Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2011. This bill seeks to introduce much needed improvements to the compliance requirements for job seekers. Unemployment is currently 4.9 per cent and many businesses are crying out for staff, yet job seeker income support for 2011-12 is still estimated to cost taxpayers $7.2 billion. In March 2011, 179,041 job seekers were classified as long-term unemployed, meaning that they have been on income support for 12 months or more. In yesterday's budget the term, which is already in existence but certainly featured in the budget, was 'very long-term unemployed'. That gives us a sense of the nature of this problem. On top of a very sizeable income support budget, billions of dollars is spent by the government to provide job search support.

Whilst I have a few criticisms of the current system, there are countless organisations offering employment services to job seekers nationally. These people are at the coalface and work very hard to place people into jobs. On a personal note it is a privilege to meet people who work in our job service agencies, particularly with challenging individuals. These people have dedicated their lives to getting those people into work and onto a meaningful pathway in life. But noncompliance has costs for these employment service providers and for Centrelink. Having to constantly phone job seekers to ask why they did not attend a meeting are distractions that take away from the core role of the employment services provider—getting someone into a job. It is as simple as that.

We need to ensure that job seekers are given the support they need to take up job vacancies that exist. However, if a job seeker is not attending appointments, they are not going to get off welfare anytime soon. The first stage or an early stage is to attend those appointments. In the last 12 months approximately two million job interviews, activities or provider appointments were missed by job seekers with no valid excuse given. This is a clear indictment of the failure of the current compliance system and of the urgent need for reform.

We need to drastically improve job seeker engagement with employment services providers. I suspect that part of the reason for this abysmal attendance record stems from the fact that many job seekers believe they will not be penalised if they fail to attend an appointment. In all likelihood they may well be right, with only half of all participation reports lodged with Centrelink being upheld. These are reports provided by the job service agency to Centrelink, which is the agency that must withhold payment for non-attendance.

We know that there are many reasons why people do not make job interviews and we understand that some of those reasons stem from the nature of that person's life. They may be vulnerable, they may be homeless and they may have all sorts of issues with which they are dealing, and those issues are recognised by the system. This is not an approach that suggests that everybody will be put into a category of losing income support should they not attend. But I am waiting with interest to see how this government describes those vulnerabilities in the regulations. In other words, how it draws that very careful distinction between those who need a bit of a push to attend an employment interview and those who, with the best will in the world, cannot.

The Rudd government has to shoulder the blame for watering down mutual obligation with their failed employment services reform legislation in 2008 and letters sent by both the then minister and the department deputy secretary urging providers to turn a blind eye to job seeker noncompliance. This was a clear strategy of the Labor Party, certainly the Labor Left, voicing their disapproval of the concept of mutual obligation. We have also seen Work for the Dole virtually abolished under Labor with the March figures indicating only 9,151 people were participating in Work for the Dole. This program has been remarkably successful in giving job seekers a work-like experience, and Teaching Skills in Demand has come under fire from Labor ever since its inception. This is a clear sign of the lack of commitment the government has to mutual obligation. But the decision that we see reflected in this bill, to get a bit more serious about making job seekers comply with their obligations, is a positive move in the right direction. Unfortunately, it has taken three years to come about, during which time many job seekers have become complacent. Mutual obligation requires people in receipt of income support to make reasonable efforts to look for a job. There are, regrettably, some Australians who do view welfare as a lifestyle choice. A firm but fair compliance regime sends to these people the message that it is not okay to sit at home and cash your welfare cheque with no intention of ever really looking for a job. Income support payments are designed to be a temporary safety net, nothing more. There is a continuum between somebody's obligations to contribute to the society in which they live and society's obligations to look after its most vulnerable and disadvantaged. We in the coalition will never walk away from the obligation that governments have to look after the most disadvantaged—those who cannot cope. But into the love has to come the tough. The tough love approach has been missing from this government's approach with some fairly poor results, particularly for the job seekers themselves.

Welfare dependency is a real concern in this country. There are suburbs where intergenerational unemployment is rife. We have to break the mindset that you can live on welfare from the cradle to the grave, but that is a very tough challenge and it requires a tough approach. Children should not be raised to believe that they are entitled to a lifetime of taxpayer funded welfare, but they need to be shown the benefits and possibilities of a job. That children are growing up in households where no generation has worked—we are into the fourth generation in terms of intergenerational unemployment—underlines the dimensions of that challenge. It is very hard for a child who has never known a parent or role model who has worked for a living to understand the reward a job brings, from both a social point of view and a financial point of view. The best way to help these children overcome the disadvantage that faces them is to help them get a good education and a job.

I mentioned the privilege of meeting people who work with job seekers. Everywhere I go I also meet those who are conducting the programs that try to bring a group of people who have been completely disengaged from the system back into the system and back onto that pathway. Some of those programs work amazingly well, and I thank the providers. I am not going to name them because I would miss out on somebody important.

Just on the weekend, in the west of my electorate of Farrer, near the small town of Pooncarie—which is on the Darling River for those who do not know it—I met somebody who was involved in taking a group of kids from the bush who had never known meaningful employment and training them in horticulture. The training they received would lead to a horticulture certificate II. The feedback I got about this program, which is one of the government's current programs, was that it was not really working very successfully. The young people concerned would come, they would have the sandwiches at morning tea—which underscores the fact they may not have eaten at home—and then they would disappear, because there was nothing actually forcing them to stay there for a day's work. The other problem was that they were completing training that did not really mean much to them at that point in time. There are times when there is much work for those with a horticulture certificate but there is an abundance of people qualified in this area and at the moment there are very few jobs, given the shocking state of our wine grape industry. They could not see a connection between what they were being asked to do and a future job.

My friend was frustrated, quite frankly, because he had put a lot of effort in—he wanted them to get out of the cycle they were in—and people were turning up and not doing what they were supposed to. When he asked them in detail, they said what they really wanted to do was to learn to read and write. They really wanted to learn to read and write because then they could get a drivers licence and could drive. Many of these people, unfortunately, do drive but are not licensed. That was a practical thing that they could see, and it is a piece of education that has been sorely missed. I see some literacy and numeracy funding in the budget—not very much—and I am really interested to see that it does not just dissipate at bureaucracy level but hits the ground in a really meaningful sense.

The point is that in the current environment there is no TAFE course for these particular work experience people to attend that could be signed off as allowing them to participate in this program. They had to do a certificate II in horticulture or some other comparable certificate, but what they really needed was literacy and numeracy change. That comes down to an area in our VET and training system that needs to be looked at carefully. So when we see the headline numbers and when we see that this is the outcome, we really do have to look in detail at the program, and the simple approach often works best.

