Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To recap, the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009 has a number of objectives. Primary amongst them, as the title of the bill suggests, is the reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act to the legislation pertaining to the Northern Territory intervention. It also proposes to change the income management measures now in operation in 73 Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.

The coalition believes this bill is flawed for a number of reasons. The government’s proposals purport to extend income management nationally, although in reality only to the Northern Territory at this time. However, there are a number of significant concerns. First, certain welfare recipients are excluded from income management, such as those on the age pension, disability support pension, widow allowance and veterans service pension. According to the Closing the gap report, there were 8,526 people on the age pension, disability support pension, carer payment or other payments in June 2009. This represented 42 per cent of welfare recipients in the communities who will now under this provision be excluded from income management. Secondly, vulnerability in many instances will be determined by social workers and child protection workers. The experience of the states and territories suggests that this is a very inadequate system, with such workers being overly cautious because of legal ramifications. Indeed, a recent report by the Northern Territory Department of Health and Community Services raised serious practice issues relating to risk management, case management decisions and interagency collaboration. Moreover, this bill retreats from the clear evidence of widespread vulnerability of women and children in the Indigenous communities. Thirdly, the ability of social workers to adequately service the whole of the Northern Territory is questionable. And, finally, the case-by-case approach will be more costly and less efficient than a universal approach.

The coalition is not necessarily opposed to the extension of income management, but it will not support an extension that amounts to a watering down of income management in Indigenous communities. Nor do we trust the government’s rhetoric about a national rollout. The watered-down extension is limited to the Northern Territory. It is only after a future evaluation—in the next parliamentary term—that an extension might be considered and then by ministerial decree to limited areas, not necessarily to the whole of Australia as the government’s rhetoric would have it. This is significant in light of the government’s inability even to measure progress in the areas that the Prime Minister identified in his apology speech in this parliament in early 2008. Much of the progress that Mr Rudd claimed recently in closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage had in fact occurred prior to his implementing any programs. For example, on preschool enrolment the Prime Minister said:

We are seeing the fastest preschool enrolment growth in remote communities, increasing by 31 per cent between 2005 and 2008.

In other words, changes that had occurred prior to the implementation of programs by this government. Let us take his words about school retention rates, on which the Prime Minister said:

Indigenous school retention rates from the start of high school to Year 12 have risen from 30.7 per cent in 1995 to 46.5 per cent in 2008.

As I recall, the period 1995 to late 2007 was a period when this side of the House was in government. Let us talk about Indigenous employment:

Between 2002 and 2008, the Indigenous employment rate rose form 48 per cent to 53.8 per cent.

Again, that is a measure of things which had occurred before the implementation of programs by this government. In other areas, the data is very mixed: a slight improvement in literacy and numeracy for years 3, 5 and 7 countered by a decline in year 9. As the Centre for Independent Studies concluded, there is ‘negligible improvement in student performance’. Even the claimed increase in Aboriginal life expectancy ‘is the result of having more reliable data, rather than the result of any real improvement on the ground’. Housing has been an abject failure. For example, only 15 houses have been completed under the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing. The Prime Minister made no mention of his promise to establish a bipartisan commission under his leadership and that of the Leader of the Opposition to oversee Indigenous housing development. This is another broken, and now forgotten, promise. In other areas, the data relied upon was highly inadequate.

Overall, the report indicates that the government is a long way from achieving the targets that were set in 2008. The fact that the Prime Minister did not even meet his target to report on the first sitting day of each parliamentary year is an illustration of the problem. It is another case of Mr Rudd promising much and delivering little. In these circumstances, the coalition is not prepared to take Mr Rudd at his word. His government has promised much but delivered little. It is all talk and little action. The coalition will not stand by and allow the success of income management to be undermined by this government. We have suggested that the government split the bill, but that suggestion has been rejected. Accordingly, we will oppose this bill when it comes to a vote in this House.

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009. Australia needs welfare reform to protect the most vulnerable and to link welfare to school attendance, study and work. This government is introducing major welfare reforms to extend the clear benefits of income management to more vulnerable Australians. We want to start in the Northern Territory, but we want to be able to extend income management to other vulnerable Australians across the country. It is the case that our reforms will make sure that people’s welfare payments are spent on the essentials of life: food and rent, not alcohol and gambling.

There are now 16,000 people on compulsory income management in the Northern Territory. That compares with around 1,400 people who were on compulsory income management when we came to government. The number of people on income management in the Northern Territory with our reforms is estimated to be 20,000. This is all about personal responsibility and making sure that we do everything we possibly can to get children to school and to get young people engaged in work and training. We want to fight passive welfare and to link the payment of welfare to making sure that children go to school on a regular basis and that young people continue their studies and go to work. These arrangements do not apply at the moment.

The changes that we have proposed will make sure that income management can be rolled out in towns in the Northern Territory—Tennant Creek, Katherine and the suburbs of Alice Springs and Darwin—where there are significant and desperate circumstances for many people. There are many Australian families across Australia who could be really assisted by income management. The Australian government wants to extend income management to other disadvantaged regions across Australia after a comprehensive evaluation of the new reforms at the end of 2011.

The straight payment of welfare money to individuals and families has not achieved the social policy objectives we have set for the welfare system. We must act now to make the Northern Territory Emergency Response sustainable for the long term. This legislation before parliament will also make sure that the Northern Territory Emergency Response can be effective in the long term by enabling the reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act. It is critical that we have bipartisan support for this bill, so it was disappointing to hear the comments from the member for Menzies.

The Leader of the Opposition had previously said that he wanted to see income management extended to other welfare recipients, and that is exactly what this government’s reforms will do. The Leader of the Opposition has also said he wants the Northern Territory Emergency Response to become sustainable over the long term, and that is exactly what these reforms will do. We do need to have welfare reform to make sure that the Northern Territory Emergency Response is sustainable for the longer term and that the benefits of income management can be extended to other vulnerable Australians.

The legislation was introduced into parliament on 25 November 2009. It is currently subject to an inquiry by the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, which will report next month. There are some changes to the scheme. Previously, the scheme applied in a blanket fashion across all welfare recipients. Under the proposed reforms it will apply to at-risk groups and be linked to specific social policy objectives like school attendance, learn-or-earn policies for school leavers and long-term unemployment. Age pensioners, disability support pensioners and veterans will be brought into compulsory income management where they are identified as being vulnerable by a Centrelink social worker. Families with at-risk children identified through the child protection system would also attract compulsory income management.

Those people who are compulsorily income managed will be supported to save money with new match-saving programs. There are also generous financial incentives for people who wish to volunteer for income management. These arrangements reflect the government’s view that income management can provide substantial benefits, particularly to vulnerable families. In addition to these reforms the Australian government will invest an additional $53 million in financial literacy support.

There has been strong support for the legislation and income management generally, and I will go to a few quotes from groups who support the approach the government is taking. Toby Hall from Mission Australia said:

… it’s probably a good thing that actually income management’s introduced, that it means that there’s a little bit of pressure to move off benefit and into work …

The Australian Human Rights Commission said that this legislation:

… will improve the measures that currently apply to individuals in prescribed communities in the Northern Territory.

Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Graeme Innes, said in a media release on 25 November 2009:

We particularly welcome the redesign of the income management measures to ensure they are non-discriminatory.

Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory, representing 26 Aboriginal community controlled health clinics and services across the Northern Territory, has urged all political parties to support the passage of this legislation:

What we are saying is pass this bill, allow Aboriginal Territorians to be treated equitably.

That was on 10 February this year. The manager of a supermarket in Yirrkala was quoted in the Northern Territory News as saying:

I can tell you first-hand that the income management is working extremely well. I am not speaking from an antidiscrimination point of view, but from a practical point of view. The people of the Yirrkala have seen a drop in gambling, less anti-social behaviour and I know first-hand more money is being spent on essentials.

Noel Pearson on 30 March 2009 in an ABC online story said:

The big surge in the amount of money being spent on food and clothing is … cause for great happiness on my part.

As part of the proposal there will be further evaluation before there is a national rollout. The government is committed to further evaluating the new amended income management scheme from the end of 2011. The new scheme will be rolled out across the Northern Territory from July 2010 if it is passed through this parliament. Future rollout elsewhere in Australia will be informed by evidence gained from this evaluation activity and by other objective criteria, including evidence of disadvantage in Australia and consideration of where income management would benefit individuals and families. There is a compelling case in relation to the evidence to date on the benefits of income management in the Northern Territory.

I would now like to have a look at the summary of the government’s consultations between June and August 2009. The consultations involved thousands of people in all 73 Northern Territory Emergency Response communities as well as several other Northern Territory Aboriginal communities and town camps between June and the end of August 2009. The vast majority of these people were consulted in over 500 tier 1 and tier 2 consultation meetings in the communities. There were also 11 tier 3 and 4 workshops with regional leaders and stakeholder organisations. A total of 277 people attended tier 3 and 4 workshops, 176 in tier 3 and 101 in tier 4. The majority of the participants were Indigenous people who were either nominated as individuals or selected by their community or organisation to speak on behalf of the community or organisation. The engagement process was independently overseen by the Cultural and Indigenous Research Centre Australia, whose report the government has publicly released on the FaHCSIA website.

Children, women, parents, families and older people were identified as groups who benefited most from income management. The most frequently identified benefits of income management for children included more money being spent on food, clothing and school related expenses. There are a number of comments that children were looking healthier because of a better diet. The school nutrition program was mentioned several times as contributing to this. A benefit of income management frequently identified by women was that there was less humbugging. In addition to the reduced incidence of humbugging, a frequently mentioned benefit of income management for parents and families was that it has enabled people to better manage their household budgeting, including planning for major items and utility expenses. Some men also said there were benefits for themselves and their families as a result of income management. These benefits included more and better food being eaten, improved budgeting, more money being spent on white goods and furniture, less money being spent on gambling and less humbugging. The most frequently identified benefits of income management for older people include the reduced incidence of humbugging, better health outcomes and less need for them to take responsibility for caring for grandchildren.

The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs had primary responsibility for the income management evaluation. The department developed the evaluation approach and methodology and managed the data collection process. The two main data sources for the evaluation were a client survey that collected quantitative data and focus groups of key stakeholders that collected qualitative data. The client survey involved face-to-face interviews with 76 income management clients in four community locations. The stakeholder focus groups involved 167 stakeholders, including community representatives from the same four locations and community sector and government employees from a wider range of locations. The data showed that there have been improvements in child wellbeing since the introduction of income management. More than half of the parents interviewed reported that their children are eating more, weighed more and were healthier. Three-quarters of people interviewed reported spending more on food and half reported buying more fruit and vegetables. More than half of the people interviewed reported that there was less gambling, less drinking and less harassment for money.

The interviews, conducted in three rounds, were part of a process of routine monitoring for the first 18 months of store licensing. This is in relation to the monitoring report of store licensing of 2009. The findings in this report are based on 66 community stores that have been licensed and include all three rounds of interviews and synthesis of all previous results. Operators of the 66 community stores were interviewed for the monitoring report. Customer shopping habits have changed significantly in most stores, with 68.2 per cent of store operators reporting an increase in the amount of healthy food purchased. This includes items such as fruit and vegetables, dairy foods and meat. Community residents, particularly women, are telling store operators that they now have more control over their money and greater capacity to manage humbug.

Initial mistrust and confusion about income management has abated over time. Store operators are reporting that feedback is generally positive, especially from women, once people understand how it works. Community feedback on the Northern Territory Emergency Response research report in September 2008—the Cultural and Indigenous Research Centre Australia report—was commissioned by the Independent Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board and is available on the website of FaHCSIA. Consultations were conducted in four communities between August and September 2008. The methodology used in each location varied and was developed in consultation with local partners. People caring for others—especially women who were caring for young children both older and younger women—larger families; and/or people with disabilities were the most positive about income management. Generally, women tended to be more positive than men; however, most people, even some who opposed the Emergency Response, recognised the positive impact of income management on children. Single men tended to be the least positive about income management, especially where they did not have childcare responsibilities.

Perception of the Emergency Response was driven by only a few of the Emergency Response initiatives, and in many cases the overall perception of the Emergency Response seemed to relate to income management. Positive perceptions of income management were mainly related to increases in food consumption, with children being the main beneficiaries; increased savings, which has enabled greater purchasing of household goods and ease in paying bills; and a reduction in family tension through reductions in humbugging. Apart from the positive comments about income management, positive feedback was also provided on the school nutrition program and improved stock in the community store.

The Central Land Council undertook research called Reviewing the Northern Territory Emergency Response: perspectives from six communities in Central Australia to document the experiences and opinions of Aboriginal people in Central Australia in relation to the Emergency Response. The research was undertaken from February to June 2008 with the assistance of local Aboriginal researchers. The research focused on the main measures implemented in the first year of the Northern Territory Emergency Response. This report can be found online. It is based on a detailed participation evaluation survey of 141 Aboriginal residents in these communities. The research conducted demonstrated the diversity of opinion around the Emergency Response measures across communities as well as amongst residents in a community.

Reponses across survey participants were almost evenly divided between people in favour of and those opposed to income management. Gender and age were not significant factors in influencing people’s level of support; however, income type influenced people’s support for income management. People on a wage were most supportive of income management. Perceived advantages associated with income management included increased household expenditure on food and children, young men contributing to family shopping and reductions in gambling and drinking.

