Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution in support of the amendment moved by the member for Port Adelaide to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. I am pleased to have been in the House for the contribution of the member for Longman. I noted with interest that he went through a number of local programs that will be advanced by the Green Army established through this legislation. Certainly, members on this side are supportive of those sorts of initiatives and also of the pathways to meaningful employment that may be generated through programs such as this, but this legislation raises a couple of other significant questions that I wish to draw attention to, firstly, at a broad level, about the relationship between the bill before us and the government's environmental agenda and, secondly, about an issue relating to the status of persons engaged in the Green Army process.

In making my contribution, I think it is important that we do reflect in the first instance on the environmental performance of the government to date. The question I think we need to pose is: do we really have a minister who is for the environment? His performance to date, lamentably, suggests environmental concerns do not have an advocate in this government or, at any rate, an effective one. Members opposite, it should be noted, often speak in this place on questions of the legacy that we might leave to future generations. These contributions relate exclusively to their posturing over debt—a matter for another time. We do not hear any concern for the sort of world our grandchildren will inherit for this most fundamental expression of intergenerational equity.

This is not just about inconsistency. It is a profoundly troubling failure, because across the developed world, only Australia is going backwards in terms of its approach to tackling climate change. I think of the Globe Climate Legislation Study which found Australia to be unique—in a class of its own—as the only nation taking negative legislative action on climate change. As the shadow minister said, in response to this very report:

Australia is continually being embarrassed on a global stage by Tony Abbott's ideological attack on Australia's future.

This is an attack on future generations and it is blindingly ideological, with the environmental failures not confined to climate change. We see the Great Barrier Reef under threat, and it seems the only recourse to protect it is the courts. There are very significant challenges, to say the least, to Tasmania's wilderness through the proposed delisting of much of the wilderness World Heritage Area on the one hand and the state government's promise to tear up the forest agreement on the other. This list could go on, but the point is this: we are going backwards. I read with interest an article by Nick Feik in the Saturday Paper last weekend. This bears eloquent testimony to the environmental credentials of this government as it subordinates environmental protection to short-term commercial consideration. The article acknowledges that this may be one area of policy making where the government is, at least in broad terms, implementing an agenda set out prior to the election. I quote:

But the brute efficiency of its program to damage environmental interests has been breathtaking.

It certainly has been. Accompanied by the trademark cuts to bodies providing independent advice or checks to government action, from the Climate Commission to environment defenders offices in states and territories. So it grates more than just a little when the minister asserts the Green Army is a 'central component of the government's cleaner environment plan.' And also that it complements, apparently, direct action, but more on that point later.

I note that there was no formal coalition environment policy going into the last election on this point. This begs the question: where is the rest of this government's cleaner environment plan? What evidence is there of any commitment on the part of this government to stand up for our beautiful natural environment that is at the core of Australia's patrimony? This context is important when discussing this bill.

While I have some concerns about the legislation before us, my wider concern is the opposition this government and this minister seem to have to environmentalism and the priority it has allocated to the preservation and protection of our environment. The fact is, there is no coherent environment policy under this minister or this government, and legislation such as this, however beneficial it might be, can be no substitute for such an agenda.

Having said that, I turn to the provisions of the legislation before us, which, of course, rest on Labor foundations. Previous programs, some of which were touched upon by the previous speaker, but starting with the Keating government's Landcare and Environment Action Program in 1992 set out two critical objectives: providing work opportunities for young people and supporting community action to promote important environmental outcomes. Both objectives are vital.

The purpose of this bill is to amend the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to make certain specifications, particularly: with some limited exceptions, recipients of the Green Army allowance are not also able to receive a social security benefit or pension; income testing arrangements apply to the social security pension of a Green Army participant's partner; and participants who are not Green Army team supervisors are not to be treated as workers or employees for the purposes of certain Commonwealth laws. It is the last aspect of this bill that I find most troubling and I will focus the balance of my contribution on that.

