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

I rise to speak on the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 on behalf of the Labor Party. This bill is yet another stage in the Howard government’s welfare changes, and the measures in the bill will have a range of impacts. Some measures fix old mistakes and some measures create new mistakes, but one measure that is completely unjustifiable and that has no merit is that which, while fraudulently claiming to be a welfare to work measure, restricts access to the pensioner education supplement.

This is the Howard government’s approach to moving people from welfare to work: to put people on lower payments, stop them from getting the training they need and then tell them to get a job—and then take back most of what they earn. This Howard government has never explained how reducing access to education and training helps jobless Australians get a job.

Let me be very clear about Labor’s approach to welfare reform. We support real welfare reform that helps people move from welfare to work. We are, by definition, a party of work and the party of working Australians. We believe work is in the best interests of the individual and the best interests of the community. Communities are healthier, more cohesive and more prosperous when our members are gainfully employed and socially engaged. Individuals have a greater sense of self-esteem if they are contributing to their community. Work is one of those essential things, like family and friends, which give meaning to our lives.

So Labor would have been very pleased to support an approach to welfare reform that actually tackled the reasons why people were not working and provided practical solutions for increasing participation. Real welfare reform would provide more reward for effort and support training opportunities for the jobless. After all, a person only gets a job if they have the skills an employer needs. Instead, the Howard government’s welfare changes reduced the financial rewards from work and made it harder for people to get the education or training they need to get a job.

There is nothing wrong with applying mutual obligation to people who can work. That is what Australians expect: if you get a benefit, you should do something in return. But why not harness mutual obligation so that it serves more than a philosophical, ideological purpose? Why not help everyone to get more out of mutual obligation? For some people the best form of mutual obligation is the requirement to find a job. There are those who start further behind. Some people have an extremely limited education and correspondingly limited job prospects in today’s economy. For them, mutual obligation should require that, in exchange for income support, they get themselves in a position where they have the skills an employer needs, and then they should be required to get a job. That seems such an obvious policy, and yet this government refuses to implement it.

Labor have made it perfectly clear that we share the Australian expectation that people who can work should work and people who cannot work should be cared for. Some people, because of caring responsibilities or a disability, may not be able to work at all or may be able to work only part time, and it is part of the Australian culture of a fair go that we recognise people’s capacities.

The truth is that many people with a disability want to work but find it extraordinarily hard to find an employer who will take them on, and this government has done very little to change these negative attitudes. The truth is that many parents are not working because they cannot get child care or because child care is so expensive that after they have paid for it they end up worse off or close to worse off than if they were at home looking after their children. The truth is that many people who want to work, particularly mothers whose partners are working, face such high effective marginal tax rates that they are working more to fill John Howard’s coffers than to provide for their own families. The truth is that most people who are not employed have extremely limited education and training and lack the skills employers need, and many jobs nowadays require a postschool qualification. The truth is that despite Australia having a very low rate of official unemployment there are still vast numbers of people—over two million Australians—who want to work or want to work more hours.

With our nation in desperate need of more skilled workers and with people being so much better off working than on welfare, it is economically irresponsible and socially dangerous for the Howard government to stop jobless Australians from getting education and training. The fact is that skilled migration certainly will not be enough. Too many developed economies are competing for skilled migrants as they also tackle the diminishing labour supply resulting from the ageing of their populations.

This bill, particularly the clauses relating to the pensioner education supplement, continues the Howard government’s failed approach to workforce participation and welfare reform. Last November, Labor released a discussion paper entitled ‘Reward for effort’, which contained a comprehensive analysis of Australia’s participation challenge and canvassed a range of options to meet that challenge. It outlined Labor’s commitment to increasing participation and moving people from welfare to sustainable employment.

We on this side of the chamber would welcome this government introducing a bill that delivers real welfare reform. We know that Australia needs to increase participation and we know that people are better off working than on welfare. We would welcome a bill that delivers welfare reform, but this bill is not it. For the reasons I will outline, Labor will oppose this bill.

