Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

) ( ): I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the importance of a generous social safety net;

(2) further recognises that it is essential that welfare is targeted to achieve better lifetime outcomes for recipients;

(3) welcomes the release of data that will help the Government to target interventions to Australians who need it most;

(4) congratulates the Government's Try, Test and Learn Fund, with $96.1 million allocated to it which will:

(a) bring together stakeholders, academics, the states and territories and any relevant parties in the non-government sector, to trial new policies and initiatives to help achieve better lifetime outcomes for target cohorts; and

(b) ensure new, bold and innovative ideas are trialled which will help to reduce long term and inter-generational welfare dependence; and

(5) looks forward to the first round of funding under the program which will improve lifetime outcomes and increase the self-reliance of young parents, young carers and young students.

I am pleased to be able to move this motion today in support of the government's approach to welfare. Thanks to the recent work of and the announcement from the Minister for Social Services, we have, for the first time, evidence of exactly what is happening to people in the welfare system. The Baseline Valuation Report contains crucial information about how people move in and out of the welfare system—information that is now being analysed so that we can work to genuinely improve people's lives.

While we are determined to secure Australia's future as a high-wage First World economy which includes a generous social safety net, we also recognise that it is important to divert the most vulnerable from a lifetime of welfare dependency. Like any responsible government, we want to be able to reduce the long-term costs of social security. At the moment they add up to around $160 billion a year. That represents around 80 per cent of all individual income tax raised in Australia that is going straight to welfare. Without further restraint, the welfare bill is expected to expand to $277 billion by 2026. One in every three Australians is receiving welfare payments. Of those not currently in the welfare system, 88 per cent are expected to receive some type of welfare payment throughout their life. Adding all that up, a PricewaterhouseCoopers report estimates we will face a total future lifetime welfare cost for the present Australian population of $4.8 trillion. This alone suggests we need change.

As the minister said in his recent speech to the National Press Club, with this new data system 'we can be provided with greater detail about small groups of people and use that data to test policy approaches to see whether they actually do contribute to full, purposeful and self-reliant lives.' As the minister went on to say: 'With all the information that's assembled and the will from this government to be able to use it, we do have a real chance to provide welfare assistance to individual Australians in a way that delivers outcomes. This won't be done by ideology or emotions or money alone but by assessing the long-term effects on the lives of the people we are trying to help.'

So what will this response look like? The government has set three goals for a new direction in welfare policy: firstly, identify those at risk of long-term welfare dependency and help them find employment; secondly, identify and reduce the risks of welfare reliance crossing generations; and, finally, as I have touched on before, ensure the long-term sustainability of the welfare system. With this framework in place, the government can better identify and assist those who have particularly poor long-term outcomes in the system. These can be broadly broken down into three groups: young carers, young parents and young students.

In relation to young parents, in 2015 there were 4,370 young parents aged 18 and below receiving parenting payments, of which 77 per cent were single parents. Reducing support to young parents is not going to help them, but we do need to provide young parents with support to develop and maintain skills that will allow them to find employment. In April, the government launched ParentsNext, and the Try, Test and Learn Fund will seek to expand and improve this approach. The $96.1 million Try, Test and Learn Fund is worth highlighting. It is a key component of the Priority Investment Approach, and it is an innovative, creative solution to a complex problem. The fund will provide a platform for various stakeholders, both government and non-government, to share bold ideas for new programs to divert at-risk groups, especially our young people, from a future of welfare dependency. A public call for proposals will take place by the end of the year.

There is also an important program for carers, which takes on added relevance this week because it is the start of National Carers Week across Australia. We have started the Young Carer Bursary Program, a $3.5 million investment aimed at improving the educational rates for young carers and reducing lifetime dependency on welfare.

Finally, young students who move directly from student payments to unemployment benefits and stay there for 12 months are especially susceptible to long-term welfare dependency. The Priority Investment Approach builds on the work that the government is already delivering, including jobactive, Transition to Work and, in particular, the Youth Jobs PaTH Program for young people.