When reading through the bill, the explanatory memorandum and the minister's second reading speech it is clear, despite claims to the contrary, that this program is an employment program. Labor's position on employment is clear—a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. As well as their pay, a person's employment conditions are a big part of being employed. Conditions include fundamental things like occupational health and safety, workers compensation and rehabilitation rights. The government wants the program's participants to perform work and, to its credit, it is proposing to pay a comparable training wage. But someone's pay must also take into account their conditions and basic protections. The minister invokes the precedent of Work for the Dole and the Howard-era Green Corps programs but does not explain why these are precedents that should be followed—funny, that.

According to the Green Army Program Draft Statement of Requirements Consultation Process document, the Green Army Program service providers are required to obtain and maintain insurance. There is a vague reference to the government purchasing personal accident insurance and products and public liability insurance to cover participants in the program. However, nothing in the proposed legislation before us addresses the critical issue of the extent to which Green Army service providers will be required to provide suitable insurance. Even where insurance is in place, it differs from workers compensation cover in that an injured participant is likely to have to demonstrate negligence by the provider. These disputes can take many years and great expense to resolve, and young volunteers are highly unlikely to have the resources to singlehandedly pursue such claims however meritorious they may be. As such, compared to workers generally, a lower standard of protection is being offered to Green Army participants, particularly given the physical and outdoor nature of the tasks they are doing.

Of course, the workplace relations environment has changed in recent years. Most states and territories had referred their industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth by 2010. This means that the Fair Work Act, and the National Employment Standards contained within it, has been the framework for a national workplace relations system, which includes all private sector employment other than employment by non-constitutional corporations in Western Australia. This is important because under previous schemes participants would have been covered by state and territory employment laws, but this will no longer be the case. What is the rationale behind this, I ask? There is nothing by way of explanation in any of the publicly available information. This just seems like more slipshod government by way of slogans. The government's website offers no further clues. It has one brief page on the Green Army, a link to a draft statement of requirements, and at the bottom of this page is a generic email and a 1800 number for people to call. That is it. Surely, if the government wants the support not just of this parliament and the people of Australia but of those it wants to participate in this program, it should provide this detail to enable potential participants to effectively determine the basis of their participation—it cannot be too much to ask. If the government can acknowledge that the program's participants are performing work worthy of the training wage, then surely it should ensure that they have the same OHS, workers compensation and rehabilitation standards.

Labor supports helping people find work and giving them the skills and experience to do so. I am sure those opposite do so too, but this bill leaves out so much information it is as if no real thought has gone into the mechanics of the program's operation—a matter members opposite are generally keen to find fault on when little thought has allegedly gone in from this side of the House. For example, there are no minimum hours specified. This is ominous. In the UK, the Office of National Statistics reveals that over half a million workers were forced to sign zero-hour contracts, though the figure is likely to be higher as many employees are employed this way without them realising. Such contracts entail an employee being on-call, without a minimum amount of weekly work specified in the contract. Some big UK employers have 90 per cent of their workforce on such contracts. I hope this is not the beginning of such a trend in Australia, although it does appear that the promotion of insecure work will be the inevitable consequence, if not the central objective, of this government's policy settings.

I also note the concerns of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights with respect to the right to social security and the right to work, neither of which has been addressed by the bill's statement of compatibility I am sorry to say. Regarding the right to social security, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has stated that social security should be available, adequate and accessible. The joint committee contended that, in excluding Green Army participants from receiving other benefits or pensions, the bill may limit the right to social security. This is of some concern. The committee, quoting from Article 4 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, goes on to observe that the right to social security may be subject to such limitations 'as are determined by law only in so far as this may be compatible with the nature of these rights and solely for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society.' The committee states:

It is necessary for the government to demonstrate that the measure pursues a legitimate objective and has a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the objective sought to be realised.

