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

I move:

(1)

That the Senate notes that the Community Affairs Legislation Committee report, Provisions of the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Other Measures) Bill 2005 and the Family and Community Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work) Bill 2005, tabled in the Senate on 28 November 2005 recommended:

… the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations reassess which of the guidelines under the package are to be disallowable by the Parliament; that is, that it ensure key aspects of the guidelines be determined by disallowable instruments. This will ensure consistency in application as well as appropriate Parliamentary scrutiny. In particular, the Committee recommends that guidelines dealing with what constitutes unsuitable paid employment, special family circumstances, suitable and unsuitable activities for participation, and compliance issues are based on disallowable instruments.

(2)

That the following matter be referred to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 14 September 2006:

The extent and effectiveness of the following regulations made under the Social Security Act 1991 in giving effect to the recommendation of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee’s report:

(a)

Social Security (Activity Agreement Requirements) (DEST) Determination 2006 [F2006L00390];

(b)

Social Security (Activity Agreement Requirements) (DEWR) Determination 2006 [F2006L00338];

(c)

Social Security (Activity Agreement Requirements) (FaCSIA) Determination 2006 [F2006L00348];

(d)

Social Security (Prospective Determinations for Parenting Payment Recipients) (DEWR) Guidelines 2006 [F2006L00336];

(e)

Social Security (Reasonable Excuse) (DEST) Determination 2006 [F2006L00397];

(f)

Social Security (Reasonable Excuse) (DEWR) Determination 2006 [F2006L00340];

(g)

Social Security (Reasonable Excuse) (FaCSIA) Determination 2006 [F2006L00350];

(h)

Social Security (Special Circumstances relating to a Person’s Family) (DEWR) Determination 2006 [F2006L00339];

(i)

Social Security (Special Circumstances relating to a Person’s Family) (FaCSIA) Determination 2006 [F2006L00349];

(j)

Social Security (Unsuitable Work) (DEWR) Determination 2006 [F2006L00341]; and

(k)

Social Security (Unsuitable Work) (FaCSIA) Determination 2006 [F2006L00347].

This motion relates to what I believe is an extremely important issue, and I seek to have the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee review the legislative instruments that implement the Welfare to Work legislation. We had what I consider a fairly limited debate when the Welfare to Work legislation went through this place, and only three days of committee hearings. During the second reading debate in the Senate, through to the Committee of the Whole debate and the Senate committee hearings, we heard a number of concerns expressed about the implementation of the legislation.

Everyone is well aware of the concerns of the Greens—and, I think, of most members on this side of the chamber—about the impact that these significant changes will have on the most disadvantaged in our society. The legislative instruments were implemented as a means of dealing with some of these concerns about the implementation of the legislation, because a lot that is left up to the interpretation of the secretary of the department, of departmental officers and of Centrelink officers will have profound implications for the people who are subjected to the Welfare to Work regime.

During the committee process, a number of recommendations were made about things that should be put into legislative instruments. I note that during the process of debate a number of concerns were raised about things that were to be left in the guidelines. There were commitments made about addressing issues in legislative instruments. Some of those issues have been picked up in the legislative instruments and were tabled in this place. I did not seek to disallow those instruments because, while they look to me to be not fully adequate to cover the issues that need to be covered, some instruments are better than others. But I do think that, while they are being implemented, the committee should be reviewing their effectiveness.

I draw the Senate’s attention to recommendation 2 of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee report on the inquiry into the provisions of the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Other Measures) Bill 2005 and the Family and Community Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work) Bill 2005. Recommendation 2 of the report states:

... the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations reassess which of the guidelines under the package are to be disallowable by the Parliament; that is, that it ensure key aspects of the guidelines be determined by disallowable instruments. This will ensure consistency in application as well as appropriate Parliamentary scrutiny.