To finish this story, the fellow I was talking to spent quite a bit of time, out of hours, teaching these young people how to read and write. He put in front of them information that was relevant—not the sort of story books you would see in grade 2 but something they could actually read: road signs, traffic rules and basic instructions. They all came to life. They all loved it and actually saw a meaning and a purpose, and that is the key.

Youth unemployment remains an ongoing concern. We need to address this to prevent longer term social disadvantage. I have spoken with employers desperate to take on apprentices, but they cannot find people willing to take on an apprenticeship and who are capable of doing so. There is currently a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 11.3 per cent for people aged 15 to 24. That is just not acceptable. It is so critical that we keep these young people engaged with their employment services provider and that we work with them to help them get the skills and education they need to lift them out of the poverty trap and decrease the threat of social isolation which can occur with long-term unemployment. Long-term unemployment is not that far away for someone who today does not have a job, who lost their job three months ago. The slide from being in that position to being long-term unemployed and struggling to get a job can happen very fast and in quite a dramatic sense that affects your entire life experience. Something we should be aware of with the long-term unemployed is that it would be better for those in the early stages of unemployment to be looked after and helped—that is, perhaps more help is needed at the front end of that experience—before they actually slip into long-term unemployment. Underlying this legislation is a clear and simple message. It is one of responsibility. People must take responsibility for their own lives. If they have a legitimate reason and are unable to attend a meeting with their job services provider or if they cannot attend a job interview then they need to advise in advance. It is simple and it echoes what the vast majority of us take as a given: if you know you are ill, pick up the phone and let your office or workplace know. This is what is being asked of job seekers—not much more than a common courtesy. I know that vulnerable people in difficult positions may not be able to manage this, but we have to take it as just a small thing and a step in the right direction. You may still be in bed, you may be struggling to cope, but you can pick up the phone, you can make the call and you can say, 'I will not be there for today's interview; I need to reschedule.' As soon as somebody re-engages with their employment services provider, their payment will be reinstated.

So, to put it simply, at the beginning, if they do not turn up, their payment is suspended. If they re-engage, their payment is reinstated. Therefore, the responsibility rests with the job seeker to determine how long they will have their welfare payments withheld. In other words, when they re-engage, their welfare payment is reinstated and they will also be back paid. Those job seekers who do the right thing and attend their appointments or reschedule them in advance if they are not in a position to attend will not be penalised. But for those who deliberately shirk their responsibilities there will be a price to pay. Yet it is vital that the most vulnerable of these job seekers are not penalised unfairly. As I said, the legislation is designed to afford a measure of protection, but we need to see how that protection is described in the relevant regulations.

In my describing in a simple sense the principle behind this—of course, like most legislation, this is full of unbelievably complicated detail—the House will note that there are significant requirements on Centrelink. They are that Centrelink act in real time, that Centrelink suspend payments while the person is disengaged and, if the person reconnects, that Centrelink reinstate payment in order to give the person the message that once you are in the system and working to assist yourself and to meet your obligations then your welfare payments will continue.

Those of us who understand the complicated computer systems in our large departments will agree it is quite a tall order. I am concerned that the IT system in Centrelink may not be up to this, with the best will in the world. We saw that the budget is slashing Public Service numbers, and Centrelink needs to be resourced to do this job properly because the whole principle that underpins this legislation will fall to bits if a person who re-engages with the system actually does not receive their payment and catch up quickly. I know that those who are receiving Newstart allowance—some $239—are not in a position to look after themselves. This is a necessary and tough message, but it also needs the counterpart of the agency acting quickly to reinstate the funding where required. It is pretty scary when you look at some public policy which is designed around IT systems. The response so often when you contact an agency is, 'The system won't allow it.' So we need to make sure that the Centrelink system does allow this. It is a sensible measure which should go a considerable way towards reversing the sharp increase in attendance failures by job seekers. We need to drive home a real work ethic whilst ensuring that the system is both reasonable and manageable.

There are real problems with the current system, and NESA have identified these in their submission to the House inquiry into this legislation. I should note that this legislation was referred to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Employment. The report was done very quickly. Congratulations to the members. I think it was tabled this morning. NESA, who I just mentioned, are the National Employment Services Association. They are the peak body for Australian employment services, the only national peak body that represent the community, private, public and government sectors. Some of their comments in their submission to the House standing committee are instructive and I think they bear repeating. They make the point that there is clear support for the principle that individuals should take responsibility for undertaking steps to improve their circumstances and not be dependent on the welfare system to the extent that they have the capacity to do so.

NESA also believe that, following a period of implementation, there will be a further opportunity to strengthen the compliance framework to better support job seeker engagement and workforce participation. They indicate that there is more to be done in this area and there are improvements that can be made around the compliance requirements. They note that a considerable investment is made by government to ensure the welfare of its citizens and to provide services to assist them to address circumstances. That is the biggest outgoing cost that governments face, and it is significant. The amendments, NESA says, as outlined in the current bill are considered welcome improvements to the job seeker compliance framework and will provide greater emphasis on engagement and participation. Because they are a peak body, I think it is worth noting that they have endorsed the principle that is at work here.

Just on the subject of the inquiry of the House of Representatives standing committee, there were 10 recommendations. I am not going to read them all out, but there are a couple that I will note because I think that when a committee looks at legislation in detail and takes submissions—and there were some good submissions; they have not all agreed with this and they have not all agreed with the approaches that are in place, but they have still been good submissions—the recommendations that it comes forward with are certainly worth noting. It recommended that a brief, plain English explanation of the proposed changes be produced and made available to job seekers. That is so important. We are talking about people amongst whom many are barely literate. The principle is sound but if we were to confront them with the requirements, even perhaps not in a legislative sense, it would go over the heads of many of them and perhaps even many of us. So that is a good recommendation.

The committee recommended that the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, the Department of Human Services, employment services providers and other stakeholders work together to develop consistent guidance and training material to accompany the bill. That comes down to resources. The government has to not only announce measures but walk the walk, and resources are needed in this area.

The committee recommended that Centrelink and employment services provider staff be provided with comprehensive training in relation to the measures proposed by the bill and the guidelines. Centrelink have a huge workload. Those of us who have Centrelink agencies in our towns and have a relationship between our electorate offices and those people know how hard they work. It seems that when the government—and this is common with all governments—needs to put a program or something somewhere it often ends up with Centrelink. So they certainly need, as I said, the resources and the training. The committee also recommended that employment services providers be given clear and comprehensive guidance on how to utilise their discretion to submit a participation report on a missed appointment. We need discretion built in, because no government could legislate for every single set of circumstances for a vulnerable job seeker. But the discretion has to be used well. Officers who are required to suspend payments need to have the confidence when the time comes to actually suspend the payment.