I want to start with the issue of vocational rehabilitation services. As senators may well be aware, when a person receives Newstart or youth allowance they will generally have to engage in activity in return for the income support. In some cases they may be required to attend a vocational rehabilitation service. Currently this service is provided by Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service Australia, known as the CRS. The Howard government has been working towards making rehabilitation services contestable so that private providers can tender for contracts. As a matter of principle, this has not been strongly justified by the government and Labor is yet to be convinced that increasing competition is, in itself, going to improve rehabilitation services rather than just increase duplication and bureaucracy whilst reducing oversight.

The people who use these services are often very vulnerable, and our priority is to ensure that the people who need services get the best possible services, whether they are provided by the CRS or another provider. However, this bill does not provide that guarantee; quite the opposite: because many private providers are not compliant with the provisions of the Disability Services Act, the Secretary of DEWR may allow services to be provided by some providers who do not have a certificate of compliance. This has caused considerable concern amongst advocates of people with a disability and mental health advocates, who are concerned that providers may not have the necessary expertise to deal with clients with complex mental health issues.

Another, and perhaps greater, concern amongst advocates of people with a disability and mental health advocates is the removal of the requirement that individual rehabilitation programs be approved by the secretary under the Disability Services Act. Currently this approval is delegated to the CRS. Clearly it is inadequate to remove this safeguard in the context of contestability without putting equivalent alternative safeguards in place. Mr John Mendoza, then of the Mental Health Council of Australia, had this to say:

These measures take us in the opposite direction to the international evidence on what works for the employment of people with mental illness.

…            …            …

The Council is concerned that the Government’s proposed changes will impact on the ability of people with mental health problems to gain meaningful employment.

Similarly there is a concern that there is no guarantee that vocational rehabilitation services will be accessible to clients with a range of disabilities. There are also concerns over whether people who have to participate in rehabilitation in order to meet the requirements of their activity agreement have adequate appeal mechanisms if they believe the rehabilitation program is not appropriate for their needs.

I want to turn now to the issue of financial case management, which has previously been announced by the government and in relation to which there are some provisions contained in this bill. I say at the outset: the principle that overpayments should be recovered is a sensible one that Labor supports. If someone gets a payment to which they are not entitled, it is unfair on others and harms the integrity of our social security system. Across the spectrum of government payments, there are provisions for the government to recover overpayments that are made, so Labor supports this aspect of the bill and the principles in relation to overpayment.

However, Labor does want to emphasise this point: there is a major difference between other government payments and financial case management. Other payments tend to exist in legislation. They exist as entitlements for people in particular circumstances. Financial case management, on the other hand, is entirely discretionary. Financial case management is a by-product of the Howard government’s extreme compliance regime. It is a regime under which people who commit certain breaches will lose all their income support for eight weeks. In some cases, this can be for three breaches, even if minor. In other cases, this penalty applies for just one breach—if you turn down what the government considers a reasonable job offer, which under the government’s extreme Work Choices laws may be a job that does not have to pay award wages, or if you are sacked for what your employer calls misconduct. Under the government’s unfair industrial relations laws, it is extremely hard to demonstrate that you were sacked unfairly if your employer claims it was for misconduct. In short, you can get sacked unfairly and not be able to get income support for eight weeks. This is what happens when the Howard government’s industrial relations laws crash into the welfare changes in their race to the bottom.

If this penalty has been applied to you and you have lost your income support for eight weeks, you may be eligible for assistance through financial case management. If the Howard government considers you to be exceptionally vulnerable, which essentially boils down to whether or not you require medication, or if you have vulnerable dependants, you may be able to get some or all of your essential expenses covered. Centrelink may cover these costs, such as food, rent and utilities, or the government has suggested that a charity may do this on Centrelink’s behalf. In general these payments would be lower than the income support would have been and are capped in total at the level of income support that would otherwise have been received.