The committee goes on to note that it is unclear whether or not participants may actually be worse off by virtue of their receiving the Green Army allowance rather than income support and whether the allowance 'will be sufficient to meet minimum essential levels of social security'. In respect of the right to work the committee states that the exclusion of Green Army Program participants from such laws may constitute a limitation on the right to just and favourable conditions of employment, as specified in Article 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. While the committee notes that participation in the program is voluntary, it suggests that, because the participation may be on a full-time basis and constitute a participant's sole means of earning a living, it should be treated as work and participants should be treated as workers or employees under the abovementioned Commonwealth laws. I note that the committee is seeking further information from the minister on the above matters and, on this side of the chamber, we join the committee in waiting with keen interest for the minister's response. These are matters I am deeply concerned by.

I also have some questions about what would happen to a participant of this program if they wished to raise a complaint about their supervisor or provider. Can they join a union? Can they go to the Fair Work Ombudsman? What are the channels for addressing these complaints should they arise? These are significant matters that have not been touched upon. Again, the minister has provided information which is, at best, unhelpful. The minister seems to taking a 'she'll be right' approach to this policy as well as to the profound challenge that climate change poses. Indeed, the minister in his second reading speech mentions climate change only once, as a mere afterthought. It is unclear what exactly has happened to direct action, which this legislation apparently complements—although it is unclear precisely how. Is the government still of the view that paying polluters is the most efficient allocation of finite resources? As the scientific and economic consensus indicates—and as the minister used to acknowledge, and in fact advocate for—the most efficient way to allocate resources, and hence the most effective way to deal with the impact of climate change, is with a price on carbon through market mechanisms. When it comes to dealing with climate change, this government has its head in the sand. Perhaps getting the government to take its head out of the sand could be one of the Green Army's first keynote projects.

These sorts of programs, as touched upon by the member for Longman earlier, may well be very worthwhile programs in themselves; however, they need to supplement an actual coherent environmental policy, not just the 'direct distraction' on climate change and the environment more generally.

Members on this side support the objectives of this bill because we support taking local and global action on climate change. Of course, in the Labor Party, we support doing all we can to get people into work, into well-paid and secure jobs. On that very last point, it is these concerns regarding worker protections that need to be addressed by the minister before this bill is enacted. I call on him do so. I also call on him to start work on being a minister who is committed to being for the environment.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. There should be no surprise that this legislation is before the House today, because we have been promising the Green Army for years now. Now that we are the government, we are making good on our policy commitment.

What is this initiative all about? What benefits will it bring? Given the rising youth unemployment that has been a legacy of recent years, there is no doubt that there is a place for a program that is designed to provide employment opportunities for young Australians aged 17 to 24. This program can help young people gain training and experience in the environmental field. They can also gain a better understanding of heritage and conservation matters. This is the sort of work that enables young people to look at careers in conservation management, while also working on projects that generate real benefits for—and real visual change in—the Australian environment.

Just this morning I was reading in the newspaper about a young man who could not get a job because of a lack of transport and a lack of experience. In my electorate of Cowan, there are many opportunities for Green Army projects to be taken up by service providers and project sponsors. When I look around the 180 square kilometres of Cowan, it is easy to see the potential—places like Warwick bushland, Koondoola bushland, or the lakes of Cowan, such as Lake Goollelal in Kingsley, Lake Joondalup or even Emu Lake in Ballajura. There are extensive bushland tracts throughout the electorate and, because there are many, they are not hard to get to as the public transport is pretty good. It is therefore easy to see the opportunities that the Green Army will provide—not only opportunities for young people but also opportunities to achieve great environmental results. I therefore encourage the cities of Joondalup, Wanneroo and Swan to look at the opportunities to look after their young people and achieve benefits for the environment.

The concept of this program is that the Green Army will be made up of teams of 10 people: one supervisor and up to nine participants. These teams will be deployed to help communities deliver local conservation outcomes. The great thing about the program is that each project will be guided by local community needs. It really is local action, and through that local action the projects will contribute to Australia's environmental priorities and obligations.

