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

Tonight, I want to talk about social welfare and the need to reform it. It is an important economic issue, but it is also an important moral issue, as well. As I have noted before, we are fortunate to live in a nation that places a high value on helping those most in need. Caring for those who need it is one of the marks of a civilised society. But our moral obligation, in my view, extends not only to those who need government support but also to those who pay for it.

In 2016-17, social welfare will account for about 41 per cent of real federal government expenditure. The published figure in the budget is a bit lower; it is about 35 per cent. The reason for the discrepancy is that the budget includes the GST transfers to the states as a federal expenditure, which, in my view, is not ideal because it is effectively the states' money passing through the books. If you take out the GST money going to the states, social welfare is 41c in every dollar that the federal government spends. So it is an enormous amount and it is appropriate for us to examine it very carefully.

To put it in context, it is about five times what we spend on education and about six times what we spend on defence. It is 40 times what we spend on immigration. It is 150 times what we spend on the ABC and it is about 800 times what we spend on trade and tourism. So it is a very large amount. If you think about it, if even one per of current welfare spending was obtained inappropriately—through misleading conduct or fraud—that would be about $7 billion over the forward estimates. The volume of that relative to many of the other savings measures we discuss here in Canberra is very large. And that is just one per cent— if one percent was obtained inappropriately, that is $7 billion over the forward estimates.

So it is an important issue, I think, for three reasons. It is a massive cost to the budget. It is clearly not in the interests of anyone to have a culture of intergenerational welfare dependency—most of all those who become in that situation. And, given its size, it is important that there is integrity in the program, as it is by far our largest expenditure.

There are two initiatives of the government in recent times which I think are very noteworthy and to be commended. Firstly, there is the investment approach to welfare that the Minister for Social Services has put in place. Basically, the concept here is to identify at-risk groups who may be likely to fall into a welfare trap, so to speak, early and to take steps to intervene to help make that not happen. Some of the statistics that have come out of that work are very striking. For instance, of the young carers who are currently in the welfare system it is expected that in any year over the next 70 years a minimum of 40 per cent of those 11,000 young carers will be on some sort of income support payment. That is not good for those young carers who no doubt want to pursue employment. It is also an issue that is not good economically for the budget.

There are various other examples as well that the minister has pointed out, but one that I found particularly striking was of young students who are currently at university and receiving income support. In any year over the next 60 years it is estimated that 30 per cent of those students will be in the welfare system in some way—so close to one in three. And that is a very big number.

So the investment approach of identifying those issues early and intervening is to be commended, as is the cashless debit card initiative pursued by the Minister for Human Services. This debit card has seen very positive results in Ceduna and the Kimberley. Apprehensions under the Public Intoxication Act are down 54 percent in Ceduna since the introduction of this card. In East Kimberley, there has been a 28 per cent decrease in callouts to St John Ambulance over the period. It is a very sensible initiative that should be considered to be expanded. This is a very important area for future reform in my view.

House adjourned at 20:00