But, despite the fact that there are people who lose their payments for eight weeks under these laws, there is no provision in law for financial case management. It is entirely discretionary. And, whilst it is entirely reasonable to recover an overpayment—for example, if there was undeclared income or the income support is restored—there is a serious lack of transparency as to what the entitlement actually was and therefore the extent of any overpayment. This lack of transparency is potentially as bad for taxpayers as it is for income support recipients. There seems to be no real reason why financial case management could not exist in legislation and its entitlements and payments be subject to review and appeal. So we say the Howard government should improve the transparency and fairness of its financial case management system so that all concerned—income support recipients, taxpayers and the administrators of the system—know where they stand.

I turn to the pensioner education supplement. Pensioners who study or train in an approved course can access the pensioner education supplement, or PES; recipients of allowances such as Newstart or youth allowance cannot. Under the Welfare to Work changes, people who moved from the disability support pension or parenting payment to Newstart or youth allowance were supposed to be able to retain their PES until they completed their current course of study. This bill breaks that promise. The explanatory memorandum of the original Welfare to Work bill says:

This Schedule gives effect to this by providing that people who receive Newstart Allowance or Youth Allowance and who have been undertaking a course whilst receiving a disability support pension ... will continue to receive the same study assistance ... until they complete their course.

The Minister for Workforce Participation, Dr Stone, claims that this bill is a clarification, but clearly the minister either is not telling the truth or is not across her brief. This bill is not a clarification; it is a broken promise. The bill changes the arrangements that were previously outlined for the ‘transitional group’ of DSP recipients—that is, those who were granted the disability support pension after the May 2005 announcements and the July 2006 implementation date. If they are transferred from the disability support pension to Newstart or youth allowance after a second or subsequent post-1 July 2006 review, they will lose their eligibility for the pensioner education supplement and they will effectively no longer be considered part of the transitional group. That is, they will only be able to continue to access the PES if they no longer qualified for DSP as a result of their first DSP review after 1 July 2006.

Why is the government doing this? We are yet to understand why the government is changing its position. Part of the rationale for a compliance system, which I discussed a moment ago, is to limit welfare fraud. But what limits are there on the fraud of the Howard government, which talks of the need to move people from welfare to work and then lays roadblocks along that very path?

Labor has consistently argued that restricting the pensioner education supplement to stop welfare to work candidates from getting it is short-sighted and, frankly, is against the national interest of meeting skills shortages and building the capacity of people on social security to create a more secure life and career for themselves and their families. The minister tried to criticise Labor, stating in the other place, when debate of this bill was on foot, that Labor has:

... a focus on putting people into mickey mouse courses—certificates II, III and IV ...

Once again it seems that the minister is not across her brief. First, her own government’s Skills for the Future package puts a big emphasis on supporting people into certificate II courses. Perhaps the minister does not support the Howard government’s policy, or perhaps she sees it as mickey mouse. Second, Labor are not about churning people through courses; we believe that, if a course will help someone get a job, they should do the course. That course must have a work focus. Unlike the Howard government, which is obsessed with headlines and stale ideology, we are practical in our approach and focused on long-term solutions.

We take a different approach to the government. We believe that those who are jobless and lack skills should be encouraged and supported to gain the skills they need to get a job. I will be moving an amendment in relation to this aspect of the bill that highlights our opposition to this absurd measure. As the Leader of the Opposition has said, Australia needs an education revolution. We need to increase participation, and all the evidence shows that if you invest in education and training you build increased participation. It is with these concerns and with a genuine commitment to increasing workforce participation that Labor oppose this bill.

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

The Australian Greens also will be opposing this bill. In speaking to the legislative changes proposed by the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006, I intend to address three main issues. Firstly, the bill proposes to change the way vocational rehabilitation services are delivered under the Disability Services Act by outsourcing rehabilitation services to private providers. However, it does so without ensuring that clients of the new private providers have access to the same provisions for oversight and appeal that currently exist for clients of the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service, or CRS. I also wish to speak to the manner in which the government has jumped the gun by putting these rehabilitation services out to tender before the legislation governing their operation has passed through this parliament, therefore effectively signalling that the democratic role of both houses of parliament in assessing and amending legislation is now totally irrelevant.

