Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to make a contribution to the debate on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance Framework) Bill 2014 because it is part of a series of bills that has been put in place around the issues of job participation. People may remember that a previous bill, the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Stronger Penalties for Serious Failures) Bill 2014, was handled by the Community Affairs Legislation Committee. Senator Siewert referred to that in her contribution. Basically, we see the bill before us as part of a series of bills that has been introduced by the government, looking at their view about the best way to ensure that people who are unemployed engage more effectively with the system. That seems to be the basis of the process.

As has been said by a number of contributors, we have no problem with the concept of making sure that people who are unemployed are effectively able to engage with the system with the intent that they will then be able to have opportunities and options for their own futures and, most importantly, will be able to look at getting into employment. We have heard many times about the gap between being out of the workforce and having no sense of hope or no sense of option. The opportunity of getting into work and engaging with the community is the key gap which we are seeking to fill.

There is a great deal of agreement about the process, we believe. As was clearly stated by Senator Cameron, this particular bill is a step too far in terms of the way the operational processes work. We believe that we have to work hard to get the balance right between encouragement, support and responsibility. The concept of mutual obligation is not new. It is worrying that, in introducing new processes or new legislation, sometimes there is overenthusiasm to put forward that only the new group has any acceptance of the rights of the process or any understanding of the process. It is important that we see that the concept of mutual obligation is at the core of our social welfare system, as it has been for generations. I am not talking about a short period. It has been the case for generations that, if you are going to be in receipt of a payment from the Commonwealth, you have responsibilities to engage in a process and work within the system.

The intent of the bill is to strengthen the mutual obligation. We do not believe the evidence is there that it is necessary to make these changes at this time. We believe it is necessary to reinforce the concept of mutual obligation, which has been consistently put forward in evidence before the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, when we had the earlier investigation of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Stronger Penalties for Serious Failures) Bill 2014, and before the Education and Employment Legislation Committee. Senator Lines mentioned the experience there.

No-one actually rejects the concept of mutual obligation. What we do reject are the processes in this bill, which I believe are too punitive. Core to the concerns that I have with this bill is the removal of the appeal right that people have now to question judgements that have been made about their engagement and about whether reasonable excuses for not turning up to an appointment are, in fact, reasonable. We have great information. I applaud the information provided to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee by the department. We had very detailed information from the department about how the system operates, how reasonableness is defined, the number of people who have been affected by decisions in the past and also the number of people who have been identified as not meeting their responsibilities. That is a really valuable base upon which to make assessment.

However, the concept that anyone who is impacted by a decision should have the right to appeal is, I think, sacrosanct. I do not understand why that element is put in this bill. I can read the bill, I can read the department's submission and I can understand a little bit about the background as to why they think the penalty for not turning up to an interview should be considered. I understand why there is concern that people are not doing that. I can understand, to an extent, why there is a focus on the particular needs of young people, which comes out in the explanation of the process. I can understand, to an extent—though I do not accept it—the argument about older people who are in the unemployment process. The element that stands out for me in this bill, though, is the rationale for why you would need to take away an appeal right—something that is there now. Indeed, we are concerned that not enough people use it.

I look at the issues around the social welfare system—a system that has always encouraged people to take ownership of their own situation and become personally engaged; in fact, to live mutual obligation. Over the years, I have been involved in a number of reviews, both when I worked in the area and since I have been in this place, looking at the area of appeal and questioning people who work for both the Social Security Appeals Tribunal and the AAT about what they are doing to encourage people to know their rights and to use the current system—to understand that they do have a right to appeal. So I have a basic concern that, even now, when the right exists, everybody does not know they have the right and can access it.

My disappointment is that, in the midst of this bill, which is aimed at making sure that people have greater engagement with the system, one of the key changes is to take away an appeal right. As you know from hearing previous speakers on this side of the chamber, that is a concern that is shared by many. It was certainly shared by a number of the people who came to talk with the committee about their interest in this bill. Naturally, on welfare rights you would expect ACOSS and people who work in the system to identify that this lack of appeal process is of concern. But you also have the Job Network—the very people who are working closest to the people who are caught up in the system—identifying that, amidst all the other issues of engagement and participation, the removal of an appeal is a significant issue.

On that basis, I want to re-raise that because it is something that has troubled me for a long time. I think that our system is based on people knowing their rights. Our system is based on people taking personal responsibility. In that kind of system, in that plan, having a strong appeal process which is available to have decisions independently reviewed means that, if you feel that you have been treated unjustly, if you feel that there have been any errors, you can then have that reviewed. In the process in this particular bill, that is something which is most concerning, and we do not support the removal of the appeal right in the process.

Recently the Community Affairs References Committee has been doing an inquiry on income inequality in Australia. Many of the issues that have been raised in the discussion around this bill came up through evidence and through site visits that we had in that area. We heard really strong evidence from a number of people, some of whom also appeared before the Education and Employment Legislation Committee on this bill, about the issues around employment and making sure that people have a sense that they have options and choices. We heard about the concerns about long-term entrenched poverty and long-term entrenched exclusion from the system.

These same issues were raised by evidence in the committee inquiry on this bill. It was raised that the people who are most needy, the people who have the most need to be involved in some form of job participation and become engaged in the system, are often those who are the most vulnerable and who are the most excluded. It makes sense, to an extent. If you already have a strong education, a strong interest in work and a strong engagement in your society, more than likely you are going to be more job ready than others.