This bill contains a range of measures, including amendments to the income management arrangements under the social security law, alcohol and pornography restrictions, and community store licensing arrangements under the Northern Territory National Emergency Act 2007 which are designed to improve the circumstances of families and to improve the circumstances of people living in remote, rural and regional communities. This is an important piece of legislation. It is legislation that deserves bipartisan support, and it is incredibly disappointing hearing the contribution from the member for Menzies. I commend this bill to the House.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009 having only 15 months ago given my first speech in this chamber and my first words were in local language. My first paragraph was about the continued lack of acknowledgement of country alongside the daily prayers in this chamber. I rise to represent, from a local perspective, the very large—in fact, majority—Indigenous population on the east coast of Australia that continues to be lost in the perception created through the political processes that all things Indigenous happen either in the Northern Territory or in Cape York. That is factually incorrect. The largest Indigenous populations in Australia live where most Australians want to live—that is, right along the eastern seaboard, the window between Sydney and Rockhampton or maybe a bit further north. That is where the vast majority of the issues arise, within a very complex regionalised and urbanised Indigenous population blended in with the challenges facing local, state and federal government dealing with very rapid urban development in the same window.

It would be nice if that were to start to appear on the radar of government and in the language of government. For example, I did not hear a single word in the Closing the Gap statements about this majority Indigenous population. We continue to see legislation come through this place—for example the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007 put in place by the previous government—more because of a territory’s constitutional weakness than the factual trail of where the majority of people live and the complexities of this issue.

We continue to see both sides of the chamber wanting to get close to Noel Pearson in Cape York because of some perception that, if you are close to Noel Pearson, you have the voice of Aboriginal people in Australia. Noel Pearson does a great job for Cape York, but not for one minute should any of us as policymakers fall into the trap of thinking that Noel Pearson is the voice of all Aboriginal Australians. I ask government to consider its position in this continuous loop on reconciliation which focuses purely on the Northern Territory and Cape York. An awful lot else is going on in this country with regard to the Indigenous populations and it would be nice, if we are in an era of reconciliation, to acknowledge and support that.

I hope it is a sensible move to repeal laws that limit antidiscrimination laws. I understand the aims of changing the Northern Territory Emergency Response so that it no longer contravenes the Racial Discrimination Act as it has up to now on the grounds of treating a group of people differently based on their race. Whilst on that constitutional point, if we are serious we live in an era in which we need to reconsider that and perhaps even put it to a referendum about pulling out that constitutional reference to race. I live in a town with a bronze statue of Edmund Barton on our town green. He was a state member before becoming Australia’s first Prime Minister. I often look at that statue and think that if he were to shake out of the bronze and suddenly wake up, I would hope he and other forefathers like Andrew Inglis Clark and Samuel Griffith would look around and think some of the words that they put together in that Constitution—when they were floating up the Hawkesbury River on the great weekend in which they formed the Constitution—were misplaced and there is work still to be done. I think the continued use of race as a Trojan Horse to get into areas such as the Northern Territory is deserving of some reflection at a referendum. We need to pull that out as we have pulled out other racially divided questions such as whether or not Aboriginal people can vote. I hope the government considers that.

I am not one to say that any law in this country should not have exceptions and I heard Michael Kirby make that point. If we are going to step around any law—let us look at discrimination laws in this case—we need to be very clear and open about defining the boundaries. We need to be very clear about defining the who, what, where and why questions. I do not think we did that in suspending the RDA in the way that was done in an effort to somehow protect the integrity of the emergency response. I do not think the boundaries that were set were clear; therefore, I think it was an abuse of power to suspend it in the way that the previous regime did.

So I hope—and I keep saying ‘hope’—that we are seeing change for the better, because what we are seeing is, if you like, a redefining of the Emergency Response by saying we are introducing special measures in accordance with article 1(4) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and that has been interpreted by Australian courts as having four elements:

• a special measure must confer a benefit on some or all members of a class
• the membership of the class must be based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin
• a special measure must be for the sole purpose of securing adequate advancement of the beneficiaries in order that they may enjoy and exercise equally with others human rights and freedoms, and
• the circumstances of the special measure must provide protection to the beneficiaries which is necessary in order that they may enjoy and exercise human rights and freedoms equally with others.

I note that in the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs’ second reading speech she assured us all:

The government believes that all—

Emergency Response measures in the Northern Territory—

are either special measures under the Racial Discrimination Act or non-discriminatory and therefore consistent with the Racial Discrimination Act.

So there is an attempt to redefine, and redefine for the better.

I hope—again I come back to that word ‘hope’—that this means that delivery of services in practice on the ground in the town camps and the many locations where the Emergency Response is taking place now starts to place a bit more respect on the individuals involved and on the very point of a Racial Discrimination Act in the first place. But we watch and we wait to see whether that is true, because I do not think any of us in this place can judge whether, with this changing from a suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act to a redefinition that these are now ‘special measures’, it is somehow in the best interests of Northern Territory communities to have the Emergency Response and therefore redefine the act. We need to see in practice how government is going to deliver this redefinition on the ground. I hope it is for the better, and I hope the keyword of ‘respect’ is involved in the future on the ground in regard to the activities in a weaker link, constitutionally, in the Northern Territory, which has an inability compared to the states to, if you like, defend its patch.

I might just make reference to some of the other commentary, because I think it is worth putting on the record some of the comments that have been made by others. The repeal of the laws on the RDA has been generally welcomed, and I acknowledge that. I hope it is for the better. The Australian Human Rights Commission’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma, has said that this would ‘send an important message that the government was genuine in its commitment to reset the relationship with Indigenous Australians.’ This change has also been publicly supported by the Law Council of Australia and a range of community sector organisations, such as ACOSS, the Australian Council of Social Service.

Whilst welcoming the reinstatement of the operation of the RDA—and I think this is a similar point to the one I just made—some have argued that the Emergency Response and income management provisions in the bill will continue to have a discriminatory impact on those affected. I put on the record a joint statement on income management from ACOSS and 11 other community sector organisations that have argued:

… the extension of income management will indirectly discriminate against Indigenous Australians in disadvantaged areas across the country, who are likely to be disproportionately affected by the policy.

The proposed changes will also discriminate against income support recipients across the country on the basis of income source, duration of income support and geography. Income managed individuals will have to use a card to purchase groceries and other essentials. This card reveals an individual’s income source to retailers and others and is likely to cause shame and discrimination, as it has to affected recipients in the Northern Territory.

I also put on the record that not all observers have welcomed the government’s objective of reinstating the operation of the RDA. From an ideological point of view, Howard government adviser David Moore has argued that this objective is ideological and puts at risk the effectiveness of the emergency response. So I just put that on the record to say there are a wide range of views on this topic.

Getting onto the issue of welfare reform, I would have preferred it if this bill were split into two. It implies in the very heading that this is entirely an Aboriginal issue. If we are serious about welfare reform in this country then welfare reform should be about those in need, all colours and all races, and we should be targeting those in need in lower socioeconomic communities and those who are welfare recipients who, in the eyes of government are doing the wrong thing. We should be doing all we can to assist them on an equal, fair and colourless basis. But to imply in the title of this bill that we are reinstating the RDA because there is an element of race attached in this—‘It is about Cape York and the Northern Territory, but we’re quarantining for everyone’—without being too confrontational, in my view, plays the race card. It plays the black card, and I think we have to get past that in policy development. I know the words and commitment of the Prime Minister are sound on that, but too often we still see it, and once again we see it here. So if we are going to expand an income management regime that is targeted at all and is about trying to make sure welfare goes to the right purposes—groceries, healthy meals and healthy families—then let us make sure that it is for everyone in this country moving forward.

I do not want to sound too down about it all, because I am going to support the legislation, but I continue to make this point: sure, we as policy makers have to do what we can about the Samson and Delilah culture of Australia in the dusty outback communities of the Northern Territory, WA and Far North Queensland, but what we also have to do is look at the facts. The facts are that there are enormous complexities and challenges facing the majority of the Indigenous populations and Indigenous nations of this country. The facts say quite clearly that more than 50 per cent of the individuals in question live in a window on the east coast of Australia roughly between, as I have said before, Sydney and Rockhampton.

We have to start to crack some of the stereotypes that are promoted into mainstream culture and we have to start to put together an evidence trail based on facts. The facts are that we need to spend more time and more effort working on those complexities around regionalised and urbanised communities where wealth is right in the face, where growth is right in the face, where issues around alcohol and abuse are right in the face, and where the added challenge of being forgotten and lost in an urbanised or regionalised setting is also a very easy one for us all to forget about.

I will continue to badger government about the Middleton Streets of South Kempsey, about the Purfleets of Taree and about what remain many of the forgotten, complex communities that deserve to have similar, if not more attention than we currently see. As we enter into a welcome new era of reconciliation there is a danger of these streets and communities remaining forgotten in some effort to paint a picture that government is fixing the outback Aboriginal communities in Australia today.

I will not oppose this. I will sit with the government, mainly because we are starting to see some direction on the RDA and some respect for the law—something that I would have thought was a no-brainer for every member of this chamber, but it seems that it is not. I hope that we do see this redefinition of the RDA as being a special measure now, rather than a suspension, one that makes a difference in practice and starts to put some meat on the bone of issues such as self-determination, some meat on the bone for issues around the apology, such as respect, and some meat on the bone around really wanting, being willing and doing the heavy lifting in and around the issue of closing the gap and reconciliation in Australia today.

James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009. I acknowledge what the member for Lyne has said: these are very difficult circumstances. When you have desperate situations and you look at outcomes and the history of what has actually happened, you do have to come up with urgent and exceptional emergency measures to deal with the current situation. For the people of Dawson and for the people across Australia I would say that nobody likes overt government intervention into the very way they live their personal everyday lives. But sometimes there are exceptional circumstances which require government to take urgent and exceptional measures such as these.

The basic intent of this act is to meet many commitments by the government to the needs of people, not just in the Northern Territory and Queensland. But, as the member for Lyne has rightly said: ‘Are all people equal? Are all people treated the same?’ This act seeks to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act and its application to the Northern Territory Emergency Response, to retain the benefits of the welfare reform and to extend the benefits of income management to the wider community.

It also provides a stronger legislative basis for the current Northern Territory Emergency Response measures and lays the foundations for sustainable development across remote communities in the Northern Territory. It demonstrates our commitment to sustained long-term action in the Northern Territory, working in partnership with Indigenous Australians to develop and drive policies and programs to help close the gap. At the end of the day, the role of government is to help and improve the lives of everyday people whoever they are and wherever they are in this great country. There are clearly statistical reasons that show we have to close the gap—for example, some people’s health is more severely affected than others. We are seeking to address these issues through this act.

On a national scale, this bill also tackles the entrenched cycle of passive welfare through a new system of income management and incentives to support people moving from welfare to personal responsibility and independence. That is the whole purpose—to make people independent and self-sufficient.

The bill reflects the government’s determination to put children and families at the centre of our welfare reform agenda. I do not think there would be anyone in this place who would argue that we must look after the children; they are defenceless, whoever they may be and in whichever community they may be. We need to address those issues very clearly in this legislation.

There are, obviously, a number of controversial issues here. I do not believe that anybody takes these measures lightly; they would rather the situation that people be self-determined and self-sufficient. But as I said earlier, sometimes desperate situations require an urgent emergency response. There were key points in limiting the antidiscrimination laws. In 2008 the government promised it would lift the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, and this bill gives effect to that commitment. The exceptions that will be repealed are the provisions that suspend the operation of the RDA and the Northern Territory antidiscrimination laws in relation to the NTER and related legislation, and also the Queensland antidiscrimination laws in relation to the Queensland Family Responsibilities Commission and the Cape York welfare reform trial. Also the Queensland government has been consulted about the repeal of the provisions that related to the Cape York welfare reform trial.

The Northern Territory government has been advised of the range of measures included in this bill. Northern Territory officials have been closely involved in the development of the amendments to alcohol restrictions. Minister Macklin has briefed the Chief Minister on the proposed changes to the income management arrangements in the Northern Territory. The repeals will take effect from the end of 31 December 2010. This time frame will allow the redesignated NTER measures, which will be implemented from 1 July 2010, to be rolled out.

This legislation will enable a non-discriminatory income management model that targets categories of people who have been identified as at risk of exceptional disadvantage. The legislation will specify that this new scheme of income management will come into effect from 1 July 2010. It will be rolled out on an area-by-area basis across the Northern Territory. There will be a 12-month transition period, which will be completed by the end of June 2011. Initially, income management will be extended to all of the Northern Territory and will be rolled out on an area-by-area basis, in the same way that existing income management schemes were rolled out in 2007. The new scheme of income management will commence across the Northern Territory in urban, regional and remote areas—as a first step in a future national rollout of income management to disadvantaged regions.

The operation of the new scheme of income management in the Northern Territory will be carefully evaluated. The first evaluation progress report is expected in 2011-12. The other income management trials currently underway in Western Australia and Queensland will continue to be evaluated. Future rollout elsewhere in Australia will be informed by the evidence gained from this evaluation activity. That is a key point: it is the evidence of what actually happens that counts here. There has to be a true, honest evaluation of everything that is done. Future implementation will also be informed by other criteria, including the evidence of disadvantage in Australia and consideration of where income management could benefit individuals and families. The Northern Territory has been chosen as a site for initial implementation based on the persistence of high levels of disadvantage and the existence of BasicsCard and income management infrastructure.

The groups that will be subject to income management under the new model are disengaged youth, long-term welfare payment recipients, vulnerable welfare payment recipients, people referred for income management by the Northern Territory Child Protection Authority and people who voluntarily opt in to income management. With respect to disengaged youth, this refers to people aged 15 to 24 who have been in receipt of youth allowance, Newstart allowance or special benefit or parenting payments for 13 weeks in the past 26 weeks.