The Turnbull government is a strong believer that the best form of welfare is a job. Nobody wants to see a person spend their life in the welfare system from a very young age. With this package, I do believe that the government has demonstrated a thorough, clear policy platform, and I commend the motion to the House.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In Anti-Poverty Week, I welcome any chance to discuss protecting vulnerable Australians and ensuring that help is available when they need it. Likewise, the $160 billion that the Australian government spends on social security payments annually should be used very wisely. It therefore follows that, from time to time, we must revisit our social security arrangements with an eye to improving them. Labor have never shied away from this process. The NDIS, pioneered by the Gillard government, demonstrates that we have the courage to innovate even in this extremely sensitive area of public policy. However, reforms should not be undertaken lightly or simply to test the limits of some economic theory. Welfare recipients are not lab rats. Even the prospect of changes to social security arrangements can greatly distress those who are doing it tough already.

Labor believes that it is necessary to bring people along with you, especially when big changes are planned. Hopefully, on this matter at least, the coalition intends to follow a similar course. The government's priority investment approach proposals associated with a Try, Test and Learn Fund are not uncontentious. The former, in particular, has received very mixed reviews. ACOSS and others see the minister as more interested in budget savings than in helping recipients. I hope such fears, though understandable, are misplaced. This motion, like the minister's 20 September Press Club address, is something of a curate's egg: it is good in parts but iffy in others. Any proposal that is evidence based, invests in people's potential and increases community involvement should be taken seriously.

Borrowing ideas from New Zealand is not bad in principle, either, if you recognise the limitations, including the differences in welfare and governmental arrangements in our two countries. Reassuringly ANU's Professor Peter Whiteford sees some good in the government proposals, suggesting it may have learnt from the New Zealand model by not being too obsessed with cost cutting. He applauds the commitment to rigorous evaluations and early intervention. But his is a qualified endorsement, and I for one believe a similar level of spending on early childhood support, with much earlier intervention, is preferable and better targeted. This should include also ways to get vulnerable young children into preschool and early screening and intervention.

Then there is the difficulty in knowing if the proposed PIA scheme is actually working until many years down the track. We just do not know. It does have the potential to create an underclass of the permanently working poor. I am not quite ready yet to join the member for Robertson in congratulating the government on allocating $96 million to the Try, Test and Learn Fund. That strikes me as a bit premature. Let's at least wait until something has actually happened and someone has actually been helped.

I am a little perplexed, too, by the member for Robertson wanting to remind us that it is essential that welfare is targeted to achieve better lifetime outcomes. If anything, it has been coalition governments that have been the unfocused and untargeted big spenders on middle-class welfare. The baby bonus and the wild-eyed Abbott parental leave schemes instantly come to mind. Australia already has a highly targeted social security system. Labor supports it. Dollar for dollar, it is as effective as any in the world at reducing inequality and disadvantage.

Reliance on welfare is not rising, especially if you do not see the aged pension as a welfare payment—pensioners certainly do not. The percentage of working-class population on income support actually peaked in 1997 at 24.9 per cent, falling to 16.6 per cent in 2008, rising a little during the global financial crisis and easing back in 2013 to 16.7 per cent. Most Australians do not stay welfare dependent for lengthy periods. As the member for Fenner writes: 'Australia's welfare system looks a lot more like a piggy bank than a conveyor belt.' Accordingly, savings from an investment approach may well be more modest than has been claimed.

Labor, unsurprisingly then, is reluctant to up-end the world in the process of testing an interesting hypothesis. Any social security scheme is far more effective, more durable and easy to pay for if unemployment rates are low—lower than now. Selectively investing in worthwhile national projects will do a lot more to keep Australians off welfare than even the most arcane welfare regimes. It is very important to remember that many people have not benefited from a growing Australian economy in the last 20 years. It is very important that people on welfare feel that they are included, informed and can see the benefits of any changes to the social security system if it is to achieve its stated aims.

