, this noncompliance does not actually constitute a breach of the implicit social contract between you and the rest of society that you undertake when you receive participation payments as a job seeker. For those individuals who wilfully and persistently seek to dodge their responsibilities and refuse to participate in employment and employment-readying activities, the eight-week non-payment option remains. What will be interesting to see in the coming years is the number of breaches recorded for wilful and persistent noncompliance.

I pause to consider the competing claims made by the parties in the parliament. Some honourable members have fallen into the trap of typifying welfare recipients, particularly many job seekers, as dole bludgers. I quote National Party senator for New South Wales John Williams from his maiden speech on 15 September 2008. He referred to some unemployed people as ‘simply getting a free ride on behalf of taxpayers of Australia, and it is about time they received a touch on the backside with a cattle prodder to get them off their butts’. This statement reveals simple and blunt language, of course, but also the prevailing attitude of the opposition. It is not a truthful or accurate portrayal. Is the senator saying that grandparents under the age of 65 who have primary care responsibility for their grandchildren are in fact dole bludgers?

In my electorate I have spoken to members of the community who find themselves in difficult straits trying to juggle primary carer responsibilities with the obligations required by job-seeking appointments and interviews. That is not because they are lazy or wilfully avoiding responsibility; quite the opposite. These are individuals who have taken on a second parenthood when their own children, for whatever reason—be it death, mental illness or addiction—have become unable to parent their children. These grandparents have become full-time parents but they are not fully recognised for the role that they play. Meanwhile, they must keep up with the narrow and non-discretionary obligations placed on them by the current legislation. Relief for this group must be found. The legislation before us today goes some way towards providing room for circumstances such as these, but further work still needs to be done.

The old and hackneyed stereotype that the opposition still holds about job seekers is just too simple and fails to really look at the circumstances that lead to individuals becoming chronically unemployed. Without intelligent examination of the socioeconomic, educational and health circumstances affecting people experiencing these difficulties, the opposition has systematically marginalised and derided large numbers of people. These are people whose only crime, perhaps, is having a mental illness or having experienced a life crisis with which they have failed to cope. The current employment services regime, put in place by the former Howard government, makes for bad public policy. It has led to mounting pressure on the charitable and community sectors, which are seeing the increasingly negative impacts of harsh policies as people pile into homeless shelters.

Many who experience an eight-week non-payment period do not stay afloat. It is also recognised that the mandatory application of the eight-week non-payment period has increased the likelihood of individuals losing their current accommodation and standing a much higher risk of becoming homeless. The Welfare Rights Network has reported:

The relationship between this penalty—

the eight-week non-payment policy—

and major dislocation, including homelessness, relationship breakdown, increased mental stress, illness, violence and crime is both categorical and direct.

This is simply not acceptable. Government policy should never contribute to such outcomes. Policy should not be the device by which hardship becomes poverty and disadvantage becomes disenfranchisement. The Rudd Labor government is committed to social inclusion and a fair balance of mutual obligation that takes into account the full circumstances of the people involved.

The previous government’s policy did not improve compliance for job seekers; it systematically failed to do so. Fear is not simply a motivator that will keep job seekers reporting to the employment services when life’s problems crash in upon them. The Rudd government is determined to do better. I quote Sally Sinclair, from the National Employment Services Association, who, on 24 September, said:

A major improvement [introduced by the legislation] will be the introduction of Comprehensive Compliance Assessments to ensure that we have a safety net for vulnerable job seekers. These assessments will identify if a job seeker cannot comply as a consequence of complex life circumstances such as domestic violence, cognitive impairment and mental health issues, rather than being wilful in their failure.

The government’s policy takes adverse circumstances such as these into account. It directs agencies to pause a moment and ask of job seekers: ‘What is going on? What are your circumstances?’ Not everyone on the dole is looking for a free ride. Many are experiencing personal difficulties. That is why the safety net is there. There is no doubt that there should be a reciprocal relationship between unemployed people needing assistance and society providing them with interim support. The terms of that support—where it ceases; what triggers can rightly show the intention, or lack thereof, of a job seeker—are all subject to debate. The government believes that the measures contained in this bill strike a sincere balance between positions. They do not deny the possibility of wilful noncompliance, but neither do they unjustly aggravate the dire circumstances of individuals caught in tough times who are just trying to find their feet. I commend the bill to the House.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since the resumption today of this debate on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Employment Services Reform) Bill 2008 I have been sorely disappointed at the presentations of government members. They failed in their addresses to look at the history of this issue, when breaching first began with the Hawke-Keating government. That government struggled with how to get unemployed people re-engaged in the workforce. That is what it was all about. The process of Welfare to Work was to get people re-engaged in the workforce. This has been a crucial issue for people, particularly people in my electorate, who found great difficulty in being able to cope with that which was put upon them, especially the punitive measures that affected women in rural areas.

So what did we do? We did not just can what had gone on in the past. What we said recently was that we would go to Brendan O’Connor and tell him, with Salvation Army support, that we will get a group of people together and have a discussion, which we did. Everybody involved with unemployed people in the electorate of McMillan was invited to come to a forum. We had the forum and we put the issues that were raised in that forum to the minister. Some of this legislation has actually come out of the forum that we ran on behalf of basically rural women with regard to the effects on them in their given electorate. This has been an issue all the way through from the Hawke government to the Howard government.

The intention of Welfare to Work was always well based, with the support and welfare of the unemployed person at its pinnacle. That is what the program was all about. These are minimal changes. What you have seen in the addresses today were attacks on the Howard government, basically for no reason, and an expression by every member that the actual program was correct—that the legislation was correct and that this is what we want to achieve. The new government is trying to achieve exactly what we were trying to achieve, just in a new way.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That further proceedings be conducted in the House.

Question agreed to.