As to pathways for exemption for disengaged youth, exemptions will be determined by assessment against objective criteria, including that a person can demonstrate personal responsibility, life skills and social inclusion behaviour for themselves and their children. The exemption criteria are: (a) parents—for example, parenting payment recipients—with demonstrated parental responsibility of school-aged children. This is demonstrated by regular attendance at school—no more than five unauthorised absences per school term for the last two terms. Parents also need to pass a Centrelink financial and housing stability assessment. With respect to parents of children under compulsory school age, there needs to be evidence of responsible parenting, such as regular attendance at playgroups or other early childhood activity or evidence of regular participation in child health checks, combined with an up-to-date immunisation record. Parents also need to pass a Centrelink financial and housing stability assessment. The second criteria (b) is for non-parents—that is, Newstart or youth allowance recipients. There needs to be evidence of work or study—that is, people have worked 26 weeks in the last 52 weeks for at least 15 hours a week at the minimum wage; and, for study, people are studying full time. Part-time study would not qualify.

The second point in this legislation is the long-term welfare recipients—people aged 25 and above, and younger than age pension age, who have been in receipt of the following payments for 52 weeks in the last 104 weeks: youth allowance, Newstart allowance, special benefit or parenting payments. People in this category will also be asked to seek exemption from income management. For parents and non-parents, the pathways to exemption will be the same as those for those in the disengaged youth category.

The third point is the referral for income management by child protection authorities in the Northern Territory of persons in receipt of the following payments: all social security pensions and benefits, including Austudy, Abstudy, where payment includes living allowance; and DVA service pension. We will be seeking to enter into a bilateral agreement with the Northern Territory government to enable referral by Northern Territory child protection workers. This will be based on the current Western Australia trial but will be tailored to the Northern Territory situation and modified to reflect some lessons learned so far from Western Australia. As to pathways for exemption for child protection referrals, exit will be determined by the Northern Territory child protection workers, although people can seek a review of the decision to apply income management.

A fourth key point is referral of vulnerable welfare payment recipients for income management by Centrelink social workers. People could be referred for reasons including vulnerability to financial crisis, domestic violence, economic abuse and homelessness—for example, people living in the long grass. The relevant payments for this measure are the same as those for the child protection measure. In regard to pathways for exemption for vulnerable welfare payment recipients, exit will be determined by Centrelink social workers, although people could seek a review of the decision to apply income management.

A fifth point is voluntary opt-in to income management. There will be people who would like to opt in. The relevant payments for this measure are the same as those for child protection. No exemption is required for this measure, as people can opt out of voluntary income management after 13 weeks.

People on CDEP on receipt of income support will be subject to income management once they meet the criteria set out above. CDEP activities do not count as paid work. People who are on grandfathered CDEP wages until 30 June 2011 will not be income managed, as they are technically employed.

Currently, there are around 15,000 people being income managed. We estimate that approximately 18,000 people will be compulsorily income managed under the proposals, with approximately 5,000 people covered in the under-25 category and 30,000 people in the 25 years or greater category and the long-term unemployed category. Other key statistics include that an extra 28 per cent will be from the urban areas, around 5,000 people; four per cent from rural areas, 1,000 people; and 68 per cent from remote areas, 12,000 people. Of these, 4,500 are in Darwin. Obviously these are estimates and further work will be done on these figures. In addition to the 18,000, approximately 2,000 people may also volunteer. Referrals by Northern Territory child protection staff are likely to be approximately 100 per year.

The welfare system has historically been providing essential support for individuals in need. It was particularly targeted at ensuring that women and children had access to the necessities of life. Governments have a responsibility to ensure that income support is directed to meeting essential needs, particularly where recipients are vulnerable or unable to fend for themselves. That is a good role for government. A range of sources for these issues include the Report on the Northern Territory emergency response redesign consultations and a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. This report has shown that income management is proving to be an effective tool for improving access to food for children and providing financial security for vulnerable people, and in some of the most disadvantaged circumstances in Australia. That is a good thing. There is evidence to prove it is highly beneficial. These sources indicate that there is a growing acceptance of income management but that people felt hurt and ashamed by the way income management was introduced with little consultation and did not understand why it only applied to Aboriginal people. Income management can act as a circuit-breaker, helping to stabilise the home environment for people by ensuring the basics of life are met.

There is considerable evidence that indicates a range of negative outcomes for people with early and/or long-term dependence on income support, including poor social and health outcomes, financial vulnerability and risky use of alcohol as well as the risk of long-term exclusion and the intergenerational transmission of a welfare dependency. Unemployment payments are intended to be short-term solutions, not a way of life. In line with the government’s policy of earn or learn, income management will provide young people with a tool to help them use these payments responsibly and to save for the future. Those who are engaged in paid work and/or substantial study and those who exercise financial and parental responsibility in relation to their dependent children will be exempted on the basis that they do not require the additional support income management provides.

In conclusion, this is what government is about: helping people who are less fortunate due to exceptional circumstances. The circumstances being addressed here are truly desperate and truly exceptional. We look at the evidence and we look at the history of what has happened and we have to be honest with ourselves as a government and say when things are good and when things are not good. We need to address the tough areas. These are exceptional measures of intervention into the everyday lives of people who are struggling, but the evidence shows that there has been an improvement and that there are benefits. With this in mind, I endorse the bill before the House today.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009 has merits and demerits, more particularly demerits. Notwithstanding the proven benefits of the Howard government’s Northern Territory emergency initiative—the clearly defined benefits and the endorsement by some Indigenous people, some of the most recognised and respected spokesmen—this legislation is designed above all else to weaken those earlier successful provisions. I am advised by our leadership that, notwithstanding our efforts to have the bill split and therefore maintain the best of the past, the minister’s office has arrogantly refused our solution to provide the best in the future—in other words, only she knows best. I am not really sure where she got her experience from.

I come to this House with a long experience of association with Aboriginal people and can count some of them amongst my best friends. I draw to the attention of the House that prior to 1967, when this parliament gained for the first time any right to legislate in any way for Aboriginal people, their circumstances were much better than they are today. I can draw on my own experience of arriving in the town of Carnarvon in 1958 to observe town residents of Indigenous background in employment, one of whom having the position of third in charge of an over 600-mile road construction program by the state main roads department. I knew well those who operated, with great skill, the machinery that was constructing that road. I can talk closely of my friend who owned his own taxi and drank with me more times in a week than many others as we discussed the prospects of the various horses we trained.

Out on the properties the people who chose to stay on their lands—notwithstanding that white man had leased that to pastoralists—also had employment. It was itinerant, they were a labour pool but they had every right they had before that property was made a pastoral property to go out and hunt and gather, as had been their sole source of sustenance before white man came along. There is a lot of talk about how much they got paid. I cashed their cheques when they came to town and they seemed to be at the hourly rate applicable on the award, but of course only when work was available. There was no help from Canberra and they did not need it. They were skilled horsemen and they were skilled in pastoral activities. That is what existed before this parliament got involved. I might add that there was no grog on the pastoral properties and there were considerable limitations on who could obtain it in the city or the townships.

Here we are looking at some of the issues arising. As I say, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs does not philosophically believe in this legislation and is attempting to water it down. In that process she is excluding certain welfare recipients, such as those on the age pension, disability support pension, widow allowance and veterans service pension. In every group there are people who do not need to be told how to spend their money. In the Indigenous group there is one remaining cultural fact—that, notwithstanding the ability of some people to separate themselves from a lot of tribal law and things of that nature, wherever these people reside there is the responsibility to share. Those circumstances are not surprising. As a hunting and gathering community, it was difficult with the limited tools available to spear or trap a kangaroo. If one family member or one tribal member was successful, the obligation was that the food would be shared by everyone in the group.

Many of those people I have just mentioned, who had full-time, skilled employment and who were paid by cheque in the early days, would bring those cheques to my hotel to cash them in. We used to have a large amount of cash available on a Thursday and there had to be a substantial number of small denomination notes. It was patently obvious why they wanted small denomination notes. These were people who mixed in the general society of Carnarvon with full-time employment and families. They had rental—or sometimes privately owned—housing and some owned their own trucks and worked as contractors. But when they were confronted by certain relatives who knew they had just cashed their cheque they were still culturally obliged to give them something. Knowing the responsibility they had to their own family, they deliberately carried small denomination notes to meet that obligation. That obligation is probably best epitomised by a woman residing in Perth who won a lotto prize of, I think, $800,000 that disappeared in a month. She was in serious trouble because she was a welfare recipient. The welfare authorities believed that now that she had $800,000 she should not need the support of the taxpayer and they pursued her. When they asked her where all the money had gone she said: ‘I’ve got a lot of relatives. They all came around and asked and I was obliged to give.’

In those circumstances why would we not provide protection to pensioners or the other persons I have already named from having access to cash? They would be unable to respond to the requests or the demands of other people in their community to give them that money. It deteriorates to the lowest level when that elderly person is threatened with or receives physical violence to ensure they hand the money over. The protection is easy. The intervention provided it because they did not have to have money. They could say: ‘I’m sorry, you’ve come to me for money to buy grog, drugs and pornography but I haven’t got any. I can go down to the community store and get you some food with my entitlement if that’s what you want, but I cannot get cash because the new rules deny me access to that in any serious quantity.’

Why would we exclude pensioners, veterans and others from that protection? And what is wrong with it? The administrative difficulties have been overcome and the system was working. In terms of the removal of the Racial Discrimination Act provisions that applied to the NTER, I think that is a good idea. There are other people who should be operating under the same system. I believe, from reading, that if this were America and you were unemployed, your original financial assistance would come from your contributions whilst you were working, under the green card provisions, where your employer contributes to the social security pool. But when that runs out, if you have not regained employment, you go on sustenance. You get approval certificates—or whatever their present administrative arrangement is—to buy food, pay your rent and buy the necessities of life. That is a good idea, and I think it should be applied universally.

When I go to the explanatory memorandum, I read that the new scheme of income management will commence across the Northern Territory—not universally, but it does say ‘in urban, regional and remote areas’. I thought I read elsewhere that there might be about 70 of them. That will be the first step in a future national rollout of income management for disadvantaged regions. We are also advised in the explanatory memorandum that:

The other income management trials currently underway in Western Australia and Queensland will also continue to be evaluated.

This legislation typically applies, notwithstanding that reference to ‘urban’, to remote communities. Yet a matter that occurred in the town of Narrogin was drawn to my attention by the then police regional superintendent: an Indigenous child of about age seven was arrested for the umpteenth time. This child’s sin was breaking into houses to get food. Why did he need food? When the authorities visited the house where his parents resided, there was not one item of food inside that household. The welfare payment to the parents, who had a number of children, was $700 a week. There was no food in the house. In fact, the kid was guilty on another occasion of breaking into premises to find somewhere to sleep—presumably because he was too afeard to sleep at home. Why is that family not included? It is because they happen to live in a community of probably 5,000 or 6,000 people in the great southern area of Western Australia, considered to be civilisation, I guess. It is outrageous, and yet to this day those circumstances have not been addressed.

This is what we are talking about. Why would there be any watering down? If there are measures within this legislation to improve aspects of it, and the coalition admits there are, then good. But why was it necessary to exclude people such as I named where, in an Indigenous society, they needed that protection? If someone offers to beat you up, and you are young and physically able, you might be able to deal with that threat. But if you are an age pensioner and some younger and very fit person threatens to beat you up—and I have seen them do it, just to take their glass of beer off them—why should you not have the excuse ‘I haven’t got any money’ and let them know it? Of course, it has been the women in the communities who have been most supportive of these interventions.

It is not uncommon from a racial aspect to apply these types of provisions, and I think they should be extended widely. We now have all of the mechanisms and the technology for a credit card. Instead of posting cash entitlement to persons on welfare, more particularly in vulnerable areas, they get a credit card and it is just like Visa, Mastercard or anything else; it is a Commonwealth department. If a person goes over their entitlement, it gets bounced and they do not get the goods. But of course it is up to the store owner to make it very, very clear, and of course they have a legal responsibility not to include prohibited goods. But if there is no cash there is no pressure, and the capacity to purchase drugs, pornography and other things is considerably limited. So there is good reason for the coalition to request, as they have, that this bill be split. Let us get on with dealing with the good bits.

There are other aspects of this legislation; for example, it refers to land leases and other matters. I have always held the view that land rights to Aboriginal communities should be tradeable commodities. They should be freehold, leasehold or whatever is applicable in the wider community.

In one breath I am told that these people have this inviolate association with the land and that we the legislators cannot trust them to deal with it. I have had examples of people granted land from farming properties but no money for livestock or machinery. I have an example of a pastoral property being bought on their behalf and the government agency negotiating to have all the cattle removed from it, which was the only value of the property, because they did not think they would be able to handle it but would then have some land in which to receive their sit-down money. That is the sort of thing we do in this place. I think those circumstances arose under a Liberal government, so I am not picking on one side or the other.

This particular reference gives me the opportunity to talk about housing. Because of the redistribution, I have Aboriginal communities in my electorate who live closer to Alice Springs than they do, for instance, to the town of Kalgoorlie, where I was speaking to them on a phone hook-up the other day. I have had a longstanding view that, if we use tilt-up concrete technology, people in remote communities could build their own houses without having to do two or three years apprenticeship or anything else. I know how to do it and I have offered time and again—if someone is prepared to buy some building materials, which are limited—to help them construct and learn how to apply that technology. The principal requirement is to have available some coarse, washed sand, which occurs in creek beds even in the driest of areas. These houses would be durable and, in my view, designed to their desires. When I was speaking to this remote community, the spokesman said to me: ‘When can you come? That is exactly the sort of house we like.’ And it was my view that they could each be constructed completely for under $50,000. He said: ‘The last house they built for us cost $500,000, and nobody wants to live in it. More particularly, you cannot live in it at night-time. We don’t want all the mechanical bits. We don’t want the air conditioner and we don’t want the electric heater, because they break down and they just cause us grief.’ If houses were properly designed—with a wide covered breezeway, accommodation on one side, in a rectangular form, the other services on the other side, provision for an open fire—those people would find that more to their liking and more practical.

