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

I thank people for participating in the discussion. I've got a little bit more information as final encouragement and to put on the record. The National Foundation for Australian Women report Gender lens on the budget2018-19 says:

It is unhelpful to view mothers of young children as 'unemployed workers' when they are in fact working longer hours than men in full-time positions, though largely without remuneration.

While the evaluation report that I was talking about earlier acknowledges that early intervention with parents of young children through the provision of outreach services could be an important strategy in engaging individuals in workplace participation—and it identifies ParentsNext as an example of this—we would argue that a more useful intervention would be one that was voluntary, was not punitive and had a broader scope of support to be offered to adequately address the multiple barriers to employment that jobseekers more broadly face, including safe and stable accommodation and access to transport.

Many of the people who will be on the much-expanded ParentsNext program face many levels of disadvantage. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that people who are forced to undertake activities don't have as good outcomes as those who are provided with choice. There's also a lot of evidence to show that early intervention and prevention and continued support for young families produces extremely good outcomes. Across the forward estimates, this program is going to cost $351 million. That is a lot of money that we think could be better invested. We have no argument with the government, or with Labor, that we need to be supporting young families, young mothers—people who have multiple layers of disadvantage. But we think we need to be investing it in a different way, a way that is not compliance focused. When you look at who's now eligible under this program, basically where we end up is that, under the targeted program and through the intensive program, anybody who supposedly has not worked in the last six months, who has a child over the age of five and who is on parenting payment is now subjected to ParentsNext. That's what it effectively means.

I have a number of examples where people have been caught up in this. It is just so frustrating that the government isn't acknowledging that those who are undertaking full-time study or significant study can be exempt from this program. I got rather a long email from a mother who is caught up in this process. We received correspondence from this constituent, who was sent a letter by the Department of Human Services stating she must participate in the program in August. She has a three-year-old child. She's a full-time university student and a single parent. She said:

I was assessed by the Department of Social Services last week and attended the first appointment. This took some three hours out of my day.

She then explained that she has been assessed to receive very little child support from her son's father. She said:

Often I do not receive any child support, and what I do receive does not even cover the cost of nappies. Any cut to parenting payment will have a catastrophic impact on my ability to support our family.

She went on to say:

During the assessment process I have already missed a number of phone calls from the Department of Human Services due to study and parenting responsibilities. If this was the ParentsNext contractor calling then I would likely have had my parenting payment cut. It is often difficult with small children to answer the phone or be places at a particular time. The compliance requirements of this program are unrealistic for parents of small children. Further, the reference to parents of small children as 'jobseekers' by the Department of Jobs and Small Business and the ParentsNext contractors is insulting. I note that I am not a jobseeker. I am a full-time mother and student.

Further, she said:

After the Department of Human Services assessed my eligibility for the program, they gave me two business days to attend a meeting with a ParentsNext contractor.

She had two options. She was very concerned about one particular provider, so she chose one that was farther away, but she said:

All up, I spent three hours attending the mandatory interview, or I was threatened by the department with my payment being cut. This is time I could have been devoting to my university studies and was also time I was paying for child care so I could study.

She raised issues around privacy and she argued that the program is discriminatory, saying:

The fact that I am a woman and have certain family responsibilities is being used to discriminate against me.

I've already articulated that the vast majority of participants are women. She concluded by saying:

The implementation of this program feels like a further blow, as I have less time to devote to my studies, which I ultimately hope will result in a stable, well-paid job to facilitate my son's future education.

I have other examples:

It used to be okay before when I started. I think baby before one year old.

This is obviously from an email that was done very quickly. It goes on:

You only go there every six months face to face and phone calls every two months or three. Now for a single mum on low income it's an activity that you need to attend, otherwise provide valid reason if you can't or pay is suspended. If you use all of your demerit points by not abiding with the plan then there's a pay cut and it will take three weeks to have it back.

Another person wrote:

Agreed, I am working and still have to attend simply because I am not doing 15 hours consistently per week, even though I'm not required to work yet. Multiple texts saying 'payment's been cut for not attending', even though I'm in—

expletive—

work and have told them so.

This is the issue for people who are working. They are clearly engaged; they are clearly trying to find work. The department claims they're not stable, so they're caught up in this. You have to ask why. Why do people who are studying have to participate in this program that, it's been clearly demonstrated, people feel is not appropriate?

I note that Labor claim it is all their work, although it's the Greens who were paying attention to this program, but I do thank both sides of the parliament for engaging very meaningfully in this debate. As Senator Cameron articulated, there's been a commitment that there will be more attempts to enable people who are studying to be contacted by phone to provide further guidance to the providers—or it will be in the guidelines to the provider. But a lot of these decisions are provider dependent. It's not just the fact that people have to report; it's also the fact that they feel demeaned by being on this program because they are actually already actively engaged and participating. I'd say anybody who's undertaking full-time university is actually making a very big effort to make sure that they are able to find work and engage. So I think the program is misguided. As I said, we very strongly support this level of investment. We disagree with the way the government is doing it.

I am also very concerned about the impact this will have on First Nations peoples, particularly young women who have to engage when their child turns six months old. Many people have multiple areas of disadvantage. I'm deeply concerned that this funding should be invested much more up-front in different ways to enable people to address barriers not just to employment but to other areas of their lives.

We support this investment. We disagree that this is the way to go. We think some of the issues about the way that this money is being invested and the approach that the program is taking are more about controlling, in a compulsory manner, people who are accessing parenting payment. That, combined with the new compliance framework, could very well have a significantly detrimental impact on women—this is largely focused on women, particularly single parents. It will have a detrimental impact on them as this program rolls out. This new program started in July, just as the new compliance framework started, so we haven't yet seen the significant impact this program could have in terms of people ending up not just having their payments suspended but with demerit points and significant penalties.

We do acknowledge the commitments the government has made in providing clarification, in education and training, around approved activities, the pensioner education supplement and childcare provider choice. I am deeply concerned about the lack of significant numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander providers. I appreciate the commitment the government has made to pursue that. The minister says she's asked the department to provide her with further details regarding partner arrangements with ParentsNext providers who have entered into arrangements with Indigenous organisations and will forward this information separately as it becomes available. I appreciate the commitment to follow that up. We appreciate the commitment to expand the communication with participants. I think that is all significant progress, and I am glad that this process of disallowance has enabled those discussions. But we are still deeply concerned that this program is misdirected and that we could spend this $350 million in a way that better supports families and women, because this is really about women. We need to make sure that we're investing that money in the most meaningful way. We don't think this is the way to go. We will continue to review and monitor this program. I'm heartened to hear the opposition say that they are going to engage with the program more and continue to review it too, because I think it needs very close scrutiny.

And just to address the issue around the providers that have already been contracted, my concern is about the way the contracts were put in place before the disallowance period on this expired, which undermines our ability to disallow it. My response would be that these contractors could be providing very valuable services to community members and to the people who are identified as needing that level of support—doing outreach support programs. So it's not so much that I'm worried about that. I think we could still spend the money the government's allocated in a very meaningful way. But I think there's a problem with going into contracting on matters that are subject to disallowance—they're using that as an excuse to not change a program—particularly if the will of the Senate was to in fact disallow this or change a particular program. I commend the disallowance to the chamber.