The program will support 250 projects in 2014-15, then 500 projects in the following year and 750 projects in 2016-17. This is a long-term, ongoing program. Beyond the $300 million to cover these first three years, there will be more funding in the future.

From here, the request for tender will soon be available. Following the tender process, contractors can be engaged. They will then engage teams and manage activities to ensure projects are completed and will report regularly on progress.

Next there will be the need for project sponsors. This is where we will see local input into the proposal and development of local projects. Again, by way of example I can see the City of Wanneroo coming up with projects around such places as Lake Gnangara. The Friends of Yellagonga Regional Park could also propose work around Lake Goollelal, and the same with the Friends of Warwick Bushland. I also think about the opportunities for the Koondoola bushland, an area severely burnt out in a bushfire a couple of years ago.

When I think of the friends groups around the Cowan electorate, I particularly think of dedicated volunteers achieving very good results with minimal assistance from all levels of government. Every month or so they have their work days, which target particular problems or areas that are in need of remediation. These work days include a focus on places such as Frog Hollow, Duck Landing, or even Hocking Road. From this sort of position, I know that the Friends of Yellagonga are literally the experts and their excellent local knowledge will be needed. Therefore, I encourage their input. Perhaps they may even seek a supervisor position or two. They would be employed by the service providers.

Regardless of whether they decide to take up the opportunity or not, I would like to thank the Friends of Yellagonga for their environmental work to date. In particular, I would like to thank their committee: the chair, Kevin McLeod; vice chair, Marian Napier-Winch; treasurer, John Stenton; secretary, Heather Chester; the volunteers coordinator, Graham Sinclair; and general committee members John Chester, Sue Walker, David Taggart, Will Carstairs and Rebekkah Lamont.

I encourage the friends groups and the local governments to start working on proposals that they would like to see undertaken in their areas. Proposals will be assessed and recommended to the Minister for the Environment for approval.

I have certainly seen what benefits will flow to the environment in Cowan and what advantages can be gained for local sponsors; however, this is mostly about the opportunities for young people. Those young people aged between 17 and 24 years will be the participants. They could be school leavers, gap year students, graduates, the unemployed or even people with disabilities.

What this specifically means for participants is that they will generally be engaged for 30 hours per week on a project. That involves undertaking formal training in work-readiness, conservation and land management, heritage conservation, leadership, project and human resource management, and trades. Where possible, certificate I or II qualifications will be sought, although depending on the circumstances credit for units at more advanced levels may also be obtained. All participants will be paid an allowance. Anyone interested on any level can send an email to greenarmy@environment.gov.au.

I support this program very simply because it is a way to assist young people to get skills and qualifications while at the same time helping achieve environmental outcomes in Cowan. This is the sort of opportunity that all young people in Cowan, whether they live in Ballajura, Tapping, Warwick, Gnangara or anywhere, would be close to and could benefit from. Across Australia, the benefits for young people and the environment will be clear. The Green Army will be our biggest ever environmental workforce, with 15,000 by 2018, and some 1,500 projects. On such a scale, the benefits of habitat preservation, weeding, planting and cleaning up lakes and rivers will be immense. Of course, this is not in isolation to other Abbott government efforts. We will still see the National Landcare Program, direct action, the 20 million trees program and the Indigenous ranger program, all providing benefits across Australia and not undermining jobs, as the anti-Western Australian carbon tax does.

Of course, any discussion of the Green Army has to cover more than just skills and environmental benefits. The team supervisor will be an employee of the service provider and they will be paid a wage that is consistent with the relevant award, which is the Gardening and Landscaping Services Award. For the participants, they will be paid a Green Army allowance and will not at the same time receive a social security benefit or a pension. Through amendments to various Commonwealth laws, the participants will not be considered workers or employees of the Commonwealth.