We have this view that, unless they have a McMansion—a European style house—it is racial discrimination. But they do not want them. In those societies, they want something that is comfortable for their lifestyle. And they can build it themselves. And they can learn very quickly. Don’t anyone tell me they cannot learn. I know they can. I have seen them perform at the highest level in all sorts of skills, including as linesmen in the local electricity authority. That sort of housing should be built. I hope I am personally closer to demonstrating that to the Australian people and to the department. People get a thrill out of ownership and they should have the opportunity of it.

Chris Trevor (Flynn, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for O’Connor for his worthy contribution. I rise today to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009. The bill will introduce changes, in my opinion, that are fundamental to the fight against the unacceptably high level of disadvantage in remote communities and town camps in the Northern Territory. This, I believe, will be achieved through a number of amendments in this bill. The first and foremost is the repeal of provisions that limit the application of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and state and territory antidiscrimination laws in relation to the Northern Territory Emergency Response and associated measures. In addition to this, the amendments include the redesign of core measures of the Northern Territory Emergency Response to improve and strengthen them so they are sustainable in the long term and are more clearly ‘special measures’ within the terms of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Another fundamental component of the amendments in this bill is the introduction of a new model of income management, to be used in selected locations throughout Australia, in relation to people who meet objective criteria. The bill represents a very positive step for the future of disadvantaged remote communities and town camps in the Northern Territory. Our government recognises the need to continually address this unacceptably high level of disadvantage and through this bill will ensure long-term action is taken to address it.

Our government’s commitment to addressing this issue is clear in our acceptance of the three overarching recommendations of the 2008 Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board report. This report, in conjunction with a very extensive consultation process with Indigenous people in communities affected by the Northern Territory Emergency Response in town camps has allowed our government to make informed decisions about the changes that need to be made to best address the issues affecting these disadvantaged communities and town camps. Eight of the existing Northern Territory Emergency Response measures were discussed in this consultation process: income management, alcohol restrictions, pornography restrictions, five-year leases, community stores licensing, controls on the use of publicly funded computers, law enforcement powers and business management area powers. The consultations were unprecedented in scale and conducted intensively over more than three months, with a total of more than 500 meetings being held. The legislation today has been developed taking into account the views expressed in these meetings by the Indigenous people in communities affected by the Northern Territory Emergency Response and the recommendations of the 2008 Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board report.

The first and foremost step towards a better situation in the remote communities and town camps in the Northern Territory is to reinstate the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and state and territory antidiscrimination laws in relation to the Northern Territory Emergency Response and associated measures. In 2008, our government made a commitment to do this and through this bill we are honouring that commitment. This is also consistent with the recommendations from the 2008 report that government actions affecting the Aboriginal communities should respect Australia’s human rights obligations and conform to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Consistent with our government’s commitment and this recommendation, the amendments in this bill will repeal the provisions that limit the application of the Racial Discrimination Act and state and territory antidiscrimination laws in relation to the Northern Territory Emergency Response and associated measures.

This is also consistent with pressure imposed on the government by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Special Rapporteur, James Anaya, who when reporting at the end of an August 2009 visit to Australia argued in the Statement of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous people:

… any special measure that infringes on the basic rights of Indigenous peoples must be narrowly tailored, proportional, and necessary to achieve the legitimate objectives being pursued. In my view, the Northern Territory Emergency Response is not. In my opinion, as currently configured and carried out, the Emergency Response is incompatible with Australia’s obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, treaties to which Australia is a party, as well as incompatible with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to which Australia has affirmed its support.

As this statement shows, our government must repeal the provisions that limit the application of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and state and territory antidiscrimination laws in relation to the Northern Territory Emergency Response and associated measures in order to fulfil our international obligations and ensure that Indigenous Australians are not disadvantaged any further.

It seems irrational that legislation which is supposed to remove disadvantage does so by suspending antidiscrimination laws. We made a commitment to Australia to repeal these limitations on antidiscrimination laws to ensure the people affected by them are not put at any further disadvantage. Although the immediate aims of the Northern Territory Emergency Response measures were to protect children and to make communities safe, in the longer term they were designed to create a better future for Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. In order to commit to this intention, antidiscrimination laws must be reinstated. Our government must put in place measures to remove the high level of disadvantage present in remote communities and town camps in the Northern Territory and work towards a more sustainable future of long-term action on this issue.

Another step towards this sustainable future is the repeal and replacement of current income management measures. A new model of income management will be established by this bill to be used in selected locations throughout Australia for people who meet objective criteria. It will commence in the Northern Territory but will eventually be extended to other vulnerable Australians across the country. The operation of the scheme in the Northern Territory will be carefully evaluated before the national rollout.

We as a government understand that there are many families across Australia who could be assisted by income management. It is an initiative that has the potential not only to improve their lives but to break the cycle of passive welfare. For many families across this country, it represents a potential circuit-breaker that will help stabilise the whole environment by ensuring the basics of life are met. It is also important to remember that it is designed to be a non-discriminatory measure. It has been purposely designed to act as a beneficial tool and not as a punitive intervention. This is evident in the matched savings and incentive payments for opting in. It aims to target categories of people that have been identified as at risk of severe disadvantage. The target groups include disengaged youth, long-term welfare payment recipients, vulnerable welfare repayment recipients, people referred for income management by the Northern Territory child protection authority and people who voluntarily opt in to income management.

Our government is committed to progressively reforming the welfare system to foster individual responsibility and to provide a platform for people to move up and out of welfare dependence. Welfare should not be a destination or a way of life. By targeting these disadvantaged groups, we can have the most impact on curbing welfare dependence and encouraging them to demonstrate responsibility, such as responsible parenting, personal initiative through participation in education and training or personal money management and saving. It will also encourage these groups to learn important life skills and socially inclusive behaviour for themselves and their children. We as a government must ensure that we do everything we possibly can to get children to school and to get young people engaged in work and training. In order to combat passive welfare, we must link the payment of welfare to making sure that children go to school regularly and that they continue their studies and go on to work.

In addition to promoting these positive behaviour and lifestyle changes for the affected groups, the management of welfare payments will see numerous other benefits for them. It should be remembered that the welfare system has historically been about providing essential support for individuals in need and that it has been and will remain the government’s responsibility to ensure that income support is directed to meeting essential needs, particularly in cases such as those of the people in these groups, where recipients are vulnerable or unable to fend for themselves. A range of sources have suggested that income management is an effective tool to improve the conditions of children by increasing their access to food, clothing and school related expenses, and to provide financial security for vulnerable people in some of the most disadvantaged circumstances in Australia.

The reforms introduced by this bill will ensure that people’s welfare payments are spent on the essentials of life such as food and rent, not on alcohol and gambling. Alcohol has long been a scourge across remote Australia. Its misuse continues to be a threat to the safety of Aboriginal women, children and the elderly. It is one of the most serious issues facing Indigenous people in the Northern Territory. Through the extensive consultations that have been conducted, it has become apparent that many communities want the existing strong restrictions to remain in place but the current one-size-fits-all approach may not be the most effective way to minimise alcohol harm. The solution our government has provided is to retain the existing alcohol restrictions, but to work with the Northern Territory government to implement locally negotiated alcohol management plans which meet a number of criteria. By implementing tailored negotiated management plans, the specific factors in each community can be evaluated and taken into consideration to ensure the most effective and appropriate plan is formed to suit the community and result in the best outcome.

I implore those opposite to see the logic in the amendments present in this bill. We have the opportunity here, today, through this bill, to improve the lives of countless Australians and to make permanent changes to their way of life. It is the very reason why we are all here. By implementing these changes, the cycle of welfare dependency can be broken and the shackles of oppression lifted. We can, I believe, empower a huge number of people to take more personal responsibility, to have the advantages of reinforcement for positive behaviour and encouragement for self-improvement. We can give children the opportunity to grow up healthy and receive consistent education. It is not just about supporting the people in these disadvantaged communities, it is about encouraging them to seek out and learn ways and habits to help support themselves. We as their government have the power and through this bill the opportunity to do so. Opposing it is nothing but a blunt disregard for their wellbeing and the wellbeing of future generations born into situations in which they will require government support.

We as a government are determined and absolutely committed to placing children and families at the forefront of our welfare reform agenda. They are the focus, and through focusing on them we can break the cycle of passive welfare. It cannot be denied that the changes in this bill represent a better future for the disadvantaged people in remote communities and town camps. Its royal assent is the only sensible step in improving their lives. It is for these reasons that this bill has my complete support, and I commend it to the House.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You know, Mr Deputy Speaker, sometimes there is a feeling that members on both sides of the House have a common purpose, a common goal, a common aim. In relation to Indigenous Australia I think that feeling does exist in the House today. That is a good thing. There is some difference of opinion, as there always will be, on what to do and how to do it, but generally I think all of us want to do what we can to ensure a better lot in life for our first Australians. But then we get the points of difference.

Before I go on to that, I might say that late last year I went to Mornington Island, which is an Indigenous community in the Gulf of Carpentaria. I was talking to an old fellow on the island and I said, ‘What has been the most significant thing that has been done on the island in the last decade?’ He said, ‘That is easy. We banned alcohol.’ I said, ‘How has that improved things?’ He said: ‘Well, we now see women and children in the supermarket buying fruit and vegetables, proper food. The kids are going to school being fed properly. It is an absolutely wonderful outcome and we are all proud of it.’ The other side of the coin as it relates to the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009 is that the do-gooders would argue that it is racially discriminatory to ban alcohol. So the community and the parliament have to face this dilemma: does the Racial Discrimination Act apply to everybody, does it apply in part or does it not apply? Of course, the answer is that the world is not black and white; the world is shades of grey. For those Indigenous communities that have taken the step to ban alcohol it has been a wonderful outcome for them.

I am also privileged to have been to Warburton, which is a very remote Indigenous community. If you are at Uluru and you continue to drive west over the NT-WA border you come to Warburton. From memory, it is about 600 kilometres from Kalgoorlie, very isolated. It is another community that has banned alcohol. Do you know what they have done in that community? It is an inspiration to go there. Nobody wrecks the houses. The community is clean and tidy. The kids go to school, with one exception, which I will explain in a minute. The community has its own council. It runs itself. It runs all of the services in the community: water supply, electricity and so on. It even runs its own airline. It does it successfully and it does it in a financially responsible way. It has its own business. It produces some amazing glass art. You would not think in the middle of the desert in Western Australia you would find an Aboriginal community producing first-class glass art, but it does. It is a wonderful example of how you can get a successful Indigenous community. The downside, which I referred to earlier, is the cultural element in getting kids to school. When young Aboriginal men reach a certain age it is not culturally appropriate to be seen to be going to school, because they should be out with the older men doing Indigenous stuff on the land. That has to change. I know it will be hard in that community and other Indigenous communities, but it has to change.

Where I am coming from is that different communities should be subject to different rules in the interests of those communities. The bill looks at doing something about reinstating the Racial Discrimination Act. What it actually does is water down some really good initiatives of the former government in the Northern Territory. Fair people would recognise that those initiatives worked well. While the bill leaves open the opportunity to extend these provisions across the country in the future, in reality that is probably not going to happen, and it should. A community like Palm Island in my electorate, a community of about 4,000 Indigenous Australians—out of sight, out of mind, off the coast—would really benefit from the provisions in this bill today.

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

Well don’t vote against it.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Member for Moreton. If one sees good things happening in Indigenous communities it really is important to apply them universally across Australia. I call on the government to think very deeply about extending this immediately to all Indigenous communities in Australia. Sure, Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory would be the biggest beneficiaries, having the largest Indigenous communities in the country. But there is no reason why it cannot be extended to Redfern in Sydney, for example. You could make a proper case for that. In my contribution to this debate I wanted to point out the benefits of having different policies for different communities but also the benefits of having nationwide policies. I ask the government to seriously consider immediately extending the operation of this to all Indigenous communities in Australia. I thank the House.

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

I rise to speak in support of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009. Deputy Speaker, you would well know from your time in the chair that MPs stand in this chamber and speak for lots of reasons. Normally it is because they are passionate about the particular piece of legislation in front of them. Particularly if they are in a marginal electorate, members speak to inform the electorate about a particular government policy or initiative. I normally speak on something that I am going to send out to community groups to inform them about a government initiative. A member might speak because they are part of a committee, so they have knowledge of the subject matter and wish to make a contribution. Occasionally a member might get a tap on the shoulder from the whip, saying, ‘This might be something that you’re interested in.’

I have not prepared my speech on this matter for any of those reasons. I am speaking on this because it is something that I feel I have to do. This particular piece of legislation is a difficult piece of legislation for me personally, but it is something that I feel I have to speak on. It would be cowardly to retreat from a difficult topic like this. I know it would be of concern to some people in my electorate, but it has wider ramifications. As far as legislation goes, this is a pretty tough bill for the Rudd government and for the ALP, I would suggest—and, as I said, for me personally—not because it is complicated or hard to understand but because of the competing rights that are at play, competing rights that have been touched on by those opposite.

I was quite saddened to hear the opposition’s position is to oppose, oppose. ‘Oppose first and think later’ seems to be the guiding policy of those opposite, which is not a great way to work in a democracy. But a few of their speakers have touched on some of the competing interests. As we know, on the one hand, Australians have the right to spend their money however they choose, as long as they are not breaking any laws. You can collect beer coasters, stamps or cassettes and CDs, which is how I invested all my money. Investing in cassettes was not very wise, as it turned out. They did not turn out to be the boon that I thought they would be back in the seventies and eighties. In fact you can barely even play them now. But Australians have a right to spend their money however they choose, as long as they are not breaking any laws. I think we accept that as a first principle.

