Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor oppose the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 for very good reasons. It is another example of this government making life harder for those in our community who are already doing it tough. It is another example of the government’s complete failure to accept that investment in, and equitable access to, education, which is the key to both national and personal economic prosperity. It is yet another example of a government that encourages private provision of public services without any substantiated justification for doing so. It is also an admission by an inept government that the welfare legislation it ran through the Senate last year is full of holes that need fixing.

Instead of using its majority in both houses of parliament to pass positive, forward-looking legislation which would genuinely help our most disadvantaged Australians to get out of the cycle of welfare dependence, this government wastes its majority, abuses its majority, and continues to demonstrate its lack of vision, lack of innovation and blind adherence to old-fashioned ideas of a tired Prime Minister whose time is nearly up but who wants to kick a few more disadvantaged Australians on his way out.

The main provisions of this bill will amend existing welfare legislation. If it is passed, the bill will remove the entitlement to the pensioner education supplement from some people who most need it; introduce contestability for the provision of vocational rehabilitation services for eligible welfare recipients, thereby enabling private providers to tender for the provision of services currently provided by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service; and enable recovery of debt that may be incurred by persons who have received financial case management during the time they are enduring the eight-week non-payment punishment that this government introduced as part of last year’s changes to the welfare system. There are also amendments to income test arrangements for CDEP recipients and other measures which the Labor Party could, in other circumstances, have supported.

Labor does not oppose in principle either contestability or recovery of genuinely incurred debt caused by overpayment of welfare benefits and of course we support measures that really do assist Australians to move from dependency on welfare benefits to participation in the workforce. But this bill does not do that. This bill is more of the ‘if you are struggling, if you are poor, if you are vulnerable, we are going to punish you for it’ mentality that we saw in the previous raft of so-called Welfare to Work legislation and in the Work Choices legislation.

Labor believe that those people who can work should work, but we also know that some people are so far behind in job fitness that they need special assistance to get anywhere near the job market. We are a wealthy nation and we can afford the compassion and the time and the money to genuinely assist people to extract themselves from welfare dependency. We can also afford to accept that some people will, unfortunately, always be dependent on government welfare benefits and that is something that the nation can also cope with and absorb. Labor knows that the best way out of dependency on welfare is to have a job because with an appropriate job comes not just money but engagement with the community and access to opportunity. The best way to get a job that suits your particular circumstances is to have access to the education and training to give you the skills to do a job and then to get on the job support that helps you stay in work.

The Labor Party knows that the future of our nation lies in a better education system and more investment in education for all Australians from early childhood onwards. For this reason the federal Labor leader, Mr Kevin Rudd, has recently released a discussion paper about the critical link between long-term prosperity, productivity growth and human capital and has called for an education revolution to secure the nation’s wellbeing far into the future. Labor has also started the debate about new directions for our schools, a progressive education initiative that highlights how puerile is this government’s contribution to education which is basically about slashing funding, criticising teachers and decimating funding for universities and tying funding for universities to implementation of Work Choices. Labor has a vision for the future of education in our country, a vision that builds on our long tradition of investment in education for all Australians. Unlike this government, we are not content just to sit back and hope that the resources boom—and the accompanying low unemployment—continue. It will not and we need to be prepared for that. Unlike this government, which has cut funding to universities by seven per cent in the last decade, unlike this government that has turned away 300,000 young people from TAFE colleges, unlike this government that has allowed HECS debts to rise by 430 per cent and introduced university degrees that cost more than $100,000, Labor will invest in education because it is the basis of our economic future.

Given the history of the Howard government’s abysmal record on education, we should not be surprised that one of the things that this bill will do is change the entitlement to the pensioner education supplement. The PES is a weekly allowance of some $31.20 intended to assist people with the cost of study while on the disability support pension. As we know, the best way to help people off welfare is to help them get the education and the skills they need to get a job. That was the intent of the PES and it was understood that under the Welfare to Work legislation those people on DSP who moved onto Newstart or youth allowance would keep the PES until they finished their course of study.

