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

I move Greens amendment (22) on sheet 5655 revised 2:

(22)  Schedule 1, item 1, page 15 (after line 27), before section 42T, insert:

42SA Discretion not to report non-compliance

        (1)    An employment service provider may exercise a discretion not to report to the Secretary that a person has failed to comply with an obligation in relation to a participation payment if the employment service provider considers, on reasonable grounds, that compliance action under this Division is not the best means of securing re-engagement and is counter-productive to the person obtaining employment.

        (2)    For the purposes of this section, an employment service provider is a provider of employment services contracted by the Commonwealth.

This amendment provides discretion for employment service providers. This amendment, we believe, is one that is consistent with the government’s stated policy. It was discussed during the Senate inquiry. The government made it clear that employment service providers will have discretion in providing participation reports to Centrelink. That was clear during the discussion.

At the moment, however, that discretion is included in the contracts process with employment service providers. We do not believe that is an appropriate place for that discretion to be. We believe it should be in the actual bill, the same way as the Senate has now acknowledged and included provisions for discretion of Centrelink. We believe that should be in the bill. That discretion for employment service providers should be part of legislation. The government, as I understand it, are very clear that they do have that—if my understanding is wrong, I would really like them to clarify that! We believe that this is a very important provision and that it is not appropriate that that mechanism be delivered through a contract process. It should be in the legislation.