I believe that the appropriate response to ensuring appropriate parliamentary scrutiny is to refer it to the committee to review the effectiveness of these instruments: whether the instruments are adequate, whether the specific instruments cover all of the issues and whether all the issues are covered by them. The recommendation of the committee goes on to state:

In particular, the Committee recommends that guidelines dealing with what constitutes unsuitable paid employment, special family circumstances, suitable and unsuitable activities for participation, and compliance issues are based on disallowable instruments.

I think everybody would agree that those issues are extremely significant to people affected by these changes. I believe there are some errors by omission in the instruments. There are gaps and inconsistencies, and promises and assurances made during the debate on this legislation have not been delivered on. We need to ensure that these legislative instruments are fair and equitable, that not too many sensitive issues are left to the discretion of either the secretary of the department or those implementing the guidelines—for example, Centrelink—and that there are clear guidelines around the things that are left to their discretion.

I also remind people that I believe the level of a development of a society—the maturity and humanity of its culture—is not measured by how it treats its foremost citizens but by the way it looks after the welfare of its least fortunate. That should be borne in mind whenever we look at these types of issues. We face a significant challenge in Australia in that the gap between rich and poor continues to grow. We do not seem to be making it any smaller—that is for sure.

We know that it is the size of this gap that is having quite a significant impact on people within our society. It is not really the objective wealth of the disadvantaged that is the best indicator—and I have talked about this issue in this place—of the amount of crime and conflict and the level of chronic illness; it is actually the fact that the gap exists in the first place. We need to ensure that we are addressing that specific issue. I believe that these changes are one of the most significant group of changes to affect the welfare system in this country in a very long time, which is why I think we need to do everything we can to ensure that it is fair and equitable.

I am not convinced by the rhetoric that we heard from the government about how this will in fact be better for the most disadvantaged in our society. I do not believe it, and I am not convinced by the issues that have been brought up here and that the government has put on the table. Be that as it may, the government brought in this legislation, and I think it is now incumbent on us as legislators to make sure that the legislative instruments that are in place actually do deal with the significant issues that have been raised by the community and by the most disadvantaged.

During the discussions, as I said, there were a number of issues raised. I want to address some of them now and look at how they were picked up by the instruments that have been tabled to date. In saying that, I am also aware that some of the issues that were brought up were supposed to be dealt with by guidelines. Those guidelines, as we heard in this place the other day, will not be available until 3 July. We have not seen them. They are not being covered as legislative instruments. They are not having the parliamentary scrutiny that the committee report recommended. It recommended that there were many key issues that should be determined by disallowable instruments to allow parliamentary scrutiny, which is why I am trying to refer these issues to the community affairs committee so that it can have that due level of parliamentary scrutiny.

I believe we need to do the best we can to ensure that these regulations are fair, just and equitable, and that they are actually helping people that are affected by what I still maintain are draconian changes. I have looked at the recommendations from the report that I have just mentioned. I have also been looking at the community concerns that have been raised in the inquiry and in public fora. I have also been looking at some of the answers that we got back from estimates on some of the issues, to look at how effectively these issues are being covered in the legislative instruments. The legislative instruments that we are looking at cover a range of issues such as special circumstances relating to a person’s family, activity agreements and compliance issues in particular.

I would like to touch on compliance issues now before I go into the specifics of some of the legislative instruments. As far as I can find in looking at the legislative instruments, compliance issues are not dealt with by one specific instrument, so they are much more difficult to look at as a block. They are not dealt with in the same way as the others. There is not a single disallowable instrument that deals with compliance. There are a number of things about compliance in the act—as we all know, the draconian breaching of people and what is going to happen to those people when they are breached. There is a ‘reasonable excuse’ legislative instrument, which I will go to in a minute.