The participation requirements which are central to this bill are focused indeed on the people who need to be involved most. On this basis we completely agree with some of the evidence that was put forward by the department. We need to have people involved. But what is lacking, not just in this bill but in a range of the options that the government have put forward in their plan to have more people in the workplace, is any clear evidence that bringing forward punitive measures has a result of changed behaviour. We have evidence that it does cause difficulties. It does put people into greater need. But where is the evidence—and certainly we have been seeking this from people who are supporting this legislation—that says that, if you make it tougher for people, if you punish them, if in fact you push them further away, that kind of strategy is going to engage, welcome and support to get people back into the system?

And that is the key difference. The process that we as a government supported was surely to reinforce the need for people to be involved—for people to register with their Job Network, to be involved with their Job Network and to have a process of involvement. If there was a breakdown in that and if there was a lack of compliance to a large extent, with people not turning up to interview, not engaging effectively, there was a suspension of payment. The intent of that was to draw to the attention of the person that there was mutual obligation, and we strongly support that. We believe in the concept of having responsibility to ensure that you are working in the system and being involved.

Where this bill ramps it up to another level is that, where that process operates, there is a more directly punitive impact. If it is found that you have missed an interview and the Job Network decides that that is real—we have had significant evidence about the responsibility to determine whether there was a reasonable excuse; the process is still with the Job Network, and then it feeds the information through to the Department of Human Services—the new system is actually saying that, should you re-engage, there is the possibility that you will not have a back payment fulfilled from the time that it was found that you had not fulfilled the obligation. That is the change. The change is not in encouraging people in the system; the change is the depth of the impact if you do not do that.

I raise the concern from the evidence that we have received across a range of inquiries, across a range of community interactions, from the people who work most closely with the people who are vulnerable, with the people who are already excluded, with the people for whom this legislation has been determined. When you talk with the people from the Anglicares, from the St Vincent de Pauls and from the various support agencies, their response is that this is not the best lever to respond to the need. From their knowledge, they believe that we need to put everything in place in our system to encourage people to stay in the system and to identify their vulnerabilities.

I know there is a difference in philosophy. I know that the government will bring forward their process and say that this will ensure that people will be involved. However, what we have now is a group of people in the unemployment process. We have, unfortunately, quite a high unemployment rate and a number of people who are highly motivated and are in the process seeking to get into work. Provided that we have a job market and there are jobs available, that cohort will be most easily placed into employment or re-employment. At the other end, we have some people who have generational unemployment issues. We heard about people who, over years, had not been able to be in the workforce. They had no type of modelling. I quote Lin Hatfield Dodds from UnitingCare Australia in her evidence to our committee inquiry on income insecurity, where she said:

There are people growing up in areas of locational disadvantage, the poverty postcodes, where no-one in a community has ever had a job.

That is truly a confronting concept. Through the process of this inquiry, we were able to visit communities where that was true: whole areas, regions, where people were in a situation where they had been excluded from a society that looked at the value of education and work.

We need to change that. But that also means that there needs to be a way of ensuring that people are welcomed and supported in the system. I do not accept that more punishment actually creates behavioural change. I accept that there are people who need more work to include them in the system and I know that can be incredibly frustrating. There is enough evidence from the services that we have heard from that offering wraparound support that looks at the individual's issues in their families and in workplaces that have led them not being involved currently in the workplace—when those issues are taken into account and personalised strategies are imposed—gets people more job ready and engaged with the community. On that basis, I do not believe the changes in this bill will end up with the outcomes which were intended.

I am also concerned by the significant savings measures in this bill because it seems to me that the only way that the volume of savings linked to this bill can be harvested is if people are removed from their welfare payments. The intent of the bill is to remove people from payments. If that removal is into work then that is a great result, but we do not have the jobs in our current market to make that happen. Through a range of inquiries we saw the number of people who are without work and when you equate them with the number of jobs that are available generally—let alone in particular locations—it does not add up. That means that people will be in the situation of having their hopes dashed in many cases. The fear, worry and disconnect that no matter what they do it will not make a change is the biggest disincentive that we have, and I think that is the major challenge. We have to overcome that.

The other element of the bill that I have a concern with is the treatment of the older unemployed. This is a particularly sensitive topic. We have many more people over 50 involved in the system and this bill changes the way people over 55 are treated and their requirement to engage. The information from the discussions we had through a number of inquiries is that in this cohort alone there is a need to work personally with individuals. In some cases these are people who have lost their work and have never been able, for whatever reason, to re-engage. I question where the evidence is to show that making their requirement tougher will work. I have seen the work of agencies who specialise in this area. They bring forward intensive support programs based on the individual's needs and background and do work hard with employers to make that linkage. That is the way that we should be moving as opposed to increasing their requirement for compliance, which is what this bill does.

There is a real opportunity. There are people who work specifically in this area. Certainly, the commissioner for the ageing, Susan Ryan, has a great interest in this area and is trying to focus very clearly on skills audits and encouraging people who are ageing to make sure that their respect in their own worth is maintained and that their value as an employee is made known across the community. We should be focusing more on that side of the equation rather than lifting their requirement for engagement to meet the requirements for a social security payment.

I do not disagree with mutual obligation. I do disagree in raising the punitive aspects, which this bill does. There is an opportunity for us to work effectively together to see that we have options in this area rather than going down a track which is based on penalty and savings. We should be looking at how we can invest more into the system and into the individual so that we link people with employment, encourage them into employment and, as Senator Lines spoke so passionately about, show respect to people in this situation. (Time expired)