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

I will respond briefly and I will try not to flame. I accept that some people will engage in voluntary misconduct. I can appreciate that. We come from the position that we need to not assume that everybody is acting in that manner. We come from the perspective that we need to look at whether there is a reason for their misconduct. It may be assumed that it is misconduct but in fact it is not and there may be a reasonable reason for it. We are not pretending that everything in the world is perfect. We do acknowledge that there will be some people who engage in misconduct. We think that there are adequate provisions in this legislation to deal with that. But, as I said, we come from the perspective that we do not necessarily assume that it is always misconduct and that there is no reason for it.

Quite often, when you look beneath the surface, there may be circumstances where what is considered to be misconduct is in fact not. Even if somebody thinks it is misconduct there may in fact be a reasonable reason for it. That is where we come from. We do not assume that everybody is bad.

Question negatived.

by leave—I move Greens amendments (14) to (19) on sheet 5655 revised 2:

(14)  Schedule 1, item 1, page 12 (after line 22), after section 42N, insert:

42NC Determination about serious failure requirements and severe financial hardship

                 If the Secretary determines that a person commits a serious failure, the Secretary must also determine that this section applies unless the Secretary is satisfied that:

             (a)    the person does not have the capacity to undertake any serious failure requirement; and

             (b)    serving the serious failure period would cause the person to be in severe financial hardship.

(15)  Schedule 1, item 1, page 12 (line 25), after “serious failure” insert “and has determined that section 42NC applies”.

(16)  Schedule 1, item 1, page 13 (line 28), after the note, insert:

     (1A)    The Secretary may make a determination under paragraph (1)(b) on request or on his or her own initiative.

(17)  Schedule 1, item 1, page 13 (lines 32 to 33), omit paragraph 42Q(2)(b), substitute:

             (b)    if the Secretary makes a determination under paragraph (1)(b) on request—the day before the request was made; or

             (c)    if the Secretary makes a determination under paragraph (1)(b) on his or her own initiative—the day before the Secretary makes the determination.

(18)  Schedule 1, item 1, page 13 (line 34), after the note, insert:

        (3)    Section 42NC does not affect the operation of this section.

(19)  Schedule 1, item 1, page 17 (line 24), omit “42Q(2)(b)”, substitute “42Q(2)(c)”.

Also, I withdraw Greens amendment (24) on sheet 5655 revised 2 as it is in fact the same as amendment (19). Amendments (14) to (19) provide for the circumstance where the secretary makes a determination that a person is unable to comply with a serious failure requirement and the person would suffer financial hardship—the serious failure period ends the day before the secretary makes the determination or the day before the request is made by the job seeker to consider hardship.

As the bill is written at the moment, the serious failure period would end the day the secretary makes the determination, but it would take the secretary some time to make that determination. The person then suffers a loss of income despite the finding that they would be put into serious financial hardship. We believe it is much more appropriate that the person suffers no loss in these circumstances, so this series of amendments is to deal with that provision. The issues around financial hardship are acknowledged in the bill, and we believe this makes it a little bit clearer and fairer for job seekers.