I fully support and endorse the Green Army concept because it is based on the Green Corps program of the Howard government. Environmentally it was a successful program, seeing the propagation and planting of more than 14 million trees and the clearing of more than 50,000 weeds. The program also saw in excess of 8,000 kilometres of fencing and more than 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks or boardwalks constructed or maintained. I support the Green Army Program because it achieves for young people and for the environment. I like it because it links into the local needs and priorities of our environment and is there for young people in the area, helping to get them skills, qualifications, experience and achievements. I look forward to the bill being passed and I again encourage sponsors in Cowan to think about specific projects that will really help the environment in Cowan.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to stand tonight to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. I have been looking forward to an opportunity to do so for some time. There are many of my colleagues on this side that have addressed issues in the bill relating to the training, or the lack of training, for the participants and the lack of protections in the case of injury, but I am not going to spend much time talking on that tonight. I actually want to talk about the environment.

I remember that, when this program was launched by Tony Abbott in the election campaign, it was launched clearly as part of his Direct Action strategy. They were going to move away from a market based mechanism and go to direct action, and they were going to create a Green Army across the country. It was a part of Direct Action and part of their environmental program. So I want to talk today about a $300 million program that purports to be about the environment and look at whether or not there are alternatives that might be more effective, both in terms of local environmental protection and in terms of spend. The government talks a lot about value for money, so let us have a look at this program.

It purported originally to be about the environment. If you look at the bill and hear the speakers on the other side, it seems to have morphed into something else. It is somewhere between a training program and a volunteer program, except there is no training budget, so it seems to have morphed but it was about the environment. We have a Minister for the Environment at the moment on the government's side that rarely mentions the environment. We on this side of the House wait for him in question time to get up and talk about the environment, ever—he never does. Today he actually used the word 'forest' and I got excited because I thought the environment minister was going to talk about the environment, but he was referring to the member for Forrest. Imagine my disappointment when he went back to talking about on-road and off-road diesel, which does seem to be his main topic of conversation at the moment.

This Green Army Program is his program, and this is the first sign of any action on the environment that we have seen from the environment minister in nearly seven months, so it is worth looking at it in great detail. There is $300 million over the next four years, between 2014-15 and 2017-18. That is $300 million for 15,000 people over those four years, for 1,500 projects. I always do a quick calculation when I see numbers like this. There are 150 electorates, so we are talking about 10 projects on average per electorate. I expect Western Australia might have a few more, because 10 projects spread out over the entire state of Western Australia would not be particularly effective, but let's accept the average of 10 projects per electorate over the next four years. For those who can divide 10 by four, it is about two to three per year per electorate.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is 1,500 projects over four years.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, and divided by 150 it is 10. You do the maths: 1,500 divided by 150 is 10. Go back to school. Ten projects over four years—

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

1,500 projects over four years.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is 10. Get your pencil out and do the maths. It is 10 per electorate over four years—that is two to three per year, starting with one and growing. When you look at that as a group of 10 projects using volunteers who are unskilled, who are not necessarily fit and who are doing a job they have never done before, that is actually a very small amount of effort in the environmental work in an electorate. But consider what a council would do—what my Parramatta council would do—with 10 projects worth $200,000 each. That is what they are worth each, if you divide the $300 million by the number of projects. I know that when this program is implemented—if it is—then a lot of that money will go into the administration of the program. However, if you look at it as 10 contracts worth $200,000 each, I know my councils could achieve a great deal of local environmental work with that amount of money and do it with professionals in a way which had an ongoing life. When you look at the program rolled out in total, that would be 10 projects at $200,000 each per year in each electorate, working on the figures we have been given. And, again, imagine what a local council could do with that, including taking on apprentices or having the organisations that deliver those projects taking on apprentices—real pathways to employment and real environmental work being done by experts.