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am really pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this important motion moved by the member for Robertson. I commend her for moving this motion on this most important of topics. Social welfare is an extremely important and extremely complex area of policy. So let's start with the fundamentals. It is important that we as a society have a strong social welfare safety net—and we do. We have a very strong social welfare safety net. In fact, we have one of the strongest in the world. The vast majority of Australians would agree with the proposition that it is important that we as a society help those who genuinely cannot help themselves.

Just as we have a moral obligation to those who need support, we also have a moral obligation to those who pay for that support. You cannot have a strong social welfare safety net without very large expenditures of money. To put it into perspective, social welfare is by far the biggest item in the federal budget. It is sometimes said that we spend about a third of our federal budget on social welfare expenditure. My view is that it is closer to 41 per cent. The reason I think it is a bit higher is that our federal budget papers include, as expenditure, the GST transfer payments, which is effectively the money of the states, but that money passes through the federal books as expenditure and in my view it somewhat distorts the overall spending picture in the budget. If you take out the GST revenue, social welfare is 41c in every dollar that the federal government spends. It is a very large amount—five times what is spent on education, six times what is spent on defence, 40 times what is spent on immigration, 150 times what is spent on the ABC and more than 800 times what we spend on tourism and promoting trade. So it is a very large item of expenditure and it is absolutely critical that in public policy we look at social welfare expenditure and we determine whether or not it is working as effectively as it can, both for the people who are receiving it and also for the legions of taxpayers who pay for it.

That is precisely what the Minister for Social Services is focused on through the Try, Test and Learn Fund. The minister, aided by the work done by PWC, has discovered that we do have, unfortunately, some structural problems in the social welfare system because people who become involved in that system perhaps early in life often stay on social welfare for a very long time. Frankly, that is not in the interests of those people because I think it is fair to say that decades of welfare dependence is not something to which anyone would aspire. If the system can more effectively intervene early on and help those people who are at risk of becoming welfare dependent to find other opportunities, then it should do so. That is exactly what the system is all about.

The PWC report estimated that the 11,000 young carers in the system at the moment are expected to access social welfare income support for 43 years over their lifetime and the 4,000 or so young parents who are in the system are expected to access social welfare support for 45 years. The 6,600 young students who were surveyed as part of this process are expected to access income support for 37 years. If you look at the entire cost to the budget of all of the social welfare payments to all Australians over their lifetime, it comes out at $4.8 trillion, which is a staggering figure that obviously dwarfs every other number in the budget. What the Try, Test and Learn Fund says is let us target some sensible interventions especially in situations where people are at an early stage of their lives and perhaps have been involved in the welfare system for a limited amount of time, and do what we can to help those people get off welfare and break that cycle of dependence. That is an entirely sensible thing to be doing, and I commend the minister for this activity and I commend the motion.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Big scary numbers make great headlines. 'Welfare dependency costs Australia $160 bn each year', screamed The Daily Telegraph in September. The truth is more complex. Amongst Australia's so-called $160 billion welfare addicts, as one tabloid newspaper labelled people receiving social security, are people receiving the age pension and benefits under the NDIS. These are the people who the assistant social services minister, Zed Seselja, claims in Fairfax today are part of a 'welfare mentality' in this country. He goes on to say: 'We simply cannot go on assuming for huge numbers of Australians that welfare will just become the norm'. Well, with views like that it is little wonder the Canberra Liberals did so poorly at last weekend's election. I know Senator Seselja led the ACT Liberals for six years—a wonderful six years in opposition—until 2013, and perhaps they are still trying to recover from his failed leadership. If his comments to Fairfax are any indication, they may have some years of recovery ahead of them.

The single biggest growth item in social security is the age pension, because Australians are living longer and healthier lives, and because the baby boomers are now in the age pension phase of their lives. Are these the people that Senator Seselja believes are 'welfare addicts' or suffer from a 'welfare mentality'? What a disgraceful characterisation. Blind Freddy can see what this government is up to. Senator Seselja and his senior minister, the member for Pearce, are on a mission to demonise and divide—to demonise people receiving social security benefits, set their fellow Australians on them, and then make the cuts. The ministers are preparing the groundwork for more harsh cuts, just like they did in the 2014 budget: a one-month wait for Newstart for young job seekers, even though it is estimated that there is just one job available for every five; raising the eligibility age for Newstart, pushing people who are aged 22 and 24 years old onto the Youth Allowance—that is, a cut of $48 a week that makes it harder to live, let alone meet the costs of seeking work; the abolition of the Pensioner Education Supplement; and cutting Paid Parental Leave to 80,000 new mums each year.