I think it is arguable that the compliance regime has not been wholly outlined and implemented, as was recommended by the committee that I highlighted earlier. I do not think it is as clear as the committee had intended in the recommendation that it should be. Because it is not clearly in the form of a disallowable instrument, it does not allow this chamber to have the level of scrutiny that I believe is particularly important when we are dealing with compliance. There are still significant elements of the compliance regime that will be in the guidelines—which, as I highlighted earlier, despite this legislation coming into force in the very near future on 1 July, which is a weekend, will not be available until 3 July. I am also concerned that some of this compliance regime will be at the discretion of individual Centrelink or Job Network staff. I do not believe that is good enough. It should be essential that more scrutiny is given to the compliance regime and compliance process issues than has been given through the legislative instruments that are available at the moment.

As I said, during the limited and constrained debate on these issues, we heard a lot of concerns by community organisations, peak representative groups, church groups and charities. I would like to outline a few of those groups so that people can understand the wide spread of concern in the community. There was ACOSS, the Welfare Rights Network, the Australian Council of the Disabled, the Council of Single Mothers and Their Children, the Sole Parents Union, the Physical Disabilities Council of Australia, Brain Injury Australia, Catholic Welfare, Anglicare, the Brotherhood of St Laurence, ACROD, Jobs Australia and the various state COSSes and state disability councils. There was widespread concern from groups who wrote in about many and varied issues.

A few of their concerns were addressed in the legislation—not many—and I acknowledge that many of them dealt with the body of the legislation and cannot really be dealt with in the legislative instruments. Many of their concerns, as I said, were related to the substance of the act, which I acknowledge cannot be modified as much I would like it to be by instruments or regulations. For example, going back to the issue we are concerned about, there is the reduced rate of access of sole parents, people with a disability moving from PPS to DSP and onto Newstart, inadequate funding for places and intensive programs of employment assistance, moving people from parenting payment single onto Newstart, and all those issues which are still of deep concern to many of us.

Looking over some of the specific legislative instruments, I have many concerns. I have had some input from some community groups about the effectiveness and the coverage of some of these disallowable instruments. For example, if you look at activity statement requirements, there is concern that they are not comprehensive enough, that the wording in some places is very general and is open to interpretation and dispute, and that there are many matters that are up to the opinion of the secretary. That came up repeatedly during the committee discussions, and many, many concerns were raised about the opinion of the secretary and the discretionary nature of some of the decisions that will be made.

We have many concerns because we have not seen the guidelines yet, so we do not know how they interact with the legislative instruments and the activity agreements. There is concern that they are not comprehensive enough. There are issues around what has and has not been included, and what constitutes unsuitable work. There is provision, for example, for when it takes you longer than 60 minutes to get to work, but we do not believe it is detailed enough for those with disabilities in particular. As was articulated earlier, many of us have extreme concerns about the impact of the Welfare to Work changes for those on disability support being forced onto Newstart. But we are particularly concerned that there is not enough adequate provision for people with a disability who are required to travel to work, as it is going to take them far longer to travel somewhere.

There are also the issues of child-care costs and how they are interpreted. There is the cost of personal-care equipment for those with a disability and the additional equipment expenses required for those trying to find work. There are the issues of those caring for people with a disability. The emotional and physical wellbeing of the person with a disability should be included. There are concerns about how some of the requirements for the determination of level of illness and disability will be implemented and the likelihood of different activities aggravating this. There is a big role for the medical profession there, and we do not believe the instruments clearly articulate the role of the medical profession and how they interact with the legislative instruments.

We have concerns about how the legislative instruments deal with those with a mental illness. There was a lot of discussion in the committee about how people with mental illnesses, specifically episodic illnesses, will be affected by these changes. There are also concerns about the participation requirement exemptions for those in remote areas. I understand some of this has been dealt with in regulations in the past. How those regulations are to be changed, we do not know because we do not see those until 3 July. We do not know the level that will now be dealt with in the legislative instruments as compared to the guidelines. It is very difficult to tell what has been left out of the legislative instruments and will be picked up in the guidelines—again, we have not seen the guidelines so we do not know.