On the other hand, vulnerable Australians, like all Australians, also have a duty to put a roof over their kids’ heads. They have a duty to put food on the table for their families. That is the other fundamental right which we are balancing here. It is, as any lawyer or person with any common sense would tell you, a legal right and legal obligation to look after our families, so when these rights are competing with each other the government must act to help the vulnerable find the right balance. That is what this bill endeavours to achieve. That is what I mean about it being a difficult matter for me personally. There is the welfare expectation that I grew up with and that many people in the Labor Party have embraced, and we are changing that assumption. I will come to that by looking at some of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data later in this speech, because that informs the speech and why I am here today to address the legislation.

Income management arrangements were put in place in the Northern Territory by the Howard government, as acknowledged by some of the earlier speakers, as part of the Northern Territory Emergency Response. I think most political observers know that there was an element of political expediency, perhaps crossbred with good intentions and guided by election night considerations, when it came to the Northern Territory Emergency Response. There was an element of ‘red dirt Tampa’, you might call it, but I would like to think that Minister Brough was guided by the best of intentions. He certainly seems to have shown good intentions since then.

However, the Rudd government believes that the arrangements put in place by the Howard government could be better targeted. This bill removes the income management arrangement in the Northern Territory and extends the arrangements to selected disadvantaged regions throughout Australia to provide greater protection for people and their children. It will apply to disengaged youth, long-term welfare payment recipients and people assessed as vulnerable. Voluntary income management will also be available to all welfare recipients living in the Northern Territory. If that is something that they want to embrace—if that is a process that they felt worked for their households or communities—they can still voluntarily embrace income management.

These measures will make sure that welfare payments are spent on food and rent, not excessively on alcohol, gambling, drugs or the like. Welfare is supposed to support families and communities; it is supposed to empower the vulnerable, not create a cycle of dependency. I am not speaking as a wowser—I am familiar with alcohol and I am familiar with gambling—but I think we would all agree that welfare was never meant to be a permanent solution for most people. On occasions it can be the only way that society can support people. However, welfare is useless if it is not used to help people send their children to school, to get children educated and to get young people working or learning. My partner has worked in child protection for over 20 years. That and my having been a teacher are my experiences. In terms of what I have seen, I know that the state is not a great parent. The state is not even a great wage earner. The state stepping in is the last measure before someone hits rock bottom. For all the wonderful social workers that I have met and that are friends, they would still accept that a parent or carer connected to the child is the best person. The state is a very poor parent.

Obviously, we need to break the cycle of passive welfare dependence, and this bill links the payment of welfare to making sure that children go to school regularly, continue their studies and go on to productive work. Let us look at some of the data, particularly or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. I turn to a speech that the Prime Minister gave in this chamber on 11 February: his Closing the Gap speech. Some of the data that is touched on in his speech we are familiar with now. When we came to government, the initial estimation of the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous life expectancy was put at 17 years. Seventeen years is horrible. Now, with the better data that we have, it is suggested that it is only 11½ years for men and 9.7 years for women. I am loath to use the term ‘only 11½ years’; 11½ years is a long time, and if that is an average then there are still some pockets of horror spread throughout Australia.

I remember it was just over two years ago that I made my first speech in this chamber, and in that speech I talked about a lot of the kids I went to school with, grew up with, played football with. I look at those football photographs now—the beauty of Facebook is that you get to see those photos from your youth that you normally would only pull out of an old, dusty box; now they put them up to embarrass me, I am sure—and see the number of people who are missing. They are mainly Indigenous—they are mainly Murris—who are missing from those photographs. When you look at those gaps and think of 11½ years age difference, you realise what it means that three-quarters of your Aboriginal friends are going to be dead before they get to 65. I used to think 65 was old; now it seems quite young. A dashing 65 I can imagine. I look at those photographs and see personally what it means to have that gap and how it plays out in communities. My home town is one of them, but I am sure it plays out all across Australia.

When I look at those photographs, I am quite compelled to realise why we need to do better as a nation and a government to really make a difference. The apology was great, but the Closing the Gap activities make me particularly proud of the Rudd government because we are changing lives and saving lives. According to the data I have looked at, Indigenous children in Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory are 3.6 times more likely to die before they reach the age of five and only 47.4 per cent of Indigenous young people had obtained year 12 or equivalent in 2006. The employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians aged between 15 and 64 is 21 percentage points. When employment data comes out and we get hot and heavy over a 0.5, 0.6 or one percentage point change, can you imagine having a 21 percentage point gap in employment? Connected with that data are the sadness, alienation and poor life choices that come with not having the dignity of work.

In 2008, the gap in child mortality meant that 205 out of any 100,000 Indigenous children died before reaching the age of five. When you read this data it just flows off the page and, unless you are an accountant, probably your eyes glaze over. But 205 out of 100,000 is about two in 1,000 or one in 500 for those who are mathematically challenged like me. I have two kids so, when I think of those two in 1,000, I find it horrible. Indigenous children are twice as likely to die before reaching the age of five than white fella kids are.

I cannot finish that list of sad stories without pointing out some of the good things that are happening, not just the better data that can bridge some of that gap but I also want to particularly mention a great leader in the Queensland education community, Dr Chris Sarra who came very close to being an Australian of the Year. I was lucky enough to go to teachers college with him. He is achieving great results with the Stronger Smarter Leadership program. His clear and high expectations philosophy is changing kids’ lives and producing remarkable results in the 44 schools that have signed up to it.

The last aspect I want to touch on using ATSI data is child protection. The rate of Indigenous children on care and protection orders is eight times the rate for non-Indigenous children. Of the 35,000 kids on care and protection orders, about 4,400 of them are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. For out-of-home care—children who have been removed—the rate is nine times the rate for non-Indigenous children. Those are horrible sets of data. That is why any level of unease that I felt about the idea of income management has been well and truly put to rest by what we are achieving, the ongoing consultation that the Rudd government has carried out with remote communities and the willingness of this government to respond to their needs appropriately. In practice it is a tool to benefit the whole community, not to punish individuals and I look forward to the new scheme getting under way from 1 July this year.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report shows that income management is an effective way to ensure that children have food on the table and to provide vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians with greater financial security, but those trapped in long-term welfare dependence, alcohol abuse and gambling addiction are on a long and difficult road to freedom. Income management will not solve all these issues, but it can provide the circuit-breaker some people need to begin to turn things around at home. It is estimated that these income management reforms will help around 20,000 families in the Northern Territory alone.

This bill also reinstates the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and the Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination laws in relation to the Northern Territory Emergency Response and Queensland anti-discrimination laws in relation to the Queensland Family Responsibilities Commission and the Cape York welfare reform trial. Despite the success of income management so far if it is not implemented fairly and equitably for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, it will only serve to create shame and hurt in the long term. This is not about race or colour, instead it is about providing assistance to the many Australian families in disadvantaged regions. That is why the Rudd government committed to lift the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act and why we are delivering on that commitment in this legislation. It is also why the opposition should support this legislation. I ask them to think about it and consider it rather than oppose as a first principle. They should support this legislation to extend welfare reform to other welfare recipients and ensure the emergency response is sustainable.

This bill will also better target alcohol restrictions to tackle alcohol abuse across remote Australia. Alcohol controls are required to help counter the abuse that affects too many women, children and elderly people especially. This bill retains the existing alcohol restrictions, but rather than blanket restrictions across Indigenous areas in the Northern Territory, restrictions will be tailored to specific regions. These restrictions will be based on evidence about alcohol related harm in the community, community consultation about the effectiveness of restrictions and consideration of proposed alternatives. This bill will also keep the existing restrictions on prohibited material including the possession and supply of sexually explicit and violent films, computer games and publications. Government consultation has yielded a lot of support for the contribution of these restrictions. However, people in proscribed areas will be able to apply to the minister to have the restrictions applying in their community lifted. The minister will need to consider the wellbeing of the people in the community and, if the lifting of restrictions is harmful, the declaration may be revoked.

This bill also includes measures to improve food security in remote Indigenous communities. A healthy diet and a healthy start to the day can do so much to improve education. The bill improves the licensing arrangements for community stores by extending the scope to cover shops that are a key source of food, drink and other grocery items for an Indigenous community. It modifies the range of assessable matters under the scheme, incorporating in legislation specific responsibilities of store owners and store managers and requiring owners of licensed community stores, where those owners are incorporated under the Northern Territory Associations Act, to become registered under the Commonwealth act. These measures will help develop local community stores as key partners in our efforts to improve the health and wellbeing of remote communities.

The government will continue to assess income management and will evaluate these reforms at the end of 2011 before extending the income management to other disadvantaged regions. These reforms go hand in glove with the Rudd government’s efforts towards closing the gap to improve Indigenous health, housing, life expectancy and education. I think that as a nation it is important that we get the balance right. We do not take on this legislation lightly. It is done with community consultation and with the proper balancing process in mind in terms of saving lives and changing lives around.

I think every Australian who has thought about the history of this nation would know that that shameful scar that is 220-odd years old has to be nurtured and supported as much as possible for it to heal properly. The Indigenous community has endured so much that I think that it is right that we get meaningful engagement and meaningful changes to lives, giving people the opportunities to access work that leads to dignity and an opportunity to leave something for their children. I think that if we can get that balance right—and this legislation goes a long way towards doing that—we might be able to have more Indigenous Australians, both Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, representing their communities and stepping up, and maybe we will do what we can to make sure that some of the 150 MPs in this House will be Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders—and maybe also in the Senate, but I think the House of Representatives’ record is not quite as good as the Senate’s, so we need to make sure that we create as many opportunities as—(Time expired)

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009. The bill will amend several acts relating to the income management arrangements under the social security law and the Northern Territory Emergency Response. This very important Northern Territory Emergency Response, of course, was introduced by the Howard government when we had the most shocking reports of child neglect and abuse, when it was quite clear that no nation could continue to tolerate what was, for young Indigenous Australians but also for Indigenous families and communities, a reign of terror, abuse, shortened life expectancies and Third World conditions.

So I was shocked to hear the member for Moreton describe our Northern Territory Emergency Response as ‘red dirt Tampa’ and say that in fact it was political expediency which had driven us to bring about this very substantial set of measures which collectively are called the Northern Territory Emergency Response. I say: shame on the member for Moreton! I hope there are not too many others on the other side who share his political response to what is in fact a horrendous situation in Indigenous communities throughout Australia but, in particular, in the more remote parts of the country.

Unfortunately, a lot of the issues are or were as a result of being out of sight and out of mind. One of the issues which the Howard government tackled was the fact that, although there were public roads going through many Indigenous communities, access to these towns—their shops, fuel outlets and so on—was restricted very much according to who was given permission to travel through. So you did not have the grey nomads pulling off the track, dropping in to some of these tiny little outstations or bigger Indigenous settlements, so there was no collective understanding in Australia of just how shocking a lot of the infrastructure neglect was or of the conditions of the men, women and children living in such dire poverty and distress in many of these places. We, of course, attempted to do something about the fact that these places were too often out of sight and out of mind due to those extraordinary restrictions on access for all Australians.

I will never forget the scare campaign that was run by the member for Lingiari, who suggested that, in our trying to make these places more visible to the rest of Australia, all we were trying to do was allow Australians to trample on Indigenous sacred places. When I was in the Northern Territory in some of these small towns and settlements myself, I had respected elderly people saying to me, ‘Is it true that the Howard government is trying to open up our most sacred places for trampling by people who might come on through?’ I was able to assure them that that was ridiculous. It was in fact the political expediency and the desperate attempts of a then opposition party to smear the efforts of the minister of the day and, indeed, the coalition government, which was trying to do something urgently about the devastating and unacceptable conditions in Northern Australia.

Let me say that we as an opposition support the income management regime, which we put in place, where we tried to make sure that what income is received by men and women in these remote communities goes to food, clothing and essentials for families to survive and is not begged, borrowed or otherwise moved out of the pockets of the recipients to those who might gamble or drink away that income. These measures, unfortunately, are to be watered down in this legislation. Likewise, the very important measures we put in place in relation to restricting alcohol across many Indigenous communities are also to be watered down, as is the prohibition of certain materials, particularly pornography, which is a blight in a lot of these communities, where teenagers and even younger children spend their days confronted with the most inappropriate and vicious pornographic material, to the point where some think that it is normal and what life is really about. Unfortunately, again, this legislation waters down our prohibitions related to pornographic material in these communities.

Certainly, we were and are most concerned about the nutritional value of products sold in community stores. We introduced a community stores licensing scheme. This legislation aims to extend that licensing to improve and clarify the operation of that scheme. We would commend anything that does that. But I am certainly concerned that anything that Labor talks about rarely ends up in practical action.

For example, let me go back to the income management regime which we put in place because we knew that ‘humbugging’, as it is often called in Northern Australia, was rampant and rife. Women, particularly, were powerless in being able to keep income paid to them—often as welfare—so children were suffering without adequate nutrition, clothing and shelter. We established a model of income management that meant the vast majority of Indigenous recipients in Indigenous communities were helped to better manage their incomes through this income management process.

Unfortunately now the Labor government is going to exclude people on age pension, disability support pension, widow allowance and veterans service pensions from income management. The Indigenous recipients who receive those pensions are the ones who are most vulnerable to having that income stripped away from them by others in the communities, who are often desperate as drug dependent or alcohol dependent individuals. These amendments provide no improvement to what are currently the circumstances.

The Labor government has not done the work that had to be done in terms of financial literacy and helping the communities to manage their alcohol and drug dependency, which leads to this terrible misuse of what moneys are in the community. All it has done is to remove some who were being protected from the categories which will now be under income management. I think this is an extraordinarily narrow-minded and, indeed, irresponsible response to a very serious problem.

The scheme does intend to operate as a tool to support disengaged youth and vulnerable individuals. The explanatory memorandum provides no evidence of how that further protection of youth and others would be provided with, say, counselling or other additional support. All we know is that, due to this legislation, in the future certain welfare recipients will be excluded from income management: those who have been, up to this date, helped by having some income management support.