Secondly, I intend to address is the proposed changes to the manner in which the pensioner education supplement, or PES, is carried over for income support recipients moved onto lower payments under the Social Security Act. Thirdly, I wish to discuss the proposed changes to the Social Security Act enshrined in the legislation provisions that allow debts to be raised for the recovery of what are deemed to be overpayments of the discretionary payments made under financial case management to people on an eight-week suspension. It proposes to enshrine the raising of these debts in legislation despite the fact that these discretionary payments are not themselves defined in the statutes.

Finally, after dealing with those issues, I wish to use the opportunity provided by this bill that is implementing some of the Welfare to Work provisions to address another huge inconsistency in legislation, which is the inconsistency that has now arisen between the Social Security Act and the changes to the Family Law Act introduced last year relating to equal shared parenting and principal carers.

Turning first to vocational rehabilitation services, this legislation proposes to open the provision of rehabilitation services currently provided by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service to the private sector. While I am not opposed to the provision of rehabilitation services by private practitioners in principle, I am deeply concerned by the manner in which it is being done. The main concerns of the Australian Greens are that private sector service providers will not be bound by the same set of regulatory and safe practice mechanisms as the government sector or the CRS; the departmental secretary does not have to approve private sector rehabilitation programs, potentially allowing providers to prescribe hundreds of hours of unnecessary rehab from which they will profit; and there is no appeal mechanism for private sector rehabilitation programs, despite the fact that participation will be compulsory under Welfare to Work.

To begin with, the bill will allow the new private sector providers a 12-month grace period to attain certification of compliance with the rehabilitation standards which the CRS currently complies with. These are standards which have long been regarded as important to quality service provision for people who are accessing assistance at a time of significant personal and emotional need. With a potential 12-month delay in the certification of providers, clients could have been exposed to a year of unsatisfactory or inappropriate rehabilitation before an agency is asked to account for itself.

I am also concerned about the level of oversight, particularly of the process by which a rehabilitation program is determined. In the case of the rehabilitation services provided by the CRS, the departmental secretary was required to sign off on the appropriateness of each rehabilitation program. Under the new arrangements for private sector providers there is no clear oversight mechanism. Where we have private sector providers delivering taxpayer funded rehabilitation programs, I would think that there would need to be a greater level of scrutiny; otherwise what is to stop private providers from prescribing hundreds of hours of expensive, inappropriate or unnecessary rehabilitation services from which they obtain a direct material benefit? In the absence of a legislative mechanism of oversight and no statutory right of appeal, what is there to stop rorting of the system? We need to have processes in place to protect the best interests of the people requiring rehabilitation, as well as taxpayers, from the potential for exploitation by unscrupulous operators. This is particularly important where, under Welfare to Work, participation in vocational rehabilitation programs will be compulsory, yet the legislation does not provide an appeal mechanism to those people compelled to attend; in other words, they are being compelled to attend a program of rehabilitation that they have no say in and no appeal rights over.

I am also concerned about the future of the CRS and its employees in that they could be placed at risk if it is made to compete in a market where the standards of service delivery applying to a government agency are not the same as those applying to a private agency because this might put them at a market disadvantage. We need to ensure that a level playing field is provided. This is another example of the government’s naive approach to privatisation of service delivery. It highlights an ideological belief that simply opening up taxpayer funded services to competition will result in more efficient and effective service delivery. It is essential to get the legislation and the regulations covering the performance of the market right in the first place, otherwise there is the risk of over-servicing on the one hand where providers prescribe unnecessary services as a way of gouging the public purse, or of under-servicing on the other where providers scrimp on the quality of services and facilities as a way to compete on price.