Under this legislation now those persons who started receiving the DSP during the period from May 2005 to July 2006 will lose the PES if they are reviewed off the DSP after 1 July 2006. Not only do they get dumped onto the dole—and a lower rate of income—they also lose their education supplement. While $31.20 might not seem a lot to some senators, to someone on welfare it is a significant assistance and could well be the difference between completing a course and not completing it. Being able to purchase essential study tools, including books, photocopying and internet access, and pay for travel and other costs is essential to successful completion of a course of study. In its submission to the inquiry into this bill ACOSS calculated that a person who was reviewed off their pension with two years of a three-year course to complete would miss out on receiving $3,200 for the remainder of their course. This is not a huge amount of money and, as we know from the government’s own figures, the number of persons involved would not be particularly significant. Catholic Social Services Australia, also in a submission to the inquiry into this bill, said on the matter of denying people the PES:

... outcomes ... of the Bill are a negligible financial saving for the Commonwealth accompanied by a high cost in economic, productivity, social and human terms.

It is not just the opposition that is opposed to this element of the bill. Advocacy groups such as Catholic Social Services Australia and ACOSS can also see the hypocrisy of the government’s argument and the failure of this proposed legislation to deliver what it is supposed to deliver.

A report that is useful to this debate entitled Dropping off the edge was recently launched here at Parliament House. The report, prepared for Jesuit Social Services and Catholic Social Services Australia, highlights the particularly strong link between intergenerational poverty and low educational attainment. The report goes on to say that by detaching individuals, families and whole communities from the modern economy in this way disadvantages holding back the nation’s economic potential. Labor couldn’t agree more that perpetuating the link between access to education and poverty is detrimental to the nation’s future wellbeing. But of course this government does not get it at all.

The government senators’ comments about this provision of the bill in the Senate committee report offer no good explanation for taking the PES from people who need it most. The government senators say that it is not about cost saving as the number of people potentially affected is not great. The government senators even say that it is a valuable support for people. You have to ask: why take it away? When the government senators say in the report that this is not about persecuting people on welfare, you have to wonder whether this is in fact an example of the government crying wolf. For the very good reason that education is the key to work and work is the key to getting off welfare, Labor does not support removal of the PES and we will move an amendment to this effect.

As I said, another provision of this bill is to enable contestability in the provision of rehabilitation services which are currently provided by the well-regarded Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service. Even the government senators on the Senate committee that inquired into this bill made mention of the CRS and commended the efforts of that organisation. While the government senators were complimentary of the CRS, there is little in the government senators’ report of the inquiry to justify the move to contestability. It is not, we are told, a cost-saving measure, nor is there any criticism of the CRS’s services. Instead, there are unsubstantiated and wishful comments along the lines of ‘contestability will increase choice and encourage innovation’. Well, where is the evidence for that? There was none presented to the inquiry, and the government senators did not present any such evidence either.

What we do know about contestability and privatisation without safeguards is that it always has the potential to put the provision of services outside the purview of government accountability and public scrutiny. The Scrutiny of Bills Committee, of which I am a member, has had some correspondence with the minister about the committee’s concerns that the bill would give the secretary of her department the ability to delegate all or any of his or her powers to any employee of any company to which the department has outsourced the provision of services. The committee was also concerned that there was no requirement in the legislation to take into account the capabilities or qualifications of private providers of services. The minister’s initial response to the Scrutiny of Bills Committee was that there would be a range of legislative and contractual safeguards to limit the delegation of powers and to ensure appropriate service delivery and monitoring of that delivery.

The committee then asked the minister for more information, because, as the Scrutiny of Bills Committee observed, contractual safeguards may well be included in contracts between private providers and the government department, but such safeguards are not known to, and probably would not be made known to, the Senate as a whole—because of the commercial confidentiality of such contracts—and such safeguards would not necessarily be subject to disallowance by the Senate in the manner of legislative instruments. The minister’s eventual response included the fact that VRS providers must comply with the disability service standards; that those standards are a legislative instrument and subject to disallowance; that the requirements to comply with the standards will be in the contract that VRS providers enter into with the government; and that compliance is independently assessed. Further, the minister advised that the section 5 guidelines will be developed at some point, in consultation with community organisations and people with disabilities and their advocates and will be subject to disallowance.