Even more worrying for us though is the fact that the vulnerability test of who should or should not have income management will be determined by social workers and child protection workers in Northern Australia. Let me read from the Australian newspaper on 18 February this year—just a few days ago. Let me tell you about just how effective and efficient the Northern Territory welfare workers, social workers and child protection workers are in dealing with the problems of Indigenous Australia. We have, for example, the former federal intervention chairwoman and retired Children’s Court magistrate, Sue Gordon, saying:

… the NT government must answer questions about what had happened to children whose cases had been “written off” and not investigated.

because—

The report identified 785 cases for which a child protection investigation was due but had not yet begun, including 345 at one office alone. …

Despite a 69 per cent increase in notifications last year,—

of children at risk and in need in families needing investigation and support, despite that 69 per cent increase—

no extra workers were put on, … the intake team had been relying on fewer than five workers instead of the usual eight. This had led to huge backlogs, rapid turnover and a highly inexperienced team.

They were trying to work with Aboriginal families and Aboriginal children and, quite frankly, this newspaper report is about the complete failure of the system of investigating and recommending in relation to vulnerable children in the Northern Territory.

And here we have this government saying that they are now going to subject those who should be placed into the income management stream to decisions made by social workers and child protection workers who apparently are magically going to appear. I would expect them to first deal with the 785 cases which have not yet even been commenced before they get stuck into this other work, which is quite unnecessary if you continued with the regime which the Howard government put in place. It delivered some protection, at last, for families, and particularly women, who needed some cash to go to their community store and buy food to put on the table in these remote places or to buy clothing or other essentials of life.

Again, this is an example of the Labor Party being totally unable to deal with realities and practicalities. It is great on spin, but when it comes to actually administering a program—and we have seen an horrific example of this in recent times with the insulation installation program—this government is totally unable to deliver practical measures, because either it does not know what is happening on the ground or it does not have administrative capability. We, as the coalition government, understood that you not only have to have the right policies but they have to be delivered efficiently and effectively.

Let me move on to the second area of great concern in relation to the watering down of measures that we put in place under the Northern Territory emergency regime, and that is the business of alcohol. As we know, there is a scourge of alcohol addiction and domestic violence abuse is associated with that addiction. There are lives being destroyed as a result of alcohol consumption and the violence and unemployment associated with alcohol dependency.

There is also the tragic circumstance of foetal alcohol syndrome, where the unborn is disabled as a consequence of the mother drinking during the pregnancy. It is even more tragic if the little baby born is female and alcohol has been consumed in the first trimester, as she may carry for her future children the foetal alcohol syndrome. This means that the intellectual and physical disabilities are passed on to yet another generation—even if that little girl never consumes alcohol during her entire life.

I particularly want to commend the women of the Western Australian town of Fitzroy Crossing. They were determined to save their town from the scourge of alcohol abuse, domestic violence and foetal alcohol syndrome. After 13 suicides in 13 months, they courageously decided that they had to put their foot down and say that enough was enough. They had the support of some strong men in their community. They knew that they had to stop alcohol consumption in their town and they had to educate and support women and men to understand what was happening as a result of alcohol abuse in their community. They in fact produced a film, Yajilarra, which was launched by Governor-General Quentin Bryce exactly one year ago and was shown at the United Nations in New York City on 4 March 2009. It was seen as a breakthrough for Indigenous women, empowered to deal with a very difficult problem.

The government’s amendments mean that in Northern Territory Indigenous communities the restriction on alcohol in the future will not apply universally. The government is saying that community restrictions will be:

… tailored to the circumstances of each area following consideration, on a case by case basis, of evidence about alcohol-related harm in each community, community consultation about the effectiveness of restrictions, and consideration of whether alternative restrictions, including alcohol management plans, are appropriate—

as an alternative to what we did, which was to restrict the bringing of alcohol into these communities—often at enormous profit to bootleggers profiteering from the dependency in these communities. So instead of communities being freed from the boot loads of grog brought in by the runners—making enormous profits at their expense—these communities have to argue their case. You can imagine that there will initially be, as there was in Fitzroy Crossing, a lot of concern from those who are alcohol dependent, particularly the men, arguing that there should be no restrictions. Why should communities have to argue to have a restriction on alcohol when, through what we currently have in place, women and children are protected? For the first time, some of the barbwire enclosures are being brought down from around the older people’s dwellings, because they are not attacked at night in the way they were before through alcohol-fuelled fury, especially when the latest van of grog had arrived the day or the night before.

I think this watering down of alcohol restrictions in these communities is absolutely unconscionable. Time and time again we have seen how very difficult it is for those in a community—and it is usually the women—to take up the case and try and defeat the much more powerful elements in their community, typically the men, to try to bring about a change in alcohol access. But this is what this legislation will do. It means that in the future, instead of there being a restriction, the people who are the victims of alcohol abuse will have to get out there and argue for assistance and support—and that is not good enough.

I also have to say that it is very, very disconcerting and concerning that pornography will no longer be automatically excluded from a lot of these settlements. Instead—a little like the alcohol watering-down amendments in this legislation—we are told:

Where requested by, or on behalf of people ordinarily resident in a prescribed area, the Minister may remove existing restrictions on the possession and supply of prohibited pornographic and very violent material.

So, again, those who profit from the sale of this ‘pornographic and very violent’ material simply have to make a request of the minister to have the restrictions lifted. The explanatory memorandum goes on to say:

Before making a declaration to remove restrictions, the Minister or delegate must have regard to evidence about the well-being of, and the views of, the people living in the prescribed area.

But why should these people have to try to argue against some of the most powerful elements in their community who are demanding that pornography and violent material be once again let loose on their youths and their children? What community would want that material to be reintroduced when we know that the sexual abuse and the grooming of Indigenous children has reached epidemic proportions? We know that the Northern Territory government cannot cope with the number of referrals to the Territory government for help for children who are being neglected or are in danger of abuse; yet here we have the watering down of legislation which was giving protection to families and taking off the television screens and the pay-TV channels—churning away in the corner of the shelter—the most disgusting pornography and violent material.

You just have to ask: what is this government up to? Who is it pandering to? Why does it not understand that the most important thing is the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians? They have suffered extraordinarily in the last 250 years. We need only read the statistics to remind ourselves of the Indigenous infant mortality rates, the morbidity, the violence and the experience of diseases which have virtually been eliminated from mainstream Australia. (Time expired)

Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009. I think that everybody in this House, whether they are Liberal, National, Independent or Labor, genuinely wants to see improvements in the lives of Indigenous people. They genuinely want to see that happen. Similarly, the Greens, Labor, Liberals, Nationals and Independents in the Senate want to see improvements in the lives of Indigenous people. The government is genuinely looking for bipartisan support for this legislation. I am genuine about that too.

I represent many Indigenous people, including the unique Indigenous communities in the Torres Strait. I want to work with opposition members, as I know Minister Macklin and the Prime Minister are, on striving to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This legislation is part of that. It is about making the Northern Territory emergency response sustainable in the longer term. It is also about looking at the real benefits that legislation has provided to some of the more disadvantaged in Indigenous communities and applying and transferring those benefits to some of the other more disadvantaged parts of Australia. It does not matter whether you are Indigenous or non-Indigenous, there are people who will benefit from reforms in the welfare system.

This legislation has at its core a move to make welfare reforms more sustainable in the longer term and to enable those reforms to be applied to disadvantaged communities across Australia. I appeal to the better angels in the opposition to not turn this into a partisan debate. I heard some inflammatory statements from the previous speaker. I gather that has been the theme in some of the speeches we have heard from the opposition in relation to this. We should not be playing partisan politics with the lives of young children and the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our community. We should look to work together to build a better nation for them and for all Australians. That is what is at the core of this legislation.

I support this legislation, which is designed to ensure those who are the most vulnerable in our community, particularly children and those struggling with addictions and substance abuse, get the help they need through income management. I will talk further about alcohol and some other parts of this bill. This is a historic reform that will change the way that welfare is delivered in this country. We need bipartisan support to get these reforms through and I ask the opposition to support this legislation. Let us put the politics away and get this legislation through because it will make a big difference to the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our community, particularly kids from disadvantage backgrounds.

This legislation is about tackling the effects of passive welfare on the most vulnerable in the community. Age pensioners, disability support pensioners and veterans will be brought onto compulsory income management where they are identified as being vulnerable by a Centrelink social worker. Families with at-risk children who are identified through the child protection system will also attract compulsory income management. It is the case that our reforms will make sure that people’s welfare payments are spent on the essentials of life—food and rent, not alcohol and gambling.

We want to fight passive welfare and to link the payment of welfare to making sure that children go to school on a regular basis and that they continue their studies and go on to work. The fact is that every child deserves to be given the opportunity of a decent education. The responsibility for ensuring that they get that start in life does not just depend on the quality of the education system, although that is critically important and that is why, through our Building the Education Revolution program, we are investing in new infrastructure and in improvements at low-SES schools to try to support and lift standards. If we are going to make a difference to the educational outcomes of young children in disadvantaged communities, whether Indigenous or non-Indigenous, we need to support welfare reform. We need to support this legislation, which will enable income management to be more sustainable over the longer term and also enable it to be applied to other disadvantaged communities in this country, beyond disadvantaged Indigenous communities.

Welfare reform will play a critical role in breaking the cycle of welfare dependency. If people can get a decent education, they are more likely to get a decent job. Statistics overwhelmingly show that. Arrangements to protect the children of welfare recipients and ensure that they get the benefits of these payments do not exist at the moment, so everyone in this parliament should support and welcome these long-overdue reforms. These reforms will also provide a way out of income management for those who are doing the right thing.

The arguments being put forward by the other side are about the Northern Territory emergency response. A blanket approach to welfare quarantining went on as a result of that response. In the end, if you want to move people beyond welfare and enable them to raise and manage their family independently, they need to learn to manage their own finances. This legislation provides funding to provide that support. It also provides incentives for people who may be outside of this to get involved in income management. Importantly, why should parents and others who are unemployed but who are doing the right thing, who are undertaking training and who are getting their kids to school, be subjected to a blanket approach to the way they manage their family? If we really want them to transition to real work, to an existence beyond welfare, we need to support them in that process. Part of that is enabling people who are doing the right thing to move to a system where they can manage their own incomes.

Support and incentives to enable people to transition to this state are important parts of this legislation. It will ensure that income management is non-discriminatory because those in non-Indigenous communities can also benefit from income management. We are reinstating the Racial Discrimination Act as a result of these reforms. I have communities in my electorate of Leichhardt who are currently experiencing income management through a different process, which I will talk about later. Although the problems being faced in Indigenous communities are statistically worse than in other parts of the country, it is important that we recognise that there are people in non-Indigenous communities who would also benefit from income management. This legislation allows us to look at those communities on a case-by-case basis and move these income management reforms across to those communities.

Having a blanket approach in effect provides no incentives for people to do the right thing and change their behaviour, and move away from income management. Having an approach based around discrimination is not the way that this country should operate. This legislation will enable income management to be rolled out over time to vulnerable communities across Australia. But, initially, it will be trialled and evaluated in the Northern Territory. There are 16,000 people now on compulsory income management in the Northern Territory. That compares to around 1,400 people who were on compulsory income management when we came to government. The opposition were in government for 12 years. They have been talking about us rolling back their reforms. They had 1,400 people on compulsory income management when they left government. We now have 16,000, and with these reforms that number is expected to increase in the Northern Territory because it will allow people in non-Indigenous communities who would benefit from these reforms to also experience income management.

The change we have proposed will make sure that income management can be rolled out in towns in the Northern Territory such as Tennant Creek and Katherine and the suburbs of Alice Springs and Darwin, where we have significant and desperate circumstances for many, many people. The Australian government wants to extend income management to other disadvantaged regions across Australia after a comprehensive evaluation of the new reforms at the end of 2011. I am sure there are communities in my own electorate of Leichhardt who would benefit from income management beyond those involved in the Cape York Welfare Reform trials currently underway. I will talk about these in more detail later, but evaluation of these trials and another trial in Western Australia will also inform the rollout of these welfare reforms in other parts of Australia.

The straight payment of welfare money to individuals and families has not achieved the social policy objectives when the original welfare system was set up and that is why we are looking to introduce these reforms. These reforms are based on extensive evaluation of the Northern Territory Emergency Response. In the second half of last year, the consultations involved thousands of people in all 73 Northern Territory Emergency Response communities as well as several other Northern Territory Aboriginal communities and town camps between June and the end of August 2009. The engagement process was independently overseen by the Cultural and Indigenous Research Centre Australia and the government has publicly released their report on the FaHCSIA website. So these reforms are based on significant consultation with Indigenous people in the Northern Territory.

Children, women, parents, families and older people were identified as groups who benefited most from income management. The most frequently identified benefits of income management for children included more money being spent on food, clothing and school related expenses. There were a number of comments that children were looking healthier because of a better diet. A benefit of income management frequently identified by women was that there is less humbugging—there were fewer people pestering them for money. In addition to the reduced incidence of humbugging, a frequently mentioned benefit of income management for parents and families was that it has enabled people to better manage their household budgeting, including planning for major items and utility expenses. Men also said there were benefits for themselves and their families as a result of income management. These benefits included more and better food being eaten, improved budgeting and more money being spent on whitegoods, furniture and other household items. There was less money being spent on gambling, alcohol, humbugging and other abuses. The most frequently identified benefits of income management for older people included the reduced incidence of humbugging, better health outcomes and less need for them to take responsibility for caring for grandchildren.

They are some of the overall outcomes that have resulted from extensive consultations with communities across the Northern Territory. We all recognise there are benefits from income management. I know there have been people who, ideologically, are opposed to the reforms that the former government put in place and were supported by this government. There are people who are concerned about our decision to continue with welfare quarantining and other approaches to support families, the young and the elderly in the Northern Territory in living a healthier and better life. The reality is that we have gone out and consulted broadly with those affected and the overwhelming advice which came back—and there has been a report published on this—is that the benefits are clearly seen.

