Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am wondering why the government is so insistent on saying these are trials for 12 months when the legislation is not based around a trial approach and can go across Australia. I find it hard to understand why the government is bringing in a piece of legislation that is so expansive when it says it is only really doing trials and that they will then be evaluating those trials.

Question negatived.

I move Greens amendment (2) on sheet 5656:

(2)    Schedule 1, item 6, page 5 (after line 26), after the heading to division 1, insert:

124AB Review of operation of Part

        (1)    The Minister must cause an independent review of the operation of this Part to be conducted as soon as possible after the first anniversary of the commencement of this Part and completed within 4 months of that anniversary.

        (2)    The review must report on:

             (a)    changes in truancy rates against baseline data and against comparable populations outside the trial areas;

             (b)    changes in truancy rates for families within affected communities based on income source and family type;

             (c)    comparison to outcomes of incentive-based initiatives;

             (d)    number of notifications given, how quickly families responded and number of families breached;

             (e)    impacts on the circumstances and well-being of those families involved including financial hardship, use of emergency support services, loss of housing or utilities, impacts on other children, family conflict;

              (f)    impacts on social services within the region including level of demand, level of services delivered, changes in the types of services delivered and level of unmet services;

             (g)    impacts on schools including concerns of teachers and principals, level of demand on school services, and changes in relationships between schools and families;

             (h)    impact on and level of service delivered by State or Territory education departments to support children at risk, teachers and families to tackle truancy;

              (i)    relative impacts on Indigenous and non-Indigenous families;

              (j)    relative impacts on migrant families, particularly humanitarian migrants within the Cannington region;

             (k)    the level of awareness and understanding of the measures of affected families;

              (l)    factors relating to the interaction with welfare quarantining and child protection measures;

            (m)    any other matters considered relevant.

        (3)    The review must be conducted by a panel which must comprise not less than 5 persons, including:

             (a)    a person with expertise in child development;

             (b)    a person with expertise in primary and secondary education;

             (c)    a person with expertise in child protection;

             (d)    a person with expertise in community services;

             (e)    a person with expertise in Indigenous communities;

              (f)    a person with expertise in humanitarian migrant communities.

        (4)    The panel must give the Minister a written report of the review, and the Minister must cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of receiving the report.

This amendment seeks to put in place a review of the operation of this act. The Greens are not satisfied that the government will carry out an adequate evaluation of these so-called trials, and the information we have received—both today, through this process, and through the committee inquiry and answers to questions on notice—does not satisfy us that there will be an adequate and proper evaluation of these so-called trials. So this amendment is to put in place a review of the operation of this act to ensure that there is, in fact, a legislative base for a proper review so that we can be assured that any review will be effective.

Question put:

That the amendment (Senator Siewert’s) be agreed to.