John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

I have been waiting for this opportunity for a while, primarily due to a matter that has been before my office in Brisbane over a substantial period of time which highlights the harshness and the blind stupidity of the Welfare to Work legislation. I listened to Senator Bartlett and I think it is fitting to open with a quote from the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education which looked at the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. At point 1.8 on page 2, it said:

In summary, the committee majority sees these amendments as improving the Welfare to Work legislation. It notes that the amendments are the latest measures to increase workforce participation and improve employment rates.

This is a highly sterile approach to the humanity, the welfare, the wellbeing and the dignity of individuals. I think that sums up the attitude of this government—no heart, no compassion. I think it is worth while that I place on the record of this chamber the difficulties experienced by one family in particular.

This bill seeks the staged introduction of contestability for vocational rehabilitation services. Contestability of itself is not going to improve the plight necessarily of some welfare recipients. Bearing witness to a person on whose behalf I have made representations as a result of Welfare to Work legislation, I think you will see that there is a lot to be desired in this legislation of itself and in the broadest sense. I am going to quote from a letter that this person’s parents wrote to me but I will not mention any names nor identify any of the key players. I want to look at the heart of the issue. In some places, the particular statements that I will make may seem a bit staccato and may seem a little bit difficult.

These parents were very much at the end of their tether in dealing with the plight and the difficulties of a young member of their family. They wanted to bring to my attention the further problems which they have encountered with Centrelink. The person in question has had ongoing problems with depression and drug addiction. After I forwarded their complaints to the minister—so the minister has been aware of this matter and I must say that there has been good correspondence between the minister and me—they were interviewed. The result of the interview was that they were told that the person was exempt from having to attend appointments with the Job Network. So they felt some sort of relief out of the process at that stage.

Remember, they are now accounting their frustrations following on from that. They go on to say that prior to the expiry of the person’s medical certificate, the person was instructed to attend a job capacity assessment. The person lodged a further medical certificate written by a person who is one of the country’s leading psychiatrists in drug addiction. This certificate stated that the person was unfit for work but the person who carried out the job capacity assessment decided that the specialist in this field did not know what was best for the person in question.

The young person then received a letter stating that they had been passed fit to participate in a program for 15 to 22 hours per week. This was to be overseen by a provider and it was stated clearly in the letter that no further certificates would be accepted. So this was the end of the line for this person who has severe depression and drug addiction problems. The person in question had been attending sessions with the psychiatrist for all of the year in question and the sessions continued even after the letter from Centrelink stating that the person was fit for work. The person in question had not used hard drugs for two years and was receiving therapy for prescription drug abuse and cannabis use. Considerable progress was being made in these areas, as the parents write saying that the person had not been misusing prescription drugs for the whole year. Cannabis however was still an issue and the fortnightly sessions were to reinforce the abstinence from hard drugs and work towards detoxing from cannabis.

The parents went on to say that they were not opposed to their child going to a provider as they believed that they would help to find some part-time work or work experience for their child if the child were well enough to go. They went on to say that they were very shocked to find that the program that their child was put into was one for hard drug users. When the child came home and told them that that person was to attend a counselling and group therapy session with ex-drug users and others who were still using, they were horrified. They have been working for years with the help of the psychiatrist, whom they name, to move their child away from the drug scene and to have their child dissociate from drug users.

The letter went on to say that their child had told them that the program would include sessions on how to inject safely and on home detox. They became very alarmed. Their first action was to ring the psychiatrist to see about them writing a letter to stop it from happening. Unfortunately, the psychiatrist was away and so their child decided to attend the interview with Centrelink to tell them that neither they nor their parents were happy about them being around drug users and attending group therapy sessions with them. The counsellor who saw the person in question agreed that it was not an appropriate placement for the young person, but then proceeded to tell the person that they knew that this person had been in jail for cooking speed. They apparently talked for half an hour about speed, and the consequence of this interview was that the young person in question went straight out and obtained some speed and went on a binge. So much for getting people from welfare to work—the complete opposite was achieved by this process.

The parents went on to complain to me that they could not understand why their child had to attend the program when their child’s medical certificate was current at that stage. They said that their child would be very ill for a number of weeks and that this was particularly infuriating because they were able to secure some work experience at another site for him or her and, of course, he or she could not turn up because of the experience that they had just undergone. They say that not only did the Job Network not find their child some meaningful employment but their actions put the work experience program which they arranged in jeopardy.