Before this legislation was introduced to the parliament, the government had already opened up the rehabilitation market for tender, with no ability to take into account any of the outcomes, discussions or recommendations from either the committee inquiry or the parliamentary process. This demonstrates the government’s intention to ignore the input of colleagues on both sides of the chamber and in both houses as well as the input of the sector and the public obtained through the committee process and simply use their numbers to ram this hasty piece of legislation through this place.

Item 17 of the bill provides a limited override of the right of both houses to amend the Disability Services (Rehabilitation Services) Guidelines 2006. The government claimed that it needed to do this because section 5 of the Disability Services Act allows both houses 15 days in which to amend guidelines, and this could delay their approval to beyond the implementation date of 1 July 2007. The government is putting this arbitrarily decided implementation date before the democratic institutions of this nation, which I believe is extreme hubris on the part of the government.

Let me turn to the pensioner education supplement. Yet again we are seeing quite draconian amendments being foisted on to some of the most disadvantaged in our community—those people living with disabilities. Recently the government changed their approach to those in the transition group or the grandfathered group whereby if people apply to do voluntary training or work they are being assessed and moved on to the Newstart allowance, NSA, from their disability support pension, DSP. And here we have yet another change impacting on people with disabilities. The amendment removing the entitlement to the pensioner education supplement is perhaps the most insidious aspect of this bill. Currently, sole parents and people with disabilities who move from the parenting payment or the disability support pension to the Newstart allowance as a result of the Welfare to Work changes are still entitled to keep their pensioner education supplement. This supplement allows them to continue an ongoing course of study, which they are undertaking to improve their employment prospects. This bill changes this arrangement so that DSP recipients who are moved to Newstart or youth allowance after a review will only retain their pensioner education supplement if this is their first review since 1 July 2006. This appears to mean that, as soon as they have a second review, they will automatically lose their PES entitlement. This is a very significant change which will see people with disabilities who are part of the way through a course of study financially disadvantaged to such an extent that they may not be able to complete it. There has been a lot of criticism of this move by the community sector, which is of course not unexpected.

In their submission to the inquiry, ACOSS gave the example of a person on a disability support pension who has just commenced a three-year, full-time course and their payment is first reviewed in, say, 2007. If they lose the pension on this first review, they would ordinarily continue to receive their PES until the course is completed three years later. This would be worth $31.20 per week or around $4,900 over three years. However, if they retain the pension in this review but lose it in a subsequent review 12 months later, their PES would then be cancelled. They would miss out on $31.20 per week for the remaining two years of the course—a total of $3,200.

These changes are even more ridiculous in light of the information DEWR revealed to the inquiry by the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education into the provisions of the bill. The department stated that it expects no financial savings to be made from these changes and that they would apparently affect about 100 people. I see no credible reason for imposing greater hardship on some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in our society. The proposed changes are plainly unfair and are of no benefit to anyone. They will substantially disadvantage the people still benefiting from PES who are working hard to improve their credentials and their ability to gain meaningful employment and do nothing for the nation, which is already facing a skills crisis and needs a more educated and better qualified workforce to improve productivity and build our future economy. These changes make no sense.

Let us move to the financial case management system. The bill also proposes other changes to the Social Security Act, including changes to allow for the recovery of what are deemed to be overpayments under financial case management. Changes introduced as part of the Welfare to Work legislation last year allowed for people subject to an eight-week, non-payment order—that is, they are breached—to receive financial case management. The amendments to this bill will change the legislation to make it possible for debts to be raised from overpayments under financial case management and payment of these debts to be made from income support benefits. In the case of overpayments made by Centrelink of ordinary income support payments such as PPS, DSP, NSA or youth allowance, where the payments are statutory and are clearly defined, such a regime makes sense. Under these changes, the recipients of the allowance know exactly what to expect by way of payment and have access to clear review and appeal mechanisms on these decisions. However, because the financial case management payments are discretionary, recipients do not have this certainty, and the process lacks the transparency and the opportunities and mechanisms for appeal and review.