During the discussions there was a great deal of concern expressed about those impacted by and subject to domestic violence. I do not consider that that legislative instrument deals with those issues very well at all. For example, a determination must be made within four weeks of separation or bereavement. In many cases, grief takes a much longer period. We cannot confine grief to a limited period of four weeks, for example. There are issues around hiding from violent partners and how going back to the same Centrelink office, or another office, may lead to interaction with your former partner. There are a lot of issues around that, and a lot of issues are left up to the discretion of the secretary.

There are likely to be extreme difficulties for staff implementing some of these guidelines. One particular statement jumps out at me in that legislative instrument. It says, with regard to matters to be taken into account when making a judgment, that there is ‘significant adverse impact on the person’s emotional or physical wellbeing’ and that this ‘will prevent, or is likely to prevent, the person from both being able to look for work and being able to participate in training activities.’ In my opinion, this should probably be left to someone’s professional psychological judgment rather than leaving it up to somebody at Centrelink—and that is not having a go at anybody at Centrelink. I think these are extremely complex issues and, when you are dealing with the issue of domestic violence, which is particularly sensitive, there is no strict rule book. I do not believe this legislative instrument has sufficiently dealt with these issues. I think a committee needs to look at these issues. These legislative instruments need to be carefully considered to ensure that they are delivering, as I said earlier—that they are fair and just and do not adversely disadvantage the most disadvantaged members of our community.

Another area of concern is the participation requirements and exemptions for those who are homeless. While these areas are partially covered by reasonable excuses, we do not believe that they are adequate. They are not addressed in the activity requirement statements or the activity requirement legislative instruments. Again, it is ad hoc. One would argue that that is another most significantly disadvantaged section of our community which is not being adequately addressed in these legislative instruments—again, another reason why we need a review of these legislative instruments to make sure they are delivering a fair, just and equitable system.

I really do not see why the government would not support a review of these instruments, particularly once the guidelines come out, so that we can ensure nobody is falling through the gaps and that this system is being implemented in such a way that people are assisted into the workforce but are not significantly disadvantaged. Nobody is disagreeing with the fact that, as a community, we should be helping as many people as we can into the workforce, but there are significant issues which need to be dealt with around that. I very strongly believe that these instruments have many gaps and need to be looked at and addressed. The way to do that is to send it to the committee so that they can have a look at this and then come back and report to this place about how these instruments are implementing the effect of the act.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor Party will be supporting the motion moved by Senator Siewert on the social security regulations. Our view is that there should be no delay in the introduction and operation of these regulations. That is a matter we have had discussions about in communication with some of the welfare groups. Whilst people may not be supportive of everything that is in these regulations, obviously, in terms of the efficacy of the system, it is important that the regulations commence on 1 July, which is when the government’s so-called Welfare to Work changes become operative. However, I understand from Senator Siewert’s motion that it is quite possible for the committee to hold this inquiry without delaying the operation or implementation of the regulations. On that basis, we are supporting the motion.

There are a number of things which are highly problematic in the way the government has approached its welfare changes. I am not going to deal, initially, with the substance of the policy matters, which Labor has already made clear that we have significant problems with. We do not think it is a competent package. We believe that changes which actually reduce the financial reward from working and increase the taxation levied on every single dollar someone earns is hardly a sensible way to help people go from welfare to work. We do not believe that reducing the income levels of some of our most vulnerable Australians is a very sensible way to support people into work. We know from the government’s most recent figures that, for example, someone with a disability faces being worse off by $90 a fortnight from 1 July if they are put onto the lower dole payment. No matter how much the government argues that that is not necessarily the case, because they may get a job, the fact is that that is entirely hypothetical. Even the government’s own figures establish that over 100,000 people are in fact going to be worse off under these changes—and they are some of our poorest Australians.