Here was a family who were completely frustrated by the process and whose young child, who has some quite severe disabilities, was being pushed down a path quite inappropriate for the difficulties they were facing in life. The parents went on to say in their letter to me that the system of mutual obligation seems to be one which the employees of Centrelink and the Job Network take to mean they should ‘make things so difficult that the sick person will not make further applications for money.’ To say that these people were frustrated, disappointed and at their wits’ end is an understatement indeed. Bear in mind that this letter I am quoting from now was probably written some six months after they had first sought my intervention to bring some sanity into the processes in respect of their child. Their letter went on to say that the consequences of this refusal by Centrelink to accept the new certificate ‘are now devastating for our family and we would like you to follow-up on these issues.’

I have tried not to quote selectively from the letter but to give the Senate a reasonably broad understanding of the frustration of these parents caused by the system imposed by this government. It was interesting to then read the response of the then acting minister to one of my items of correspondence where the then acting minister acknowledged the correspondence that I had forwarded on behalf of my constituents and acknowledged the concerns about their child’s participation requirements. It went on:

Centrelink staff are required to make decisions about welfare entitlements based on legislation. They have no authority to make decisions contrary to social security law nor discretion to make exceptions in individual cases. Similarly, I have no such authority.

That to me is a tragic statement of what this legislation is really about. It is really about taking to task those people who are least able, capable and likely to defend themselves. In this particular case, this particular young person had been to hell and back, in many senses of the expression. The system placed this person highly at risk once again.

We then had that opening statement that I read from the committee majority where they said:

... the committee majority sees these amendments as improving the Welfare to Work legislation.

I would say that those senators need to go back and take a very close look at what the Welfare to Work legislation does. It is a one-size-fits-all piece of legislation with no exemptions or exceptions. The frustration that this family, who are constituents of mine from Queensland, have suffered, in my mind, bears that out well. It seems that there is an attempt to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and to try to vary the make-up of the sledgehammer is not going to change things as this legislation seeks to do. Changes cannot be made by the government agencies, as I understand it, nor the minister. Heaven forbid what it will be like with private providers empowered to make the decisions.

I now turn to paragraphs 1.27 and 1.28 on page 8 of the majority report of the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education. This is the view of the government senators, under the heading ‘Conclusions and recommendation’. Paragraph 1.27 says:

A key objective of the government is to maximise the ability of people to find work, particularly those who face the most severe barriers to work, and to reducing welfare dependency.

That is very high and mighty, and may be laudable in some senses, but for the young person whom I have talked about in this debate this evening it is a diabolical challenge indeed, because all it means is frustration, not only for that young person but for that young person’s family, who are equally sharing in the frustrations and challenges of that young person. This is a terribly mechanical approach and it says nothing about the welfare, wellbeing and dignity of the individual. It does nothing for the welfare and wellbeing of the individual whatsoever. It delivers an ideological outcome for this government rather than looking at the welfare, wellbeing and dignity of the individual.

Paragraph 1.28 says:

In considering the evidence to this inquiry, the committee concludes that the provisions of the bill are consistent with the intent of the existing Welfare to Work package. Amendments to the provision of vocational rehabilitation services will pave the way for increased choice as well as encouraging innovation in the provision of services.

If that is the case, all I can say is: heaven help us. One might say that the case I have cited tonight is the extreme. It may well be, but there is no room to cater for the extremes in this legislation. If this legislation is about encouraging innovation, heaven knows what is going to happen to the likes of this young person. I fear for young people such as the person I have talked about in this debate this evening, as well as for their parents. There is no sense of empathy, no sense of understanding of the dilemma that these people face in trying to come to grips with the mechanical realities of a piece of legislation that has been designed by this government to deliver some rah-rah lines out there which resonate with some sectors of the community but which fall on deaf ears with many who see that people like that young person I spoke about are just kept out of sight and out of mind.

The person that I spoke about this evening is a real person. The family are real people. They have real values in life. They are not trying to rip the system off. They are not trying to take the system down. From my discussions with the parents, I know they would love their child to be an eligible, real and great contributor to society. The facts of life are that that is not happening. They want their child to be a good citizen, but of course that child has suffered as a result of certain disabilities over the years—depression and drug addiction. Seeing that child put back into a situation where her or his life is put at risk by being exposed to the same difficulties that they are trying to avoid makes a lie of this legislation indeed. The sentiments come from the spin doctors. I would ask them to look realistically at the need to cater for those people who are least able to defend themselves in our society. Look at those people not through the prism of economic expediency but as individuals with a dignity that deserves to be relished, cherished and identified by our society.