The ministers, and their young advisers on $100,000 salaries—and higher—may be doing high fives and backslaps. After all, the nation is 'addicted to welfare,' and addictions must be broken. But let us step back and look at the facts. Let us separate the truth from the untruths. Australia spends much less on social security, as a proportion of national income, than the OECD average. We spent 8.4 per cent of our average GDP, when the average is 12.3 per cent, and we spend less than both the US and the UK. By the tabloid headlines and the squawking of those opposite about the high cost, not many would know that. People might be forgiven for thinking nearly all our GDP is swallowed up in a vast mountain of social security payments. But it is 8.4 per cent—two thirds of what the OECD spends, and less than the US and the UK. What is more, more than 40 per cent of Australia's social security spending goes to households in the lowest 20 per cent of incomes. That is exceptional targeting: people who need the most support get it. This is the best targeting of any nation in the OECD.

In my electorate of Lyons, in March this year there were 4,973 people receiving Newstart, 726 young people receiving Youth Allowance, 6,887 on a Disability Support Pension, and 15,632 on an age pension. Labor supports a properly targeted social security system to ensure payments go to those who need it most. We support investment in education and social services that ensure people get a fair crack at life and that seek to address intergenerational inequity. Labor does not support—and will never support—the demonisation of Australians who require assistance, and we reject attempts by this government to turn Australians on each other.

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

It is my great pleasure to rise and speak on this important motion. I want to congratulate the member for Robertson for bringing this motion into the House today. I want to briefly reflect on the contribution made by the member for Lyons and to say it is regrettable that the member was not able to focus at all on our very significant $96.1 million Try, Test and Learn Fund, which is integral to the motion before the House today. Isn't it a shame that we have heard so much politicking and so much negativity from the member opposite, when this is a wonderful opportunity to work together?

It is a wonderful opportunity to bring your ideas and the ideas of all members to this House, because all of us must take the politics out of this issue and focus on what we as a parliament can do to lift the aspirations, the values and the lives of young Australians, middle Australians and seniors who are looking to get out of welfare dependency.

I think we would all agree that the best type of welfare available in this country is a job. But we as a government also recognise that one of the fundamental responsibilities of government is to look after those who most need our help—and there are some people in our community who will never be able to work, and they absolutely must get every support possible from government. But, for those who do have the capacity, we want to do everything we can to get these young people, and people who have lost a job and are struggling to find another job, into work.

In the budget, we committed in excess of $700 million to the Youth Jobs PaTH Program, a very significant program that focuses on reaching out to employers and saying, 'Please look at this young person. Give this person a chance.' There is an opportunity to trial them, to bring them in as an intern. They receive a $200 bonus per fortnight under their Newstart provisions. Let us see how we can work with employers and those who are on Newstart to give them those opportunities.

I want in particular to commend the Minister for Social Services for the very important Try, Test and Learn Fund. It is a stand-out component of the priority investment approach that our government is taking. Stakeholders, academics, states, territories and anyone in the non-government sector will be able to put forward their ideas for programs to divert vulnerable groups away from welfare dependency. This is not a funding program where people have to meet particular objectives; this is a funding program where we are saying, 'Whatever your idea is, please bring it forward to government.' We want to work with the community. We do not have all the answers. It seems that those opposite think they have all the answers. We are saying that this is a fund that recognises that we need to work with all sectors of our community to try and drive job opportunities, to give young people in particular the very best lives.