While the Scrutiny of Bills Committee’s inquiry was eventually answered to the satisfaction of its members and its limited terms of reference, what the committee’s inquiry did reveal was a very complicated trail of accountability and an as yet incomplete process. But here we are being asked to vote on this legislation prior to all the necessary checks and balances being in place. It is indicative of this government’s attitude to public scrutiny, it is indicative of this government’s haste and ineptitude, that the Scrutiny of Bills Committee detected much about this legislation that needed to be questioned and followed up, not once but twice.

Clearly, representative groups in our community are not satisfied that the bill offers the necessary protections for clients of VRS. The Senate committee inquiry into this bill heard from a number or organisations that are particularly worried about the future of provision of rehabilitation services, particularly for groups that have special needs. The Mental Health Council of Australia stated in its submission:

… the most effective rehabilitation programs are those tailored to meet the individual needs of consumers. By moving to a contestable rehabilitation services market, there must be assurances that specific rehabilitation programs are developed with the needs of mental health consumers as the primary motivation.

The Mental Health Council went on to say:

… the current move to more generalist employment agencies … does not create a favourable environment for mental health specialist rehabilitation services.

It is Labor’s view that contestability for rehabilitation services should not be introduced unless there are guarantees that all persons who need rehabilitation services receive the services they need and that the services are delivered in a way that is cognisant of their special needs.

It is galling, and indicative of this government’s extraordinary arrogance and contemptuous attitude to the parliament, that the tender process for rehabilitation services has commenced before this bill has even been passed by the parliament. There are, of course, parallels with the government’s reckless attempt to push through legislation creating the access card: despite nervousness in its own ranks about that—subsequently borne out by the Senate committee report on the so-called Human Services (Enhanced Service Delivery) Bill—the government started the tender process for the card and its system without waiting for the parliament to pass the legislation. Now it has had to pull that legislation, but the department has a tender process to manage. It is another example of the government’s abject failure in accountability and responsibility.

As other senators have said, this bill also goes to the issue of recovery of overpayments that Centrelink claims have been incurred by persons in receipt of financial case management. The bill, if passed, will allow Centrelink to recover what it declares to be debt from a person’s income support payments. No-one in this parliament supports welfare fraud, and Labor understands the need for any government payment system to be accompanied by legislation that enables recovery of overpayment or debt. It is appropriate that legislation should be provided for that and that the legislation be accompanied by proper guidelines and transparent appeal mechanisms. Our concern with this legislation is that the financial case management system is a discretionary program and not prescribed in social security law in a way that would make the program fully accountable and accompanied by proper appeal mechanisms.

We should not forget that the people who are in receipt of financial case management are without any financial support from the government because they have been breached. These are Australians who are really doing it tough, and financial case management was only introduced because the government’s harsh breaching regime was unpalatable to most Australians, who expect a modicum of respect and care for those who, for whatever reason, fall foul of our welfare laws. I am sure that every senator in this place would have been approached by some Australians who have been breached and who are desperately trying to survive and provide for their families in that difficult situation. Labor did not support the breaching regime in the so-called Welfare to Work package—we did not support the package at all—but if we are going to have a breaching regime, if the people of Australia are stuck with it, then let it be part of a legislative package and subject to accountability and appeal and to the checks and balances that this government hates but that responsible governance of the nation demands.

In conclusion, Labor would support legislation that genuinely helped people to end their dependence on welfare payments and assisted them into paid work when that is appropriate and possible. This bill does not help people most in need to end their dependence on welfare. This bill is another example of the government’s impoverished and stale policy making. Instead of creating a visionary and sustainable welfare and education system that is a stepping stone to financial and social independence, this bill will lead to further uncertainty and disadvantage for those Australians who most need our help.