I do not want to deal at length with the fatal flaws at the heart of the government’s welfare changes. I do want to make some comments about the way in which the government has avoided scrutiny and parliamentary oversight of the implementation of some of the largest changes to social security in a generation. It became very clear through the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee’s inquiry and report into the welfare changes—which was truncated, as was the debate, because the government obviously set an unreasonable time frame and then guillotined the debate—that a great many things which were previously in the legislation were going to be put into guidelines and/or disallowable instruments.

It is clear, from looking at the regulations which have been tabled before the Senate, that in fact there are a great many matters going to people’s obligations, rights and also potential punishment under the system that will be in guidelines which will not be brought before the chamber. This is in the context of the government putting in place the harshest breaching regime that one could probably consider feasible—a breaching regime which will see 18,000 people without any income support whatsoever for a two-month period. I know Senator Vanstone is in the chamber and, while she may not be the most soft-hearted minister this government has ever seen, this is a far harsher breaching regime than anything I can recall Senator Vanstone bringing before the chamber when she was social security minister.

So we have a breaching regime which will see about 18,000 people, on the government’s own figures, without income for two months—even if they try and remedy whatever it was they did wrong. That is probably the key—you get punished even if you then say: ‘Yeah, I did the wrong thing. I needed to go to this interview, I needed to take that job or I missed this interview for these reasons.’

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If they did the wrong thing three times.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Vanstone interrupts and says it is three times. Senator, you might want to know that your legislation actually says you can be breached immediately if dismissed for misconduct. You do not have to be dismissed three times. And, in the context of your industrial relations changes where people cannot dispute that they were dismissed for misconduct, that will be one strike and you are out for two months. On the government’s own figures, of the 18,000 people, only 4,000 to 5,000 will actually get emergency payments to cover food. So you will have 14,000 people a year who will not be able to get payment for food or shelter.

The point I want to make is that that breaching regime, which is an extraordinarily harsh regime, is not put into any instrument that comes before this chamber. So you have extremely intrusive legislation, legislation which imposes very harsh penalties on a group of Australians, that apparently the government is quite happy to deal with administratively and bypass the chamber. That is consistent with the way the government has treated the Senate since it got the majority in here—trying to avoid scrutiny, trying to avoid consideration in detail and trying to avoid accountability.

We are speaking about this in the context of Senator Minchin having told us this week how he is going to effectively neuter the Senate committee system, which has been an extraordinarily important part of the way this place has operated for over a decade. The government is changing a system that, in fact, the Liberal Party and the National Party supported when they were in opposition and then introduced. Now the government has the numbers, it wants to take this away from the chamber and completely alter the way in which the Senate operates.

Leaving that aside, the point is—as Senator Siewert indicated—that Senator Abetz, in a debate earlier this week—or it might have been last week—indicated that the social security guidelines and the guidelines in relation to breaching will not be available prior to 3 July. We have been offered a briefing and we are seeking to take that up. It appears there is some difficulty in terms of availability, but that is going to be arranged. But I think the more important issue is that not only is the Senate not aware but the community is not aware of a great amount of detail associated with the implementation of these welfare changes prior to the date they come in.

These welfare changes are due to be implemented on 1 July. The guidelines in relation to both social security and the breaching regime will not be available until 3 July. It is an extraordinary administrative delay and incompetence by this government that, some 15 months after they announced these welfare changes, they are still not in a position to provide to the chamber or to the community the guidelines which set out a great range of the detail of obligations, rights and requirements which will be placed on hundreds of thousands of Australians. People are going to commence this regime without actually being told, or being able to read, what their rights and obligations are from 1 July. Goodness knows how Centrelink is going to implement them if the guidelines are not publicly available until 3 July. I feel for that agency having to try and put in place those changes in such a short period of time.