The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs had primary responsibility for some detailed evaluation of income management. The department developed their evaluation approach and methodology, and managed the data collection process. The two main data sources for the evaluation were a client survey that collected quantitative data and focus groups of key stakeholders that collected qualitative data. The client survey involved face-to-face interviews with 76 income management clients in four community locations. The stakeholder focus groups involved 167 stakeholders, including community representatives from the same four locations, and community sector and government employees from a wide range of locations. There has been a lot of consultation and a lot of evaluation of the benefits of income management.

The data showed that there had been improvements in child wellbeing since the introduction of income management. Of the parents interviewed, 62.5 per cent reported that their children were eating more, 57.4 per cent reported that their children weighed more and 52.1 per cent reported that their children were healthier. Three-quarters of people interviewed reported spending more on food—75.3 per cent—with 50 per cent buying more fruit and vegetables. More than half—63.3 per cent—of the people interviewed reported there was less gambling, 60.9 per cent reported that there was less drinking and 52.1 per cent reported that there was less harassment for money. Clearly, there have been benefits from the Northern Territory Emergency Response. We recognise that. We want to make this more sustainable in the longer term. I again appeal to the opposition to take a bipartisan approach to reforms and improvements in the lives of Indigenous people and to those more vulnerable in the community. There is not a great deal of politics to be made out of this; we genuinely want to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and those more vulnerable in the community. We need to work together on this.

The Leader of the Opposition has said that he wants to see income management extended to other welfare recipients. That is exactly what this government reform will do. The Leader of the Opposition has also said that he wants to see the Northern Territory Emergency Response become sustainable over the longer term. That is exactly what these reforms will do. We do need to have welfare reform to make sure the Northern Territory Emergency Response is sustainable for the longer term and the benefits of income management can be extended to other more vulnerable Australians. I say to those opposite, particularly the Leader of the Opposition, that the reality is that the reforms in this legislation bring into line the Northern Territory Emergency Response much more than those reforms going on in Cape York. The Leader of the Opposition is very keen to quote Mr Noel Pearson. He is a constituent of mine. He lives in Cairns and has representatives in Cape York Peninsula. These reforms bring into line the Northern Territory Emergency Response similar to the Cape York Welfare Reform trials and to the alcohol management plans. The reforms in this legislation—if you are effectively arguing against them—are from the model that Noel Pearson has brought forward for Cape York. They bring into line, in a much similar way, the reforms that are going on in Cape York at this time.

If the Leader of the Opposition thinks that Noel Pearson is a fantastic man who has great ideas, he should look seriously at this legislation. It does not enforce a blanket approach; it ensures that people are doing the right thing, that people can move to managing their own income and that communities can work together to develop models that best suit them, particularly when it comes to issues around alcohol management. It keeps in place the alcohol restrictions but it says to communities, ‘You can develop your own individual alcohol management plans.’ That is what the Beattie Labor government did in Queensland in partnership with Noel Pearson and the Cape York organisations, going back many, many years. And the former member up there was very critical of this approach. But we did not take a blanket approach in Queensland—we looked to work with Indigenous communities and that was what we will continue to do.

I think it is important to go into a little detail about the welfare reform process that is going on in Cape York and the trials there that Mr Pearson and the Cape York Institute have developed and that have been picked up by the Rudd government. We are working in partnership with them, the Queensland government and the four communities of Aurukun, Coen, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge. As I have said, they do not apply our welfare quarantining in the blanket way it happened in the Northern Territory. The trials in Cape York are about working with communities to re-establish community norms. If income management is imposed on individuals and families then it is in response to an intervention already made by the Family Responsibilities Commission—and I will refer to it as the FRC—established under the Cape York welfare reform trials.

The FRC applies to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community members who are welfare recipients and reside in or have lived in one of the four trial communities for three months since 1 July 2008. The FRC will be notified if: a person’s child is absent from school three times in a school term without a reasonable excuse; a person has a child of school age who is not enrolled in school without lawful excuse; a person is the subject of a child safety report; a person is convicted of an offence in the magistrate’s court; or a person breaches his or her tenancy agreement. The FRC has appointed local commissioners who are respected community elders, thereby rebuilding authority within the community. The FRC is made up of community elders and Commissioner David Glasgow, a former magistrate who chairs the hearings. The Cape York welfare reforms aim to address passive dependency on welfare and rebuild social norms in the community. There are 24 local commissioners across the four communities.

We are not introducing blanket income management in Cape York Peninsula as was done in the Northern Territory because we want it to be sustainable over the longer term. We put in place a Family Responsibilities Commission that can work with community elders when people are not sending their children to school, when they are having problems with their tenancy, when they are in trouble with the law or when they have problems with substance abuse. They can have a roundtable with the elders and the Family Responsibilities Commission. Then, if they do not change their ways, if they do not get their kids to school, there is an opportunity for them to be directed into income management. That, I think, is a good process. It is a process that was developed by the Cape York Institute and Noel Pearson and we are working in partnership in the rollout of that.

I cannot see how that differs greatly from some of the ideas that are encapsulated in this legislation, but all we are hearing from the opposition is a partisan attack on a rollback of the Northern Territory emergency response. I could stand here and criticise and complain about the potential political nature of the way that was introduced, but if we want to move beyond that then we need to put those issues behind us and work in a bipartisan way.

I could go on and talk in more detail about the Family Responsibilities Commission and welfare reform in Cape York, but the benefits are there. I have some statistics. In Aurukun, we have seen attendance at school pick up in the second term of 2009 to 63.2 per cent from 37.9 per cent in the second term of 2008. In Mossman Gorge, similarly, we have had an increase from 60.9 per cent in term 2 of 2008 to 81.6 per cent. Genuine benefits have flowed from welfare reform. We need to embrace it, we need to ensure that this legislation gets through and that benefits can flow not only to Indigenous people but over time to non-Indigenous people and disadvantaged communities.

I do not have time to talk about alcohol management plans but let me assure people that the model that is being proposed in this legislation is similar to that developed by the Cape York organisations led by Noel Pearson. The opposition should seriously consider taking a bipartisan approach to this legislation and working with the government, because everybody in this place wants to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. (Time expired)

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009 will see the fulfilment of yet another election promise given prior to the 2007 general election. It should be a bill that is above politics but, unfortunately, here today we have seen that that is not the case. We have seen the other side try to politicise it and make out to be big political spin what should be a bill for the betterment of our Indigenous population and something that we should all be agreeing to.

We have seen a steady rollout of actions by this government that realise our commitments made to the Australian public prior to the last federal election. We are here again to address yet another one. We were elected to repeal the limitation placed on the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. It was a commitment we made prior to the last election and we are delivering on that here today. With this bill we honour this pledge made to the Australian public.

For far too long Indigenous people in the Northern Territory have been victims of racial discrimination, half-hearted reform, flawed social welfare and a health system that has often failed to address their specific and often very urgent needs. I will not go through figures and facts—we heard them all earlier from the member for Moreton. Those figures are still shocking, even though they have improved slightly. The Rudd government is determined to fix at least some of this situation by introducing this landmark change to the social welfare system. This will provide income management welfare and payments to Australia’s many isolated and disadvantaged regions. Actions housed within this bill include the start of giving tools to disadvantaged Australians particularly to help improve their family situations and to help them make stronger futures for themselves.

Amending the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 and reinstating the Racial Discrimination Act will help us achieve the right outcomes for Indigenous people, who have long been victims of politicking. We remember the blatant scare campaigns of the past: TV advertisements claiming that native title would cause Perth residents to lose their backyards and underground campaigns warning that some part of Australia would somehow secede and become an independent Aboriginal nation-state. That was not that long ago; it was in 1996. Aboriginal Australians have too long been used within politics, mainstream and marginal, as a threat to elicit reactionary behaviour from those who are too easily deceived—and that must stop; it must cease. The issues underlying the place of Aboriginal Australians in this nation’s history, present and future, are far too important to be a simple vote-grabbing exercise.

The reforms contained in this bill are set up to help disadvantaged people by managing their individual situations, by making incremental changes to their situations and by developing the suite of requisites necessary for them to take maximum advantage of opportunities to climb out of welfare dependence. The replacement of the previous government’s social security income management arrangements is designed to be a productive tool, not a punitive measure. The combined elements of this bill are a result of sensitive planning between several government departments and, most importantly, extensive consultations with the Indigenous people whose communities will be affected As we heard earlier, they involve income management, restrictions in alcohol and pornography, five-year leases, community store licensing, controls on the use of publicly funded computers, law enforcement and business management. I am very pleased to see that the bill will continue the ongoing commitment to build the best practice model for the operation of community stores.

As part of an inquiry of the House Standing Committee on Health and Ageing, which I chair, we visited some communities together with the member for Parkes, who is sitting in this chamber. We saw what a role the community stores play in respect of the produce that they have and the prices that they charge. They have a big influence on towns. We heard stories from Indigenous communities in which they said it was cheaper to go down to the petrol station and get a bucket of chips for $2 than to buy fresh eggs or to buy something from the stores because their prices were so high. So I am very pleased that that initiative is an ongoing commitment of this government.

We have to do better—and we can do better. We so desperately need to do better, and we can start with the reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act and, if necessary, policies and programs under its special measures provision. We need to do whatever is required, whatever we can do, to help people with limited financial literacy manage their money and, consequently, manage their lives much better. Income management has genuine benefits, particularly to children, women, older people and families in these communities. It has been shown that, through the good management of income, more money is being spent on food, clothing and school related expenses, and less money is being spent on alcohol, gambling, drugs and tobacco or cigarettes, with this money now directed into savings towards large-scale, essential household goods like fridges, washing machines and other things that we in the cities take for granted.

The routine of hopelessness is being shaken up for many people and it is being replaced with constructive help that gives people increased opportunity to have positive effects on their personal lives. But the pattern still exists in far too many cases. The pattern of alcohol misuse and abuse continues to be a threat to the safety of Aboriginal women, children and the elderly and is one of the most serious issues facing Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. An estimated 4,500 children of school age in the Northern Territory—almost exclusively Indigenous children—are still not receiving adequate education. On this point, the law enforcement powers of the Australian Crime Commission will be adjusted so that they can make use of the special powers under the NTER for the benefit of Indigenous victims of crime. One very important point needs to be made here. The NTER cannot achieve the necessary long-term outcomes if the Racial Discrimination Act is suspended. It needs to be reinstated and the benefits of income management need to be extended to the broader community.

This is no loosely designed amendment. It has been carefully and sensitively planned through consultation with the A-G’s Department, the Australian Government Solicitor, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and the Treasury. Most important, of course, is that it has been planned in consultation with the people who it will affect—that is, the Indigenous communities. The new income management scheme will come into effect from 1 July 2010. It will be rolled out on an area-by-area basis across the Northern Territory and completed by 2011. There will also be a 12-month transition period and its success will be closely checked, with the first evaluation expected in 2011-2012. The results of that evaluation, together with income management trials already underway in WA and Queensland, will go a long way to deciding future rollouts across Australia. The Northern Territory has been chosen for this groundbreaking initiative for good reason. That reason is that it already has a BasicsCard and an income management infrastructure in place. But, most importantly, it desperately needs this scheme. The high levels of disadvantage continue and they have to be corrected now. This amendment to the social security legislation is an important step in making that correction, and it cannot come soon enough.

Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009. In 2008 the government promised it would lift the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, and this bill gives effect to that commitment. The exemptions that will be repealed are the provisions that suspend the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act and the Northern Territory anti-discrimination laws in relation to the Northern Territory emergency response and related legislation. The Northern Territory government has been advised of the range of measures included in this bill. Northern Territory officials have been closely involved in the development of the amendments to the alcohol restrictions, and Minister Macklin has briefed the Chief Minister on the proposed changes to the income management arrangements in the Northern Territory. The repeals will take effect from the end of 31 December 2010. The time frame will allow the redesigned NTER measures, which will be implemented from 1 July 2010, to be rolled out.

Reinstating the rights under the Racial Discrimination Act of Territory Indigenous people is something I am very proud that our government is in the process of doing. An example of the importance of this measure was reported in an article in the Koori Mail:

Aboriginal Medical Service Alliance NT CEO John Paterson told a hearing in Darwin that 40,000 Aboriginal people in those communities currently had fewer legal and civil rights than any other Australians.

John was reported as saying that ‘the already poor health of Aboriginal Territorians will worsen unless the Racial Discrimination Act is reinstated immediately in NTER communities’.

This legislation will enable a non-discriminatory income management model that targets categories of people that have been identified as being at risk of exceptional disadvantage. The legislation will specify that this new scheme of income management will come into effect from 1 July 2010. It will be rolled out on an area-by-area basis across the Northern Territory. There will be a 12-month transition period which will be completed by the end of June 2011. Initially, income management will be extended to all of the Northern Territory and will be rolled out on an area-by-area basis, the same way that the existing income management scheme was rolled out in 2007. The new scheme of income management will commence across the Northern Territory in urban, regional and remote areas as a first step in the future national rollout of income management to disadvantaged regions.

The operation of the new scheme of income management in the Northern Territory will be carefully evaluated. The first evaluation progress report is expected in 2011-12. The other income management trials currently underway in Western Australia and Queensland will continue to be evaluated as well. Future rollout elsewhere in Australia will be informed by the evidence gained from the evaluation activity. Future implementation will also be informed by other criteria, including evidence of disadvantage in Australia and consideration of where income management could benefit individuals and families. The Northern Territory has been chosen as the site for initial implementation based on the persistence of high levels of disadvantage and the existence of BasicsCards and income management infrastructure.