The committee also recommended that employment services providers should be advised to utilise all re-engagement mechanisms available to them in relation to vulnerable job seekers. That recommendation comes from having looked through the submissions, including from ACOSS and some of the welfare rights organisations and headspace. That is what they highlighted—they were worried particularly about young, vulnerable job seekers. We need to be assured that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach. I know there are indicators for those people already in the Centrelink and Job Services system, but again we need to see how their circumstances will be addressed when this actually takes place. Of course the committee recommended that the House pass the job seeker compliance bill, which is clearly what we are doing.

I said that there were real problems with the current system, and NESA have identified those in their submission—in particular, the administrative burden of submitting participation reports is onerous for providers and can in some instances take up to 28 days. The NESA submission says:

... where no reasonable excuse is determined, providers generally consider that the more immediate loss of payment will provide better reinforcement and a stronger and more direct deterrent for the reconnection failure.

As I have said, we need those who operate within the system to have the confidence to actually take the step—not easy—to suspend the payment, recognising that it is in the best interests of the job seeker.

In conclusion, the coalition supports this shift to a more rigorous compliance regime—one that is firm, but certainly still fair. Under these rules, job seekers will lose their payment immediately, which in turn should help reinforce in their mind the linkage between welfare and responsibility. I congratulate the government on finally recognising that the coalition's approach in this area is the right one. I commend the bill and the committee's report to the House.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2011. I want to canvass a number of matters, but specifically I refer to the work of my colleague the member for Kingston and the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Employment, which I think has brought down a very considered set of recommendations. It is important for us to step back and put all this within the context of what the government is seeking to do broadly in the area of welfare reform and especially as it sits within the needs of the economy—where we are at; where we sit right now. It is worth noting that some of the things that are confronting the economy have sat in the economy for some time and have been reflected upon by the Reserve Bank for some time. Specifically I refer to the impact that capacity constraints have on the economy, chiefly through, for example, infrastructure road blocks or the impact that skill shortages have on the economy in driving wages up and not having skilled people to drive productivity and help the economy as it moves, particularly in the context of us emerging from the GFC. Productivity has been low for many years and does need to be increased if we expect our economy to continue growing and we expect ourselves to make a mark on the international scene as well.

The challenge for us is to work out how we can get people, particularly those who are long-term unemployed, to participate more fully in the work force and how we can assist those people to obtain the level of personal skill necessary, which is demanded by industry, business and commerce today, and so be able to have a meaningful engagement in the economy. Ultimately, I believe work should not of itself be seen just as an economic activity but as a means for people to pursue their own personal aspirations, fund their activities and provide security and hope in many respects for what they want to do for themselves, their families and those close to them and the communities in which they reside.

Our economy is currently experiencing the equivalent of a sonic boom when it comes to investment, and to ensure that the economy is able to progress as far as it can and as strongly as it can we do need to address infrastructure issues and capacity constraints brought about by skill shortages. Addressing skill shortages lies behind the budget delivered last night. It puts in place significant economic reforms that will help us in the years ahead. This bill and some of the other measures announced by the government have been designed to find a way to add to the pool of employees and skill them up and enable them to meaningfully engage in the economy. From within that perspective, this bill, along with some of the other work done in the budget, is designed to have a meaningful impact.

The bill was referred to the education and employment committee on 24 March for inquiry, and 16 submissions were received. My colleague the member for Kingston, the chair of the committee, tabled the advisory report on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Job Seeker Compliance) Bill this morning. One thing that is noteworthy, and I think this was reflected upon by the member for Kingston, is the degree of passion for social welfare and the commitment to employment participation. The inquiry drew comments from a range of different perspectives, but clearly people are concerned to ensure that the jobless are engaged back in the economy—but, at the same time, in seeking to meet this objective we need to ensure the conditions imposed are not onerous or counterproductive.

I sought to engage with people in the Chifley electorate on this issue, and I discussed some of these plans with people who had been fortunate enough to graduate from the Green Jobs program in Western Sydney. I anticipated only being there for a short period of time for the graduation and in fact stayed for two hours, canvassing a range of issues with some people who I believe are a credit to their community. We discussed the things that they want to do in progressing from a position where they believed they did not have an opportunity to get a job that was meaningful, beneficial and satisfying to them to a position now where they are looking with a great degree of confidence to where they head. They said to me that when they engaged with job providers one of their concerns was that they were referred to job interviews that they do not themselves feel will provide them with a job that will sustain their interest into the long term. One of the things that I am very mindful of with this bill is that, while you can refer people to job interviews, there obviously has to be a connection with the interests of the person you are referring to those interviews. Interviews are one thing; accepting a final offer of employment is another. But in that meeting and that very positive discussion that I had with young people in Western Sydney who had been unemployed for quite some time they indicated to me that they would be referred to employers for work that they were not interested in.

In fact, I recall that one of the successful graduates said to me: 'The reason I was attracted to this program was simple. I was at a job provider's premises'—this is how simple it was—'and I saw a brochure that was green. I turned it over and it talked about this program. I said instantly that this was what I wanted to do.' So he followed it up. He stuck with the program. This person is now going to be engaged in horticulture in a major Western Sydney council, Hawkesbury City Council. I remember just the enthusiasm on his face and the fact that he said: 'I didn't want to go into a warehouse—it wasn't for me. I didn't want to go into the logistics industry or transport. I wanted to do something with my hands but outside and feeling like I was making a contribution to the environment.'

The key with job providers, as I said, is obviously that referring people on for interviews is just one thing. Making sure that they attend is important, as is checking, if that person does not attend, that they have a reasonable excuse as to why. I note that the member for Kingston indicated today that there has been a recommendation put forward for some moderation in the criteria, so that 'reasonable' rather than 'special' excuses should be taken into account by Centrelink before making a decision on benefits. I think that is an important measure. I was equally moved to consider the point made by the member for Melbourne that engagement with the social security system, social security law and practice as maintained by Centrelink does present people with a challenge in its complexity. The member for Kingston, the chair of the committee, also reflected in her contribution this morning on the importance of having plain English materials available to explain to people these measures that will be enacted, letting them understand clearly what is at stake and their rights and responsibilities under this system.

I think these are important measures. But again I come back to the point that, if we put in place a punitive measure, that will not be to the longer term benefit of the people we are seeking to help. I am encouraged, having had discussions with the member for Kingston on this issue, because I have a deep interest in the bill, particularly for the seat that I represent—Chifley, in Western Sydney, where we have our fair share of long-term unemployed and where retention rates are lower than the national average. In fact, when I reflect on it, political parties of either persuasion have sought to tighten up compliance in welfare reform. It makes for great headlines, but whether or not it has a meaningful impact on the long-term unemployed is the next step that needs to be considered.