Certainly the welfare advocates, people who represent the people who will be affected by this, will not have the final version—or not that I am aware of, in any event—but, perhaps as importantly, this chamber will not have the opportunity to consider some very significant changes in terms of their impact—I do not think they are significant in terms of their benefit—on the rights and obligations faced by many Australians. We place on record from the opposition’s perspective that we consider, as do many in the community, the government’s delay and incompetence around the introduction of its welfare changes to be utterly unacceptable to this chamber, but also utterly unacceptable to the many people in the community who will be affected.

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not sure if there is going to be a government speaker to this motion; I hope there is. Unfortunately, since the government gained control of the Senate we have seen a trend amongst the government of often not even bothering to put a position on the record about Senate committee references that they reject. I hope this is not another such occasion. We do need to remember—and I genuinely say this to all senators on all sides of the chamber—that debates on these sorts of references are not primarily opportunities for scoring political points or highlighting political positions. They are opportunities to examine important areas of law that directly affect the lives of millions of Australians. That is what this reference is about and that is what the primary purpose of this chamber should be: to look at issues and consider how they affect people in the real world. It should not be about who is winning the rhetorical debate, who has got the best witty put-down or who has got the best stunt for the evening news. The crucial task we have to do is to examine the measures that pass through this place, examine how they are administered by this government and examine how they affect Australians and Australian families. That is what this reference is about, and I congratulate Senator Siewert for putting it forward.

There are two aspects to this issue. We have all had our say on the so-called Welfare to Work legislative regime. This is yet another in a long line of grotesquely misleading Orwellian slogans that the government are using. I need to put on the record once again—and I should not have to do this but I do need to, because of the continual distortion of this fact by at least some in the government—that when I express concern about the potential impacts of the so-called Welfare to Work regime, it does not mean that I, or anyone else who expresses concern about it, do not want to see people get off welfare and into work. We all want to see that. The concern that I and many others have is: what about the impact on those who are not getting into work, or those who are getting into only part-time or intermittent work who are not going to be any better off? Those are the people I am concerned about, and those are the people who are not covered by the misleading label of ‘Welfare to Work’.

The 11 different social security determinations that have been put forward as worthy of examination by a Senate committee are not just rhetorical devices. They are not just mechanisms for each of us, on any side of this debate, to use as political clubs to beat each other into submission with, or to use to manoeuvre our way into a better political position in the political marketplace leading up to the election. These are legal determinations that have a direct impact on the lives of Australians.

Regardless of who did and who did not support the legislative changes that put in place the so-called Welfare to Work regime, we do need to see how it works in practice. From a point of view of just good governance, even those who supported the so-called Welfare to Work legislative changes should be supporting a reference such as this. For the sake of good governance, good public policy and good public administration, regardless of our philosophical viewpoints, we should be examining how these things work in practice.

I remind the Senate and those who are listening to this debate and who may have forgotten—or may not have been aware in the first place—that the Welfare to Work legislation that was passed is another of an unfortunately growing number of pieces of legislation which put in place a framework but do not include details of how they are going to work in practice. When we had the Senate committee inquiry into this—a very limited inquiry, I emphasise—it was clear that the departmental officials themselves did not know the detail of how these broad measures would be implemented in practice. The determinations, the regulations and the administrative procedures were yet to be worked out. When these matters were followed through by some senators at Senate estimates committees—for a shorter period this year than we have been able to do in the past, which is another example of the slow reduction in the opportunities for scrutiny—again it was clear that in some areas it was yet to be decided what the detail of some of these determinations would be and how they would operate in practice.

This should not be a philosophical or ideological debate about the merits or otherwise of the Welfare to Work changes. We have all expressed our views on those changes. It should be a matter of a straightforward public policy operation. It should be a matter of doing our basic job of examining how things are working in practice—whether they are operating in the way that the government has assured us they would, whether there are unintended consequences, what the real impacts will be, and what the human impacts will be of a particular group of words on a piece of paper. That is what our business in the Senate should be about more than anything else: examining the impact of policies on the Australian people, on families, on people with disabilities, on sole parents, on children. That is what we should be looking at. We should be looking at the real-world impact, not the impact on the make-believe, rhetorical world that too many of us inhabit. That is all that this motion proposes: that we have a look at the extent and the effectiveness of the regulations.