The groups that will be subject to income management under the new model are disengaged youth, long-term welfare payment recipients, vulnerable welfare payment recipients, people referred to for income management by the Northern Territory child protection authority and people who voluntarily opt into income management. Let me look at some of those initially on a case-by-case basis, the first one being disengaged youth. These are people aged between 15 and 24 who have been in receipt of the following payments for 13 weeks of the last 26 weeks: youth allowance, Newstart allowance, special benefit or parenting payment. There are pathways for exemptions for disengaged youth. This is an important thing we need to realise—some people, while disadvantaged, are still doing the right things in regard to how they are spending their money. I am a firm believer that anyone receiving a parenting payment is receiving it because they have a child in their care and they need to be spending this money to look after that child. I think that is the sort of thing that this bill is there to address—making sure that children are being looked after properly by people who are receiving taxpayers’ money for that purpose. Exemptions will be determined by assessment against objective criteria, including that a person can demonstrate personal responsibility, life skills or socially inclusive behaviour for themselves and their children.

School-age children come under part B of the parenting allowance, which requires regular attendance at school. There must be no more than five unauthorised absences per school term for the last two terms. Parents also need to pass a Centrelink financial and housing stability assessment. Parents of children under compulsory school age need to show evidence of responsible parenting such as regular attendance at playgroups or other early childhood activities or evidence of regular participation in child health checks, combined with an up-to-date immunisation record.

I will turn to part B, non-parents—for example, Newstart and youth allowance recipients. They must show evidence of work or study. In regard to work, people must have worked 26 weeks in the last 52 weeks or at least 15 hours a week at the minimum wage. In regard to study, people must be studying full time. Part-time study would not qualify. Long-term welfare recipients are defined as people aged 25 and above but younger than the pension age who have been in receipt of the following payments for 52 weeks of the last 104 weeks: youth allowance, Newstart allowance, special benefit or parenting payments. There are pathways for exemption for long-term welfare recipients. People in this category will also be able to seek exemption from income management. In the case of parents, the pathway will be the same as for those in the disengaged youth category. For non-parents, the pathway will be the same as for the disengaged youth category as well.

I will turn to referral for income management by child protection authorities in the Northern Territory. This applies to all social security pensions and benefits, including Austudy, Abstudy where the payment includes living allowance, and DVA service pensions.

Australia needs welfare reform to protect the most vulnerable and to link welfare to school attendance, study and work. We want to start in the Northern Territory but we want to be able to extend income management to other vulnerable Australians across the country. Our reforms will make sure that people’s welfare payments are spent on the essentials of life: food and rent, not alcohol and gambling.

There are now 16,000 people on compulsory income management in the Northern Territory. That compares with around 1,400 people who were on compulsory income management when we came to government. The number of people on income management in the Northern Territory with our reforms is estimated to be 20,000.

This is all about personal responsibility and making sure that we do everything we possibly can to get children to school and young people engaged in work and training. We want to fight passive welfare and link the payment of welfare to making sure that children go to school on a regular basis and that young people continue their studies or go to work. These arrangements do not apply at the moment. The changes that we have proposed will make sure that income management can be rolled out in towns in the Northern Territory—Tennant Creek, Katherine and the suburbs of Alice Springs and Darwin—where there are significant and desperate circumstances for many people.

There are many Australian families across Australia who could be really assisted by income management. The Australian government wants to extend income management to other disadvantaged regions across Australia after a comprehensive evaluation of the new reforms at the end of 2011.

This is an important piece of legislation because it goes to the heart of the discussion that we have had over a number of years regarding Aboriginal disadvantage. It goes to the heart of the Closing the Gap programs that have been put in place by previous governments and picked up by our government, including on the disadvantage in health and education outcomes for Indigenous people against those of non-Indigenous people.

This bill goes to the very heart of reconciliation with regard to the apology. For Indigenous people in this country the suspension of the RDA is probably the most hurtful thing that has happened to them. They have put up with a lot of injustices over a long period of time—over 200 years of Indigenous injustice and Indigenous people not being treated well in this country—but the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act is probably the lowest point that we have ever hit, regardless of the reasons that it was put in place. I know at the time the government of the day saw that there was a need for an emergency response in the Northern Territory, and the RDA was suspended. We understand that but we are moving on from that. For true reconciliation with Indigenous Australia and a real effort from this parliament for Indigenous people, we need to make sure that this piece of legislation is supported and that it goes through this House into the Senate so that it reinstates the Racial Discrimination Act. I commend the bill to the House.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill 2009. I add my voice to those of other speakers in this debate who have pointed out the immense importance of this legislation receiving bipartisan support. The reason it is important that it receives bipartisan support is to try to avoid something that has been endemic in government administration of matters concerning the Aboriginal community in Australia for very many decades—that is, the stop-start approach that has been taken by successive Australian governments, sometimes within the term of particular governments—as was the case for the former government, which stopped and started in a number of respects in relation to Aboriginal affairs in our country—but particularly between governments.

The reason it is important that a stop-start approach is to be avoided is that continuity in administration is vital—something that shows to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community of our country that there is some consistency, something upon which Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people can plan their lives, so they can rely on the government programs, rely on the continuity of government programs and rely on a continuity of government approach. That can only be achieved if there is some consistency and, in turn, that is why the government is looking for support from the opposition for this legislation.

I would suggest that the government is entitled to look for support on a bipartisan basis for this legislation because one of the primary steps that is being taken by this bill is continuing a regime of income management in the Northern Territory, which of course was the focus of the extraordinary so-called intervention launched by the former government in June of 2007. Because it continues income management, it warrants the support of those opposite. Of course it is the case that the income management is to be now implemented on a modified basis but, nevertheless, one of the core measures that form part of the former government’s policy in June of 2007 and following is to be maintained. I will come back later to the ways in which the income management regime as it was adopted by the former government is to be modified if this legislation is passed, but the core of this bill demonstrates that the income management regime is to be continued.

One can point to statements made by the present Leader of the Opposition, the member for Warringah, before he became Leader of the Opposition, as to the importance of the extra steps that have been taken on behalf of the Aboriginal community of the Northern Territory becoming sustainable over the longer term. I am paraphrasing there, but that is in essence what the Leader of the Opposition has called for. The reforms that are contained in this legislation do just that. They make sustainable over the longer term important elements of the policy introduced by the former government—in this case, the important element of income management. It is of course the case that the government’s proposal here is to extend income management to a national basis so as to ensure that its benefits can be extended to other vulnerable Australians, but that does not in any sense take away from the need for continuity of the policies that were introduced in June 2007 by the former government, and that is what this bill is endeavouring to do.

I want to concentrate in particular on the way in which this bill reinstates the Racial Discrimination Act, because one of the most criticised aspects of the legislation introduced by the former government in 2007 was the way in which it excluded the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. The criticism was expressed by very, very many groups, by very many individuals and by many representative bodies across Australia, and it was well-founded criticism. It was criticism that was accepted by the Australian Labor Party in opposition. We gave a commitment at the last election that we would reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act in all respects in its effect on legislation operating in the Northern Territory, and that is what this bill does. I am very pleased that legislation has been introduced to ensure that the Racial Discrimination Act of the Commonwealth is to now apply. I would suggest that it is utterly unacceptable that in 2007, 2008, 2009, let alone 2010, our country should legislate to exclude the operation of a very important piece of Commonwealth legislation, namely the Racial Discrimination Act.

The statements made in 2007 were so widespread that it is difficult to know which would be the most apt to quote from, but I will perhaps start with a submission made to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs’ inquiry into the former government’s legislation. The submission was made by the Law Council of Australia, a body that I am proud to have been a director of for some five years. Back in 2007, it said to the Senate standing committee:

The Law Council considers the inclusion in legislation proposed to be enacted by the Australian Parliament in 2007 of a provision specifically excluding the operation of the RDA to be utterly unacceptable. Such an extraordinary development places Australia in direct and unashamed contravention of its obligations under relevant international instruments, most relevantly the United Nations Charter and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (“CERD”).

The Law Council then went on to explain why it was that it was unacceptable that the legislation being introduced for the Northern Territory should be exempted from the Racial Discrimination Act. What has occurred since, of course, is that the government, having come to office with a commitment to reinstate the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act, has conducted a lengthy inquiry. The Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board, which reported in October 2008 with its self-titled report, Report of the NTER Review Board, drew attention to the very great concern that had been expressed in the some 60 or 70 communities that it visited about the exemption of the legislation applying to the Northern Territory from the Racial Discrimination Act. That concern was followed by a great deal of criticism from UN bodies and the UN special rapporteur in 2009.

It is worth quoting, because it brings down to a personal level the criticisms that had been expressed to the NTER Review Board when it was conducting its very lengthy consultation through 2008. The review board said the following:

Criticisms of the Intervention have tended to focus on the explicit exclusion of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (RDA) and the Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Act—

in the Howard government legislation. They went on to say—

The two key measures identified as having possibly breached the RDA were income management and the compulsory acquisition of land under five-year leases.

               …            …            …

Not surprisingly, there was a convergence among official commentaries and submissions to the Board around the fundamental principle of international human rights law that different classes of rights cannot be traded off against each other. This principle is captured in article 5 of the Vienna Declaration on Human Rights (1993).

It is important to note that criticisms over the exclusion of the RDA do not simply reflect an ‘academic’ debate. Throughout the Board’s community visits and consultations with various organisations and representatives, it was made abundantly clear that people in Aboriginal communities felt humiliated and shamed by the imposition of measures that marked them out as less worthy of the legislative protections afforded other Australians.

These concerns were most palpable in the context of comments and submissions relating to the compulsory acquisition of land—

and so on. The review board left no doubt about the importance of reinstating the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act and made a direct recommendation to this effect: that government action affecting Aboriginal communities must respect Australia’s human rights obligations and conform to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

Throughout the course of the consultation that was conducted through 2009 very similar sentiments were expressed in community after community, that there was a sense of shame and humiliation and resistance to the notion that it was necessary to provide an exclusion of the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act. It ought to be no surprise that, on the government’s announcement at the end of November last year that the Racial Discrimination Act was to be reinstated, that was very directly and widely welcomed by a range of representative bodies, individuals and groups across Australia.

I had meant to also record the very severe criticism that was made of the exemption from the Racial Discrimination Act by Mr James Anaya, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous people, who raised concerns when he visited Australia in the second part of last year. He issued a statement in which he expressed concern about the exemption. This was a general report he was making about Australia. He said:

Of particular concern is the Northern Territory Emergency Response, which by the Government’s own account is an extraordinary measure, especially in its income management regime, imposition of compulsory leases, and community-wide bans on alcohol consumption and pornography. These measures overtly discriminate against aboriginal peoples, infringe their right of self-determination and stigmatise already stigmatised communities.

          …            …            …

As currently configured and carried out, the Emergency Response is incompatible with Australia’s obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, treaties to which Australia is a party, as well as incompatible with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples …

The special rapporteur urged the government to act swiftly to reinstate the protections of the Racial Discrimination Act in regard to the Indigenous peoples of the Northern Territory.

A range of other UN bodies, including the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, all drew attention to and directly criticised the exception of the former government’s legislation from the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act. It therefore was to be expected that, when the government announced at the end of November last year that the Racial Discrimination Act was to be reinstated, that announcement would be welcomed by, amongst others, the Law Institute of Victoria. I should mention that the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs is presently conducting an inquiry into this bill and has received a very large number of submissions which it is presently considering and conducting hearings about. I have looked at a number of those submissions and I note, for example, the Law Institute of Victoria welcoming the action of the government to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act, the statement by the Law Council of Australia welcoming the government’s decision to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act, and indeed the submission made to that Senate committee by the Australian Human Rights Commission, which welcomes the government’s decision to reinstate the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act.

I should note that, while those bodies have welcomed the reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act, they express continuing concerns about some of the legislative techniques that have been adopted. But the importance of this bill is the reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act to restore Australia to the position that it should occupy. We should never, ever again—and I trust that it will not occur again—put this country in a position where it is seen by the international community to be saying that there is some situation in Australia in respect of which international human rights norms, the human rights protections that are contained in the Racial Discrimination Act, are not to apply.

There is a great deal of care that has been taken by the government in devising the provisions not merely to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act but to continue with the measures which will be regarded as special measures, such as the income management regime. In that regard it is worth noting the very detailed comments that the Australian Human Rights Commission has made, in its public submission to the Senate standing committee which is presently conducting an inquiry into this bill, about the proposals that have been put forward by the Greens in relation to reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act. The Greens have put forward a bill which deals with similar subject matter to the bill that is now before the House. They have adopted a different approach, which is to provide both for the reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act and also to include what is known as a notwithstanding clause, which is something that the Human Rights Commission and others had called for. The Greens bill allows for reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act immediately on proclamation of the bill. The adoption of that framework has led the Australian Human Rights Commission to comment that they are very concerned that adopting an approach which says that all acts done under legislation governing an aspect of the administration of Aboriginal affairs are to constitute special measures will lead to great difficulty.

The Social Justice Commissioner has already observed in his report of 2007 that it is not possible for the entire legislation to be a special measure. In its submission to the Senate committee the Australian Human Right Commission noted:

This is because a number of the measures in the legislation are not a proportionate response to the problems they seek to address and were introduced without community consent. While the Commission supports the change in legislative language away from special measures being ‘deemed’, the Commission does not accept the characterisation of the legislation as a whole as a special measure.

The Human Rights Commission has a further criticism of the Greens’ approach to this area. It comments:

… the Greens’ Bill does not include a redesign of the individual NTER measures to be compliant with the RDA. While it leaves individual measures open to legal challenge under the RDA, the Commission suggests that Parliament should seek to make the NTER compliant with the RDA, rather than leave it to individuals to challenge aspects that may be discriminatory.

(Time expired)

Debate interrupted.