In terms of the long-term unemployed themselves, we potentially look to hit a barrier where some of those people are not engaging in the economy for particular reasons—one of which, I would advance, is mental health issues, for example, or disability. What support measures are in place to ensure that they can start to engage with employers and take on work? It is not that they do not have a passion for it; it is that there are barriers that need to be addressed. We always need to be mindful of those. Again, in the consultations and discussions with the chair, the member for Kingston, she said that this was a matter that had come up during the course of the public submissions and meetings that took place. It was reflected upon, too, that for people who did engage in the system who had, for example, a mental health issue or a disability, even if they had short periods of work and then lapsed—for want of a better term, for the purpose of ease of discussion in this debate—they still found a point at which they could re-engage and those periods of engagement lengthened. That is important as well.

As I said, both sides of the House take punitive measures in this regard, and I am certainly not a bleeding heart. I think the priority is to keep people engaged in work, to keep people in a position where they are able to earn money for their own sake and their family's sake and meet the aspirations that they have for themselves and the ones they love. But this problem of long-term unemployment has bedevilled both sides of politics and we need to have (1) a commitment to provide adequate resources and (2) patience so that we will commit over the long term to dealing with this long-term problem. We need to deal with the problem from an economic perspective, because particularly in an environment where we have skills shortages we must get those people re-engaged, and from a social and community perspective as well. Those are the points that I am very mindful of in this debate, in considering this bill, and in broader welfare reform as well. But this does not deny—both sides of politics share this—that we do need to find ways to keep people engaged in the economy and in the community.

From an employment perspective, particularly through the course of a global financial crisis when 16 million jobs were lost in other advanced economies, I am proud of the fact that in our country we have been able to create more than 300,000 jobs since the GFC began. That included a training program, Work for the Dole projects et cetera. In this year's budget, as I have mentioned, the government is working towards and continuing its commitment to building our future workforce capabilities, especially through training and skilling Australians to boost the economy. It is building on the reforms the government has delivered in education, welfare and employment services. With obtaining a job comes a sense of responsibility and personal commitment, especially for the long-term unemployed for whom motivation to seek a job is difficult. However, there are many opportunities available and means to obtain assistance. The Minister for Employment Participation has previously said that for many years the rate at which job seekers attend appointments with employment services has been around 55 per cent and that the system is demand driven and there are no more waiting lists. This calls for a greater improvement in the appointments designed to help job seekers get into work. The bill improves the relationship of those seeking work and those wanting to help them find work .The proposed bill is a method to encourage job seekers to take steps to attend that first crucial appointment and to continue these appointments to help find work. Attending an appointment, commitment and punctuality are skills that job seekers can take when applying for future jobs.

The suspension of income support payments for job seekers who fail to attend an appointment or participate in an activity with their employment service provider sends a sense of immediacy and seriousness at the importance of attending those appointments and activities to help find a job. If the job seeker fails to re-engage and does not have a reasonable excuse—a reconnection failure for missing their appointments—then there will be a penalty deducted from their next payment. However, if the job seeker then agrees to re-engage and to stay engaged and meet this requirement then payment is restored in full. The bill heads up job seekers to go down the right path and early intervention at the appropriate appointment stage looks at those affected by long-term unemployment. The bill encourages recipients into participation in work and community life and is part of our commitment to welfare reform. I commend the bill to the House.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on and support the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2011. The bill in question will enhance the current job seeker compliance framework by providing additional incentives for job seekers to engage with their employment service providers and to participate fully in activities designed to improve their employment prospects. The bill is going to introduce suspension of payment for job seekers following an initial failure to attend an appointment or, in some instances, an activity such as training or Work for the Dole. As soon as a job seeker agrees to attend the appointment, however, their payment will be restored with full back payment.

Under this bill all job seekers will be required to attend a rescheduled appointment regardless of their reasoning for missing the initial one. If the job seeker attends the rescheduled appointment they will not be penalised as such. If a job seeker, however, does not attend the rescheduled appointment, payment will again be suspended but this time if they do not have a reasonable excuse for missing the appointment they will incur a reconnection failure and lose payment for each day from the second missed appointment until they do attend a rescheduled appointment—that is, there will be no back pay for that particular period.

Why is this particular bill necessary? There are reasons both in principle and in philosophy and there are also some very specific reasons why this bill is necessary. Let me first outline some of the broader principles why this bill is necessary. The broader principle is that we should be doing everything that we can to reasonably get people off welfare and into work. We do no service to anybody, whether it is to the broader community or indeed to unemployed people, by allowing people to stay on welfare without any responsibilities being attached to that welfare payment. I do not believe that we are a compassionate society by not attaching responsibilities to welfare. In fact, I do not think it is compassionate at all to not attach responsibilities to welfare. I have seen this in my own electorate of Aston where people who become welfare dependent over time and do not accept jobs that are available for them to pursue become debilitated and you end up having long-term welfare dependence and long-term debilitation.

I have also seen this in Indigenous communities at close quarters. I spent a few years working with Noel Pearson in the Cape York Institute where we were working on some welfare reform measures which indeed have become some of the groundbreaking welfare reform measures that are being rolled out in other places across Australia. The insight which Noel Pearson had was that long-term welfare without reciprocity, without responsibility being added to welfare payments, can indeed lead to debilitation. I think that is a very important point which Pearson has been making very strongly for the last decade. He has spearheaded that effort to get all of us to be thinking differently about welfare—that it should not be a destination in itself but rather rightly be considered a safety net for people in difficult circumstances and that welfare has responsibilities attached to it as well. So that is a very, very important principle which I think we need to stop and pause and think about. That should govern our actions in relation to welfare reform efforts—that is, that there is responsibility attached to welfare payments.