As it stands, the amendments this bill makes to the act are inconsistent. The proposed changes would see the right to recover overpayments outlined in legislation under circumstances where the making of these payments under financial case management are not outlined in the legislation. If the government is intent on the proper, transparent implementation of financial case management then it should take the time to properly develop the legal framework for the practice and to put that legislation before this parliament. To address this problem, I am proposing an amendment to this legislation to allow for an overpayment only to be collected in the following circumstances: where the primary income support payment is restored part of the way through the eight-week, non-payment period and where the client has undeclared income at least to the level of their normal income support entitlement. I think this amendment addresses some of the inconsistency and I ask the Senate to support it. This amendment was also recommended by ACOSS in their submission.

I would now like to move to an area of inconsistency under the act. This inconsistency is the result of various pieces of legislation introduced in this place. Whether the consequences were intended or not, it is having an unfair impact on members of our community. I would like to focus on the inconsistency between the newly implemented equal shared parenting provisions of the Family Law Act and the Social Security Act. Under the Social Security Act, in the case of divorced or separated parents with equal shared care, only one parent will be determined to be the principal carer. Being the principal carer, a recipient of income support will not be subject to some of the Welfare to Work provisions such as work participation requirements. They will be entitled to a range of exemptions and benefits that only apply to principal carers, such as the continuation of pharmaceutical benefits, a concession card, a telephone allowance, an education entry payment, a limited activity test and protections from taking a job with less than $25 net earnings per week, not having access to suitable child care or not requiring travel more than 60 minutes to work.

As far as I can determine, the other parent with the responsibility for the care of the child or children will have no access to the parenting protections offered within the income support system and no recognition of or support for their parental responsibilities. This one-sided set of arrangements is now situated within the context of major changes to family law, which represent a significant shift in societal expectations of how parenting roles and responsibilities will be shared when relationships between parents break down and families divide.

As this chamber knows, from 1 July the Family Law Act requires mediators and judicial officers to consider equal time for each parent or, failing that, substantial or significant time—shared equal parenting. The implication of this is that there will be a steady increase in equal time arrangements and the current principal carer rules will increasingly create structured inequalities for parents and children in the income support system. This will predictably create conflict between parents, placing additional stress on the parent not selected as the principal carer and increased risks on the child of either loss of care and/or a reduced standard of living as a consequence of loss of parental income.

This is clearly inconsistent with legislative reforms to both family law and child support. Both these promote an ideal of shared parenting, yet social security law recognises only one parent. If we are to commit to and apply the concept of equal shared parenting in family law then we must also commit to and apply it to social security laws. Otherwise we are creating a two-tiered system that actively discriminates against children of broken families who have one or both parents on income support.

The NCSMC has already documented reports from mothers of infants who have been ordered by the courts to share care 50-50 and who have not been determined to be the principal carer, and who therefore face the same job search requirements as a single job seeker with no children to support and, of course, receive none of the other supplementary income support mechanisms.

I am very concerned that this policy has the potential to be very harmful for children during their half-time life in the household where their parent faces an eight-week loss of income if they cannot balance their work and childcare commitments and are forced to look after their children instead of taking an unsuitable job. Research by the Ministerial Taskforce on Child Support found that childcare costs for zero- to 5-year-olds was something like $11,000 to 12,000 per annum. How is a parent meant to afford child care when they are forced to work full time when their children are below school age? This policy is another example of policy-disconnect and where the Welfare to Work system inappropriately and unfairly impacts on sections of our community.

I propose an amendment to the Social Security Act to address the plight of principal carers by changing the definition of principal carer in the act. This will bring some consistency between the government’s new policy direction on shared parenting and the Social Security Act. This is a very important issue and one I hope the government will fully consider. The implications of shared parenting are very serious and, now that it is law, the system that supports parents raising children should be consistent.

