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

Senator Bernardi, I think you, whether deliberately or by accident, are misrepresenting the approach the Greens are taking to this legislation. It is completely wrong. We are trying to put in place amendments that would make this legislation fair, that deal with real-life circumstances. While I fully know that there are provisions for dealing with harassment, in the real world sometimes it does not work that way. Sometimes people are just so over it, they do not want to deal with what is, until the new IR legislation comes into place—I realise we are not debating that now, but I have some problems with it—the current legislation. Work Choices has it made extremely hard to address these issues. So, in the real world, sometimes it does not happen that way. Sometimes people actually need to leave to regain their sanity even, because they are in a dire situation they just cannot deal with and it is easier to leave.

I find it incredible that the coalition is still trying to defend what was a harsh system that unfairly penalised people, that ended up breaching an inordinate number of people, in particular Aboriginal Australians. In my home state of Western Australia I think the number of Aboriginal people who were breached increased by 300 per cent. And those figures are probably wrong, because people just dropped out of the system. So don’t try and label the Greens as some sort of group that is now trying to get everybody out of having to take care of their responsibilities. We are trying to put in place a fair system that needs to be flexible enough to deal with the increasing number of people who unfortunately we are going to see on our unemployment lists.

Quite clearly, Australians did not appreciate either Work Choices or Welfare to Work, both of which were systems that punish people, in particular Aboriginal Australians. We have been reviewing this legislation with them particularly in mind. Having said that, I have said my piece in terms of our belief that these amendments make the legislation more consistent across the different penalties. In fact, I think it is a misconception to believe that the working-off provisions in the other sections of the bill are somehow light on those who are unemployed and have been subject to an eight-week penalty provision. I think you should try doing it yourself for a while and see if you think it is a particularly light way of trying to survive. It is not. The submissions that the Greens have received, both those that have gone through the Senate inquiry and those received from direct correspondence, show that people have gone through this legislation very carefully and have suggested very fair amendments, which we are trying to implement here.

So, please, I urge the coalition to take another look at our amendments and look at how they will be implemented in the real world, because that is what we are trying to do—we are trying to look at this through the eyes of the people who are going to be impacted by this legislation. We are not judging them from above but are looking at it from the perspective of people who are actually trying to survive. There are going to be more people in this situation. There are going to be more people who are going to fall through the system, perhaps not deliberately, and they may be subject to this.

We are also keen to make sure that this legislation addresses the fact that where people are breaching the system there are enough penalties in place. We believe that there should be enough checks and balances to ensure that those people are dealt with appropriately, but we also need to ensure that vulnerable job seekers are not unfairly treated and that they get the help to re-engage and find the job they need. In some cases, these people need additional assistance and we need to ensure that that is built into this system. We are keen to ensure that it is fair for all Australians and that some people are not being blamed, penalised and demonised, which is what happened under the previous regime.