In my electorate of Corangamite and also in the adjoining electorate of Corio, which takes in North Geelong, which is inflicted with high youth unemployment and intergenerational unemployment, this is an issue that worries the people of Geelong and the people of Colac. I want to commend G21 and its GROW project. I believe that the Try, Test and Learn Fund provides ideas like the GROW project with a very significant opportunity. The GROW project is all about partnering with our community to reach out to employers and to identify, through social procurement and also local procurement, how we can work with our key employers in our own community to drive job opportunities. We are not going to accept that intergenerational unemployment will continue in our community and that high levels of youth unemployment will continue. That is why we have introduced the Youth Jobs PaTH Program, which is so incredibly important. That is why we have our Try, Test and Learn Fund. I want to commend the Give Where You Live Foundation in our community, which has committed $2 million over 10 years to support the implementation of the GROW Strategic Plan across the whole G21 region. The GROW program is doing amazing work. The Victorian government has funded GROW to the tune of $1 million over five years. It is wonderful to see so many people in our community coming together, and I am hoping this fund will be part of the solution. (Time expired)

Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Try, Test and Learn Fund is a program that is supposed to support people to stay in education and transition into the workforce. The federal government, in their wisdom, have tried to help people through this program, but such a one-size-fits-all approach is not realistic in rural communities such as Braddon. The cost, time and hours spent travelling are simply impossible to achieve. This is particularly the case for carers. Jaeyden Wardle of Devonport is just one of an estimated 73,800 carers in Tasmania alone. Jaeyden's experience is a really good example of how this fund does not work. It is extremely difficult for people like Jaeyden to access the fund because the location and hours of training provided need to work in tandem with the amount of care that carers like him need to provide. With training often only provided in places like Launceston and Hobart—which, for those who do not know, are many hours away—this leaves little opportunity for people in Braddon.

This week is Carers Week; and 2.8 million people provide unpaid care for family and friends. In Australia this week providing easy access to such training is just one of many ways we can show them that carers count. This week alone, Australia's unpaid carers will spend 36 million hours caring for family members and friends who have a disability, mental illness, chronic condition or are terminally ill or frail aged. That is just one week.

The people carers look after and the carers themselves are not 'welfare dependent', a term the Turnbull government is happy to throw around. Those who are being cared for are people who, through no choice of their own, were born with or developed a disease, illness or other condition which requires consistent and quality care. Their carers may be family members, friends or neighbours; they come from all walks of life, cultures and religions; and they provide care for a variety of reasons.

At 17 years of age, Jaeyden looks after his mother who has been diagnosed with a heart condition. Besides having the responsibility to look after his mum's medication, Jaeyden also manages his family's finances and cares for his siblings. He has been his mother's primary carer for three years and has helped to manage her chronic condition since he was 10 years of age. It was not until he was 13 that he recognised the role he had taken on. This is a tough job that is deserving of reward, not punishment.

Jaeyden is not unlike many other carers in our community—they are on call for 24 hours a day and the effects on their lives are real and worthy of more than just negativity from the Turnbull government. For instance, when Jaeyden's grades started to be affected by his need to provide care, his teachers thought he was getting involved with drugs or crime. As a result, and despite being a talented and intelligent student, Jaeyden dropped out of school in grade 8. Jaeyden shared with the Sunday Examiner newspaper recently that he was constantly told he would not achieve anything because he was not attending school. However, showing his incredible determination, Jaeyden has resumed his studies and has taken on three community service diplomas. He finished grade 10 last year and he is now taking on grade 11.

The federal government, in their wisdom, have tried to help people like Jaeyden, offering this Try Test and Learn approach, which is supposed to support carers like him, but he, like many carers, is labelled by such programs as being trapped on welfare or welfare dependent, when in fact he is nothing close to that. According to the CEO of Carers Australia:

Young carers have been correctly identified as some of those most at risk of welfare dependence throughout their lives. They are mostly susceptible than other young people to the problems of workforce accessibility given the nature of their caring role. …It is also important to understand that many young carers face a range of complex challenges which impact on their capacity to engage in education and employment and these must be addressed under any program to support them into work.

In closing, it is time to recognise that carers provide invaluable support in caring for some of the most vulnerable people in our community and play a critical role in our health system. The fact is that anyone at any time can become a carer. This week, and indeed every week, it is time to know how much they all count.

Debate adjourned.