The coalition has been talking about this broad principle for a long time. We introduced in the Howard government the Work for the Dole scheme and we also introduced mutual obligation as a broad principle. These were both very good measures which were put in place. I am pleased that the government is now saying that it also believes in some of those principles. I certainly was concerned, I think it was in 2008, when the employment minister at the time was telling Centrelink officers that they should not be breaching people who had not been delivering upon their job compliance requirements. I think it is important that we have a system in place and that it is adhered to. That is the broader philosophical reason why I think this bill is an important step in the right direction. If we look at the actual specifics, we will also see that action needs to be taken in this particular area. When we look at the data we see that, currently, unemployment is at a low point, about 4.9 per cent. By long-term historical standards we have very low unemployment. At the same time, however, there are 179,000 people in long-term unemployment and there are of course many people who are in short-term unemployment. One of the key economic issues that we have at the same time is indeed a labour shortage, a skills shortage. I hear about it every day in my electorate and we read about it in the newspapers on a daily basis: businesses cannot find workers—sometimes workers at reasonably entry level jobs, low-skill jobs. Of course, there is also great demand for skilled workers. But at the same time that these jobs are going begging only 55 per cent of job seekers are actually attending appointments with employment service providers. So 45 per cent of appointments with job service providers are being missed. In the last 12 months alone, approximately two million job interviews, activities or provider appointments were missed. These are staggering numbers. When only 55 per cent of people are attending their appointments then I think we do need to look more closely at that and strengthen some of the compliance measures. This bill heads in the right direction on that.

The bill itself outlines a broad framework. In some respects, the devil in the detail of this bill will come about by looking at the specifics of what is defined as a 'reasonable excuse' for not attending an appointment. Of course, there are many valid, legitimate reasons for not attending an appointment. You could be in an accident yourself and therefore physically unable to get to an appointment. There could be other very legitimate reasons why you cannot make an appointment and they should be specified and documented so that Centrelink officials are aware of those. But we do not want to make the list so broad that it will be overly easy for a job seeker to avoid having to deliver upon their obligations. We need to carefully think about and carefully define what a reasonable excuse is for not attending interviews or job seeker appointments. We will be watching very carefully what the regulations say in relation to that.

We also need to look at what the burden on Centrelink will be. This bill introduces some additional burdens on Centrelink to ensure that the measures can be enacted and enacted in a timely manner. Centrelink obviously needs to be properly resourced to deal with these additional burdens so that the agency can act quickly and send the message quickly to the job seeker so that the job seeker understands that a penalty will be coming. I assume this will also require additional IT investment in Centrelink's systems for that to occur. That needs to be examined, and I have heard very little about what is going to occur in that area.

There are also some recommendations and other issues which should be addressed concurrently with the introduction of this bill. Some of these came up at the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Employment inquiry into this bill. I was a part of that inquiry. Some of those recommendations are quite sensible. One is the need for additional research or additional data to be collected on exactly why people are failing to meet their job seeker appointments and their requirements under the compliance regimes. The Brotherhood of St Laurence, which made a submission, suggested that we need a 'more considered understanding through research of the reasons why the various subgroups and subpopulations of job seekers are not connecting well with their service providers'. I think the recommendation that additional research be undertaken is sensible.

I will highlight some of the other recommendations that came out of the House of Representatives inquiry that I think the government should consider closely and, hopefully, enact. Recommendation 2 recommended 'developing consistent guidance and training materials to accompany the bill'. I think recommendation 4 is worthy of consideration and implementation. The committee recommended that employment service providers be given clear and comprehensive guidance as to how to utilise their discretion to submit a participation report on a missed appointment. In fact, one issue which came out very strongly through the parliamentary inquiry was that employment service providers do have a broad range of discretion and that having additional guidelines would help them make responsible and timely decisions.

Let me conclude by, again, reiterating my support for this bill. I think it is a bill which is heading in the right direction as a further measure of welfare reform. As I said previously, welfare reform is something which the coalition has been talking about for some time, and it enacted some important measures when it was in government. It is also an area in which I have had a personal interest and have worked for a period of time. I support the measures. I hope that they do have an impact in supporting job seekers to find work which they can get satisfaction from doing and in getting them off the welfare payment system.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2011. Last night in his budget speech the Treasurer talked about jobs, workforce participation and getting for people what the Prime Minister has often described as the benefit and dignity of work. I would describe it as self-esteem and self-belief; that is what it is about. Getting a person a job is the best way to redistribute wealth in this country. The old-fashioned notions that you engage in some sort of Marxist or communistic redistribution of wealth are well and truly gone out of the pantheon of responsible political parties in this country. The idea is to get a person a job. If you create jobs you create wealth, you create financial security and you create self-esteem, not just in the household but in the next generation. Intergenerational poverty is attacked by getting a person a job. Sometimes you need to be tough; you need to be a person who gives someone a prod. A government sometimes needs to do that. Sometimes governments need to express that tough love. Sometimes we need to actually provide an incentive for people to break out of the cycle of the despair and depression of unemployment.

Last night the Treasurer talked about creating infrastructure projects that will create jobs in my home state of Queensland. This bill is about making sure that people will work in those types of projects—projects that will create important wealth across Queensland through the mining boom and across the agricultural sector, in retail and construction and all across South-East Queensland and Queensland generally. What we saw last night was the creation of incentives to work, a carrot-and-stick approach that will deliver a new workplace development fund to create 130,000 new training places over four years. In my home state of Queensland we will see trade apprentice income bonuses for 95,800 Queenslanders, who will receive a $1,700 benefit. In my electorate, 2,786 people will enjoy the benefit of that sort of trade bonus income assistance.

You will see incentives for employment, and that is what we are talking about here in this legislation—incentives to help people to get jobs. Obviously in my electorate we will need that help as we recover from the flood, but we will see that help across Queensland. In Queensland, 48,887 of the very long-term unemployed—people who have been without work for two years or more—will get help to find work and prepare for work, with an additional $2.7 million from 2012 to 2015 to support local employment services as well. We are going to see that across Queensland and elsewhere, and we are going to see that as we get these people back into employment.

Unemployment in this country is 4.9 per cent. In America it is about 8.8 per cent and across the European zone it is about 9.9 per cent. As the Treasurer said in a speech I heard not more than 10 or 15 minutes ago, we do not have a person to spare. So legislation of the sort before us today does fit in with the narrative we are talking about in creating wealth, creating jobs, creating productivity growth and making sure that economic development is spread across the whole economy, particularly in flood affected areas of Queensland.

This bill represents another example of how the federal Labor government is helping unemployed people back to work. I grew up in a household in which my dad was a cleaner at the meatworks and my mum was a shop assistant, so I knew how important a job was in what is traditionally described as a working-class family in Ipswich. I know the importance of hard work to self-esteem, to career possibilities, to being able to fulfil potential, to provide for your family the kind of financial security it needs and to build a worthwhile life of not just affluence but also security. Employment is absolutely essential to creating a productive nation and to supporting families, and to give a firm direction to job seekers is absolutely critical.

This bill implements our election commitment to introduce tougher rules for job seekers. Announced on 11 August 2010 as part of our program was a policy named Modernising Australia's Welfare System. The amendments in this bill will improve the current job seeker compliance framework by providing additional incentives for job seekers to engage with their employment service providers and to participate fully in activities designed to improve their employment prospects.

