Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nothing is more at the heart of Australia's psyche than a fair go and making a fair effort in return for someone's kindness. Welfare is not an entitlement; it is a privilege that we in Australia can enjoy. And we expect in return certain levels of mutual obligation to receive those payments that range from $528.70 a fortnight up to around $700 under certain circumstances. But everyone in this parliament would agree that if you are receiving those payments you have to do something in return for it and that means, in good faith, searching for work. Where you are not exempted in stream B or stream C, we expect just that. So it is very alarming that 44 per cent of all participation breaches identified by employment providers were overturned by a compliance element of Centrelink that decided either the excuse was adequate or there was a technical mistake made by the employment services provider. We need to get those numbers down. That is 58,000 acceptable excuses; it is way too many per year.

I would encourage both sides of parliament to come together and come up with a more watertight system. Because we know, if you are fighting for a chance at a job, let alone securing one, that is the only way to find your way out of your personal crises. Complex chronic lives are led by many and, with the difficult circumstances that they do juggle, we know often the best way out of those circumstances is with a job.

The current excuses, I think, are way too broad. We need some more conditionality. So if those bona fides excuses occur, I think it is only reasonable that the jobseeker does actually go out and find a solution to reconnect themselves. This should not be an automatic exemption and then they just go back to 'go' without collecting at $200.

We should be encouraging jobseekers. If homelessness is an issue, if a personal crisis is an issue and if transport difficulties or caring obligations are an issue, they should come back and say, 'I have resolved that and can fulfil my obligations by coming back at a later date,' and the ball should be in their court. We are asking for a more equal contribution from both the jobseeker and the agencies. At the moment, I think that 44 per cent is way too high, but it really is a product of the boondoggle approach to Human Services legislation that we saw under the previous government.

I call on individual members—they are smart people; we want them stepping up and taking a commonsense approach, because 58,000 exemptions every year are simply too many. Within that, there are 29,000 situations where smart people with masters degrees in Centrelink are overruling smart people with masters degrees in the Job Services offices. We can do way better than that. I do not think we should have a world of 150 overrulings of Job Services providers every working day of every year. If they go to the trouble and they do breach someone, we should be making sure that that absolutely is reported to Centrelink, and if there is an issue of a small, very minor, breach, that can be agreed between the agencies without adding to the burden on the sector.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 16:26 to 16:38