Environmental work has to be done by experts. It is actually very difficult, and it takes years to get the canopy, the under-storey and the groundcover right when you are refurbishing bushland. And it takes more years again to get the mix of insects and bird life back to an appropriate level to sustain life in the bushes. It is highly skilled, and it is ongoing. It is like trying to stay healthy—you do not do it just for this month or just for this year and then give it up; you do it for all of your life. And you do environmental work for the life of the forest. In my electorate of Parramatta, and I suspect it is the same for all of your electorates, there was a growing group of highly skilled small businesses that specialise in environmental refurbishment. It is what they do. I have one in my electorate that specialises in native grasses. That is how detailed it is—just native grasses. It is quite remarkable. But I have several of them that are engaged by council to refurbish bushland, to provide advice. They are engaged by businesses to deal with the land around their factories and premises—highly skilled small businesses that have trained for years and that work incredibly well, and it is a growing specialty. And as more and more Australians realise that what we want back around us is our native bushland, it is going to be an area of small business that continues to grow.

One of my concerns with this influx of cheap, untrained labour into what is a growing, highly skilled area is that we will see councils effectively cost-shifting from the professional services that are currently going to small businesses to the low-paid Green Army of unskilled labour. We will see a crowding out of an incredibly important part of our small business economy and a part of our economy that we need to grow if we want this country to be environmentally as strong as it could be. For me, that is a great concern, and I do not see anything in the legislation or anything coming from the government side that gives me confidence that there will not be protections against councils cost-shifting from their current budgets to professional small businesses to a Commonwealth-funded cheap labour force. And unless you can provide me with those sorts of protections, I will be up here screaming on behalf of my small business community that is about to get done in by cheap labour that is unskilled. I will be up here every day until the government can provide me with some guarantees that it will not happen. And I tell you, with what you are talking about at the moment, it will happen. And there will be several quite good local businesses in my area—as there will be all across the country—that will find it very difficult to get work because of this influx of unskilled and low-wage labour.

I want to talk about the previous Green Corps program, which I have heard talked about here quite a bit—the Howard government one—and what it did. I have heard about the 14 million trees, I have heard about the fencing, I have heard about the weed removal—all really important stuff. But anybody who knows anything about environmental refurbishment knows that if you pull the weeds out today and you do not have an ongoing program, they will be back next year. Really simple—they will be back next year. Pull them out today, pull them out this year—they will be back next year. If you want to implement a good local environmental policy, it has to have life beyond one year. It has to have life beyond one project. It has to have somebody or some organisation that has a responsibility for that area of land with ongoing contributions towards its maintenance. And there is nothing in this program that does that—this is one-off stuff. One year—plant some trees, no-one takes care of them, drought comes along, down they go. This is naive at best. Talk to an expert about environmental management, or about refurbishment of the land, and they will tell you that it is something you do forever. It is not something you do for only one year. Rip out the blackberry today—in two years it will be back as bad as ever. I guess then you can send another group in, because you will be doing this for a while, so perhaps you can just keep repeating the same actions over and over again.

I want to quote a statement by Glenn Albrecht, professor of sustainability at Murdoch University, commenting on the Green Corps program under the Howard government. He talked about the 14 million trees, he talked about the fencing and he talked about the 50,000 hectares of weeds. And he said this:

If it's really just weeding and tree planting, similar to the sorts of things that were done under the Howard government's programs, a lot of that work, particularly in periods of savage drought, was simply undone because there was no long-term follow-up.

That is a statement from the expert. What we have here is a program that at first glance appears to be an incredibly inefficient use of taxpayers' money in terms of local environmental work, a program that is one-off, that does not provide the ongoing environmental work that is required to sustain the improvement over time, that brings low-pay wages and unskilled labour into an area of growing skill without any guidelines or protections to ensure that local councils do not simply shift their costs from the professional side of the business to the amateur side of the business. And I tell you, that is what we are going to see happening.

So I will be watching this program very carefully over the next few months as it works its way through this House and the Senate. There is so little detail in it at the moment that deals with the real issues and how this program will work that it is very difficult to find genuine support for it. I will be watching it very closely, and I would hope that the members of the government would also consider whether or not this is the most effective use of $300 million of taxpayers' money.