We have seen over and over how long-term unemployment can destroy self-esteem, create intergenerational poverty and cause whole communities to go into despair, to go into activities of crime and to have poor health outcomes and regression. When communities are not healthy in their economic prospect, people get an unhealthy physical outlook on life and engage in all kinds of nefarious behaviour. So getting a person a job is a good way not just to reduce criminal activities but also to improve the prospects of regional and rural areas as well as urban areas across the country.

Too many Australians who are without a job and are capable of work rely on unemployment benefits or the like. At a time when our economy is going from strength to strength, particularly enjoying the benefit of the mining boom, we need to make sure we can get people into employment. Talking to manufacturing industries in my electorate, in Ipswich and Somerset, as well as people in the metalworks industries across my electorate and big employers like Swift Australia at Dinmore, where there is one of the biggest meatworks across the country, I hear them crying out for more and more employment. We are seeing more and more people going from, say, the Bremer Institute of TAFE, before they have completed their TAFE courses, onto the mining sector. So we are creating these workforce shortages, scattered around economies west, south and north of Brisbane.

This government is determined to make sure that unemployed people get back in the workforce and can be engaged as productive members of our society. People who have jobs are more likely to engage in civic society. They are more likely to be involved in sporting groups and RSLs. They are more likely to be involved in church and charitable work. They are more likely to help the homeless. They are more likely to be on P&F associations. They are more likely to participate in civic life, because they feel they have a stake in it. So this is good not just for social inclusion but for social equity and for the benefit of our economic development. At times it means that we have to be disciplined; we have to be tough, and the government takes a parens patriae approach when it comes to this. It is a case of adopting a fairly paternalistic approach, but it is necessary. This bill will introduce suspension of payments for job seekers following an initial failure to attend an appointment or, in some circumstances, an activity such as a Work for the Dole scheme. As soon as the job seeker agrees to attend this appointment, their payment will be restored with full back pay. All job seekers will be required to attend a rescheduled appointment regardless of their reason for missing the first appointment. If a job seeker attends the rescheduled appointment, they will not be penalised. In this way, job seekers will learn to understand the importance of taking personal measures to ensure that they find work. When they get a job, if the job starts at 9 am, they cannot just say, 'I'm going to turn up at 10 or 11 am.' What employer would want that? They need discipline in their lives, and the discipline that they will gain in attending these rescheduled appointments will be very important for them. In this way, job seekers will be encouraged to actively look for future employment prospects and will get used to the idea of fulfilling their obligations.

Should a job seeker not attend a rescheduled appointment, payment will again be suspended. But this time, if they do not have a reasonable excuse for missing the appointment, they will incur a reconnection failure fee and lose payment for each day from the second missed appointment until they reconnect. And they will not receive any back pay. That is the stick approach. There is punishment. Reasonable-excuse provisions are going to be tightened so that if a job seeker has a reasonable excuse for not attending an appointment or activity it will not be accepted if they could have given advance notice of their inability to attend. In this way, job seekers will be under no illusions as to the expectation of the federal Labor government that they need to take responsibility in securing employment. In this way, the self-esteem, the pride or the dignity—whatever you want to call it—of work and the value of contributing to the ongoing prosperity of their country and their respective communities can become an important part of their lives. That will be good for them and good for their children as well. If they have not experienced it in the past, it will be good for them to pass on that message—as employers will, no doubt, when they ultimately find a job.

We cannot afford lost opportunities in terms of employment. In an electorate like mine, which includes the two fastest growing areas in south-east Queensland, Somerset at 4.2 per cent growth last year and Ipswich at 3.5 per cent growth, we cannot afford to have people not in employment. The development of the whole corridor west of Brisbane is crucial, and jobs created locally, with people trained and employed locally, are absolutely vital.

This approach involves us engaging in what I would have to describe as some pretty tough big brother tactics. But that is absolutely necessary. We know that job opportunities are crucial. We need to tell people that. We need to tell that to our children and our neighbours and our friends. As someone who has employed dozens and dozens of people in his working life, I can tell you that it is extremely important that you get the right person for the job and that that person knows that they have to turn up on time, be there, work and contribute. This approach looks tough. It is tough. It should be tough, because it will benefit the Australian economy. I commend the legislation to the House.

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2011, it is worth going back three years to the heady days of Kevin 07 and the first months of the government and all of the things that Labor had promised that sounded so good at the time but which have turned out to be massive failures. These include the trades training centres, the productivity places program, the GP superclinics and, later, pink batts and school halls. You need to have a memory longer than a goldfish to remember why we are debating this. When Labor were elected they proceeded to dismantle the Job Network and they wound back the principle of mutual obligation that had underpinned the creation of more than two million jobs, more than one million of them full-time jobs.

I have a personal interest in this because, as opposition spokesperson on employment participation from 2007 to 2009, I remember what the Labor Party did. When they came into government, very early on the departmental secretary advised employment service providers to be lenient on job seekers regarding their mutual obligations. But then they came up with this concept of no show, no pay. The opposition warned at the time that this would be a failure—a massive failure—and that it would see a rise in long-term unemployment and do nothing to address welfare dependency. Today, we have the very sorry picture of Australia having one of the highest rates of jobless families in the world. We need to go back and remember why mutual obligation is important.

Work for the Dole is commonly understood as being one of the landmark programs of mutual obligation. Since it was introduced in 1997, more than 600,000 have participated in Work for the Dole. They have gained the discipline and dignity of performing useful work while developing life skills critical to obtaining and keeping a real job. The Labor Party promised to keep Work for the Dole at the 2007 election. But by their actions they have allowed it to decay and become a hollow shell of what it was. Since 2007, Work for the Dole participation has fallen by 60 per cent to less than 10,000. Under the coalition, Work for the Dole projects were designed to address at least one skill in demand. Work for the Dole helped by breaking the cycle of welfare dependency and encouraging a work ethic. It helped to get job seekers job ready. The evidence shows that the longer someone is out of the workforce the less likely it is that they will ever work again. Work for the Dole provides people with a job-like experience, giving them skills and getting them into a work routine. The coalition has always held very strongly that those in receipt of unemployment benefits must recognise that they have a subsequent responsibility to look for work and contribute back to the society that supports them. When Labor were elected, they proposed the introduction of a no-show, no-pay compliance system. Incredibly, this meant that, if a job seeker missed a job interview, if they did not turn up to a Work for the Dole activity or if they did not attend an appointment with their employment service provider, they were docked one day's pay, $44.93 as at 5 December 2008, when it was introduced.