Frankly, if government members believe that the so-called Welfare to Work changes are as good as they say they are, they should be supporting an inquiry like this, because I would assume that they would believe that it would demonstrate that these changes are being effective, that they are having the desired effect, that people are getting into work, and that all of the concerns that people like the Democrats and others on this side of the chamber have expressed are not being borne out. Here is the opportunity for that to be demonstrated. Here is the opportunity for the nay-sayers to be proven wrong by the government by having a proper investigation.

I should point out, without going into the debate that was had yesterday, and is still to be resolved by this chamber, about Senate committee structures, that this is proposed to go to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, a committee chaired by the government, where government members have a majority. So we cannot have all those furphies that were run yesterday that this is just some stunt to refer this to an opposition controlled committee that will beat up on the government. It is going to a government controlled committee chaired by a government member. There is simply no way that this could be seen by any objective observer as just some political stunt. It is a genuine and very important attempt to look at the consequences and effects of these regulations and these determinations.

It would be an extremely poor move by government senators if they did not support this, because I believe it would reflect, once again, a reinforcement of the concerns and the belief that many of us have that this government do not want real scrutiny of what they are doing. They are happy to have the opportunities for press conferences outside, and media doorstops where they can mouth their rhetoric, and they are happy to use taxpayers’ money to run nice television advertisements that make everything look good, but they do not want genuine scrutiny of what is really happening.

If the government votes against this motion, that is what we will be seeing—another action to consciously and deliberately prevent genuine objective scrutiny by a government chaired and controlled committee of what is actually happening on the ground to people in the community. I would be extremely disappointed if no government senator was prepared to support this reference.

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

If the government is not going to speak on this, I will take the right of reply and basically pick up where Senator Bartlett left off. I believe that it is part of our role as legislators, particularly in this chamber, the house of review, to review the implementation of very significant pieces of legislation such as this, which will have impacts on the real lives of hundreds of thousands of Australians—Australians who are the most disadvantaged in our community and Australians who in many circumstances are providing care and support for those with disabilities that need support. In many cases, carers are the ones that are going to be affected by this piece of legislation.

I could not let this opportunity go past without again referring to the issues of family carers and the fact that under this piece of legislation family carers are not being adequately addressed and looked after. The government quite rightly moved to exempt foster carers from this process but they forgot family carers. Although I am told—we have not seen the guidelines—that there are some measures in the guidelines to provide temporary exemptions to family carers, they are not covered in legislative instruments, and I do not know if they are going to be significantly and properly covered by the guidelines. There is no mention, again, of family carers in the legislative instruments, and that is another issue that I think needs to be reviewed.

I think that the Community Affairs Legislation Committee should be given the role of reviewing these instruments. They made a very strong recommendation that a lot of issues be covered in instruments. Now I think that they should be reviewing those instruments. We need to know whether these instruments are going to work and whether they will cover all the issues that have been raised and that come out of the implementation of this act.

This is an extremely significant change—probably the most fundamental change to the welfare system in this country in a very long time. You would think that, if the government thought they had got it right, they would be willing to have these legislative instruments scrutinised. You would also think they would want to know if there were problems that were impacting on the hundreds of thousands of Australians that are affected by these changes.

I urge the government to support this reference to find out whether they have got it right—whether this legislation is putting in adequate checks and balances, whether it is fair and just and whether people are missing out and being unfairly disadvantaged. But clearly they do not want to do that. They do not want to know if they have got it right, which disappoints me greatly and I think is to the detriment of the hundreds of thousands of Australians that are affected by this legislation. I moved the motion that these legislative instruments be referred to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee so that we can have full scrutiny of whether these instruments are actually doing the job that they are supposed to be doing.

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Siewert’s) be agreed to.