It gives me no pleasure at all to say that the points the opposition made in late 2008 and early 2009 have been proven right. At the time in October 2008 when Labor introduced this failed system, I said:

In striking a balance between engagement and sanction, the government have got the balance wrong.

I also said:

Going into the future, we will see, sadly, increased numbers of long-term unemployed if the Labor government have their system for employment services passed by this parliament …

Since then we have seen that the numbers of long-term unemployed have skyrocketed, and they have skyrocketed particularly since the introduction of Job Services Australia in July 2009. At the moment, the percentage of long-term unemployed as a proportion of the total unemployed is over 20 per cent. That is the highest it has been in at least five years. We have also seen huge increases in the numbers of people who are classified as long-term unemployed. On the ABS figures, when Labor came to power there were less than 70,000 Australians who were long-term unemployed. There are now almost 120,000 on the ABS figures. But on the job seeker figures it is even worse than that. On the figures that I have, in March 2011 there were 179,041 job seekers listed as long-term unemployed.

Now, incredibly, Labor's no-show, no-pay system will not even last two years. It was already obvious that this was a massive failure within a year of them introducing it. Unbelievably, in the last 12 months there have been approximately two million job interviews, activities or provider appointments missed by job seekers with no excuses or with unsatisfactory excuses given. This is yet another example of a government which has lost its way and of a government which has been shown to be completely incompetent in addressing the challenges of unemployment and the challenges of welfare reform. The high rate of missed appointments over the last 12 months is clear evidence that the Labor government's watering down of mutual obligation in 2008 with their no-show, no-pay compliance model did not work.

I do not like, as a rule, to quote from myself, but in October 2008 I said:

The problem with weakening the compliance regime is that it will be much less effective in changing behaviour for the positive. It will become a toothless tiger.

And that is why we are here today. When you hear the government speakers, it is as if they are saying, 'We have to come in and be tough and get more compliance.' This is a classic example of trying to fix a problem that you have created. This was created by the Labor Party, by the government and by the incompetence of your ministers. We said that no show, no pay would not work because there was not enough disincentive. Clearly that is right. There have been more than two million missed interviews, missed appointments and missed attendances at things like Work for the Dole. This is yet another policy failure from the government. It is a policy failure of their own creation.

This bill seeks to correct the government's own failure by reinstating some tougher compliance measures for job seekers with activity test requirements, and this is a welcome restoration. But it is a totally unnecessary restoration. It is only necessary because the government in their wisdom decided that they would water down mutual obligation—and there are still some problems on that front. Work for the Dole, as I said, is a hollow shell of what it was. Of the new Job Services Australia structure that was announced with so much fanfare in 2008-09, much of it has not even survived this year's budget. It has not even gone for three years and already the government have realised that things like the Innovation Fund are not working, and they have been allowed to fall by the wayside.

The opposition welcomes a firm but fair system to ensure that those receiving income support who are capable of working recognise that welfare is a temporary safety net and not a lifestyle choice. On the specifics of the legislation, in the event of a job seeker failing to attend an appointment or a required activity like Work for the Dole without a reasonable excuse being given in advance, support payments for that job seeker will be suspended. The onus will then be on the job seeker to attend a rescheduled appointment, when their payment will be reinstated with back pay. If the job seeker fails to attend the rescheduled appointment, payment will be suspended indefinitely until they do attend an appointment, with no back pay payable. In addition, the reasonable-excuse provisions are also being tightened to ensure that even if there was a reasonable excuse it will not be accepted if they could have given advance notice for not attending.

In closing, I welcome the acknowledgement by the government that their no-show, no-pay compliance system has failed. The results are there for all to see: two million missed job interviews, appointments and activities and long-term unemployment now at 179,000, compared with 69,900 when Labor came to power. I think it is regrettable that these have been two wasted years for people who are on welfare, for people who are long-term unemployed, but I do welcome the acknowledgement by the government that their system has failed. We are now moving on to Job Services Australia mark 2, and I welcome the changes proposed today to restore tougher compliance measures for job seekers.

Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2011. The task of welfare reform and management is obviously not an easy one; however, it is one of the very important tasks and activities of this parliament. Welfare and participation payments are fundamental in ensuring that an appropriate social safety net exists in this country. It is the Australian Labor Party that has always recognised the great need for appropriate welfare in our society. It is the Australian Labor Party that has always recognised the need for appropriate participation payments in our society. In representing my electorate of Robertson, I am mindful that my work in this place should have a positive, practical impact on not only the lives of those in my electorate but all Australians.

The practical considerations of any changes to legislation should be the dominant purpose for the welfare reform that we are undertaking—practical considerations such as what benefits the Australian community the most, and what is most beneficial for the long-term economic progress of the nation. This bill seeks to provide sensible reform to job seeker compliance. The role of participation payments is to provide welfare for the duration that a person is seeking employment until they are able to attain it. Indeed, under the Australian social security system, job seekers are required to actively look for employment when they receive participation payments.

This bill delivers on an election commitment that was part of the 'Modernising Australia's welfare system' package that was announced on 11 August 2011. The central component of this bill is the incentive it provides job seekers when they are receiving participation payments. The Social Security Administration Act 1999 will be amended to provide for the suspension of a job seeker's income support payment if they fail to attend an appointment or engage in an activity such as training. This provision has the practical effect of providing an incentive for job seekers to attend appointments when required and to participate in activities that will benefit their future prospects of employment.

Under the amendments, the suspension of income support payment will occur after the reporting of an initial failure to attend an appointment without a reasonable excuse, or a failure to participate in training actives without a reasonable excuse. Importantly, full income support payments will be restored when the job seeker re-engages with appointments and training requirements. This provides an important incentive for job seekers to comply with the requirements set down in the act. It is also important that these requirements are complied with not just for the benefit of the national economy and the wise expenditure of funds on welfare payments but also for the financial, social and emotional health of job seekers. Going out each day to look for work and being knocked back can, I think, sometimes be a very disheartening experience. In the evidence that we heard on this matter during the education and employment inquiry were stories of how critical it was for job seekers to have the engagement with service providers who were able to assist them to continue that journey, to identify areas that they might need training in and to share the experience of sometimes failure in achieving the jobs that they were after. It is vital that they reconnect and continue to share that journey towards full employment, which is so important for all Australians. There is so much to be said for the dignity of work, not just because of the freedom that it gives us and the money that we earn from it and then spend in our own particular way but also because of the connection it gives us with other human beings on a daily basis. People notice when we show up. People notice when we might not be there. Opportunities for care are provided in the workplace in very significant ways. It is not fair that some Australians should miss out on that. The capacity for service providers in this field to help people re-engage should not be underestimated, and that is why these appointments can be really critical in helping people succeed.

Recently, I was involved in an apprentice drive by the Central Coast Group Training, and I wrote to over 500 small businesses in the seat of Robertson about it. I am pleased to report that the group training scheme reached its target of employing 30 apprentices and trainees within 30 days—in fact, it exceeded its target. The vast majority of businesses to which I wrote were small businesses. An example of one small business that did employ a trainee from the apprentice drive was Ozone Express Laundrette. I have seen many generations of young people from the Central Coast transition through our vocational education and training system into small business. I can say without hesitation that I am passionate about youth employment in my region. Group training schemes and apprenticeships are vital in reducing the level of youth unemployment. But this of itself is not effective unless tied to the opportunities that can be provided by employment providers who assist particularly young people in getting into work. We need an appropriate system of compliance to encourage job seekers to go out and get on with looking for work.

The suspension of payments provides the much needed incentive for some job seekers to re-engage quickly with their employment service provider and then when they do what is required they will get paid. In a way, this sort of communication with an employment service provider is an opportunity to practise such skills—for instance, if one of the children is sick or if you are unwell. This is an opportunity for people who might have been out of employment for a long time to practise the skills of managing their life to a point where they are able to make a phone call in advance and connect back in. For people who take that for granted it seems a small skill, but for people who lose agency and a sense of capacity when they have had a few knock-backs, this skill can be something that can fall off. So, obviously, this legislation is going to assist in encouraging people to undertake those common courtesies that are part of participating in a workplace.

This bill also reforms the suspension of payments when job seekers continue to fail to comply with job seekers' requirements. If a job seeker does fail to re-engage, their payment will be suspended pending an agreement to re-engage and they will lose payment for each day after this missed appointment. The payment will only be resumed after they attend a scheduled reappointment. This bill provides, through this mechanism, for an early intervention system in the provision of participation payments and compliance with the requirements of engagement in seeking work and attending appointments. The suspension of payment as a result of the initial failure to attend an appointment or engage with training can enable problems related to workplace participation to be addressed early. Additionally, I firmly believe that it is most appropriate to provide the incentive for actively looking for employment early in the job search period. This enables issues in regards to workplace participation to be managed early. Whilst there must also be positive incentives in looking for work, penalties need to operate in regards to failing to comply with the requirements attached to the payment. The requirements that affect the provision of a participation payment must be clear and certain. Under this legislation, the consequences for not attending appointments and activities will be increased in clarity and immediacy and will have a much better effect in terms of helping people make the connection between missing the appointment and then losing their participation payment for that period of time.

These reforms to the provision of income support to job seekers cannot be taken lightly. It is very important to recognise that, if a person has incurred the penalty of a suspended payment for an initial failure to attend an appointment, payment will be restored with full back payment once the re-engagement occurs. But this legislation does tighten the provisions that enable a reasonable excuse to be provided. The most important change in this regard is that an excuse is not reasonable if a job seeker could have given advance notice but failed to do so.

I understand that the incentives that are provided under this legislation only partly address concerns relating to unemployment and workplace participation. The most important means of ensuring that job seekers can find employment is the provision of a strong economy. We saw in the budget last night the platform for ensuring that Australians get work and keep work and that we grow job opportunities in this country. Indeed, it was this government that so successfully stimulated the economy during the global financial crisis and helped maintain our low level of unemployment. It is this government that continues to work to ensure that unemployment remains low and that job seekers can transition into employment.

Whilst we do this, we also need to ensure that our social security services are modernised and provide the right incentives to people. As stated, another component of our response to unemployment, especially youth unemployment, is to provide access to training. In this regard, welfare can provide a means to a hand up rather than merely a hand-out. The Australian government is well assisted by organisations such as group training schemes in addition to job training networks that assist in the provision of training to job seekers. In last night's budget we saw a very practical and significant commitment to that. Additionally, we must also acknowledge the good and effective work done by non-government organisations who participate in this field. Mission Australia and the Salvation Army are just two that spring to mind in terms of working to provide employment opportunities for job seekers and working to help job seekers re-form their identity and recover their hopes for participation and the freedom that work offers. These organisations play a great complementary role to the work of government and they engage very effectively with our community and with people who need a bit of a hand every now and then.

This legislation is effective in modernising our welfare system. It does provide incentives where they are needed and it does provide encouragement to stay within the boundaries of appropriate behaviours that would be replicated in the workplace. Employment participation is fundamental if we wish our economy to be strong and if we want to have a strong society. This is a practical reform. It is not based on ideological rhetoric. It is based on a practical consideration of the needs of our system of social security. It is practically engaging and it will be practically applicable to ensure that income support payments are appropriately provided. I believe this legislation will contribute to the generation of a culture in which welfare is not seen as a hand-out but as a hand up. It will certainly encourage the young and the old and the people in between who have been disconnected from the workplace into further engagement with their service provider for the opportunity of jobs that will produce. I commend the legislation to the House.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to offer my comments on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2011 by recognising that this is indeed a national issue. This bill aims to introduce tougher compliance measures for job seekers who have activity test requirements. If passed this bill will introduce a suspension of income support payments for job seekers following a failure to attend participation activities including an appointment with the employment services provider or, in some circumstances, an activity such as training or work for the dole. Unemployment in Australia is currently low at a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.9 per cent in March 2011, with 179,000-odd job seekers classified as long-term unemployed at the same time. While the latest unemployment figures show that the Northern Territory unemployment is just over two per cent and is the lowest in the country, we are losing more people to interstate migration than are being gained. In my electorate of Solomon, we have a transient population whereby workers will take their skills and trades elsewhere to where they are better paid or if there are no jobs in the Northern Territory for them. In the last month it has been reported in the Northern Territory News that this is happening now, with many skilled and semiskilled workers going to higher paid jobs in Western Australia and Queensland. Yet, despite such low national unemployment rates and jobs being available, in the last 12 months across Australia approximately two million job interviews and appointments were missed by job seekers with no valid excuse given. Job seekers are required to undertake these activities as part of their mutual obligation, yet it is clear, by the high number of missed appointments nationally, that job seekers are in fact ignoring their obligations. It is critical that these job seekers are encouraged to re-engage with mainstream society and actively seek employment in order to break the cycle of welfare dependency.

The coalition requires a fair but firm system to ensure that those in receipt of income support who can work have a responsibility to look for work and contribute back to the society that supports them. In addition to this, they need to recognise that welfare is a temporary safety net and not a lifestyle choice. As the member for Robertson said, we are also supportive of the system giving a hand up.

Debate interrupted.