I will move a series of amendments to this bill that will address the issues around the 12-month allowance for certification of private practitioners and the time limit on pensioner education supplement eligibility and place in the legislation an appeals mechanism for the clients of private practitioners, similar to the one already available to clients of CRS. I believe that these amendments are essential if this legislation is to be fair to the people affected by this legislation. Without these amendments the Greens will not support this legislation because we think it is unfair. It is another attack by the government on the most unfortunate and vulnerable people in our society who, in many cases, are not able to defend themselves. They will not have appeal rights to the decisions that are made about their rehabilitation. Surely any fair system would provide the recipients of care with the right to appeal and have a say in their rehabilitation management program. For the life of me, I cannot work out why the government has failed to include this important mechanism in this legislation.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition (Social and Community Affairs)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too welcome the opportunity to speak about the implications of the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. Senator Wong has outlined Labor’s position on this bill—the concerns that we have about the bill and the inequities that are built into it. I listened with interest to the debate in the House of Representatives last month. I was intrigued that the focus of so many government members seemed to be on the people who are undeserved recipients of disability services. I will give just one example: Mr Johnson, the member for Ryan, spoke on 15 February about ‘strapping young blokes living in Byron Bay and going surfing’. It seemed to me that that was an extraordinary way to think about the people who are going to be most affected by this legislation.

Tonight I want to talk about the disadvantage that will be suffered by the deserving recipients of disability services under this legislation. These are the people who will be affected. I need to say at the outset that Labor do not encourage or in any way condone people who are exploiting the system. We recognise that such an element exists in every society, and Australia is no different in this regard from anywhere else. That is why the Keating government took such a strict approach to people defrauding the Commonwealth by claiming benefits to which they were not entitled. But the focus of this bill is not at all the opportunistic element which exists at every level of society; it is deliberately narrow in its focus, targeted at those people receiving disability benefits.

The government has made two assumptions which need to be questioned in the interest of every person living with a disability and labouring to have a fulfilling life in this country. The first of those mistaken assumptions is that they do not want to work, do not want to be a full and contributing member of society and do not want to lead a life as close to the norm as their unfortunate personal circumstances allow. The second is that these people exaggerate or distort the degree of their disability. For disabled people suffering social and financial limitations, these assumptions are not only offensive but also proof positive that the Howard government is out of touch with reality, prepared to make hard lives even harder by the application of stringent and inflexible laws which keep the have-nots firmly in their place so that the haves can flourish and prosper. If we as a society can help those living with a disability to participate and make a useful contribution, that is a positive step. Welfare to Work is a great idea, provided that the passage from one mode of life to the other is carefully designed and monitored along the way—that support is always available for those who find the going tough and that those who embark on it are not handicapped financially.

I repeat: I have no truck for people who rort the system, but what about all those Australians in receipt of disability benefits who are justly entitled to our support to lead a fulfilling life and whose future is threatened—and, yes, I use the word ‘threatened’ advisedly—by this legislation? I need to speak out for those people because, in pursuit of exploiters, the government is in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In particular, tonight I want to speak on behalf of the mentally ill—those whose disability is already a stigma and whose suffering under the proposed legislation can almost be guaranteed.

In my role as co-convener of the Parliamentary Friends of Schizophrenia, I have certainly learnt a lot about mental illess. I have met a range of carers, employers, doctors, counsellors, case managers and of course people living with various forms and degrees of this disability. Overwhelmingly, they would prefer to be working than sitting at home receiving welfare, but we cannot ignore the emerging evidence about the obstacles that mental illness poses to productive employment. First, there is the issue of time. People with mental health difficulties are more likely than others to receive public assistance, and unless they respond well to treatment they are likely to continue to need assistance for long periods of time. These are people who are least likely to respond to the pressures of time limits. Timeliness and other such inflexible rules place them in real jeopardy of facing severe and long-term poverty. All welfare to work programs must determine how best to assess these clients’ needs and design services in ways that will both facilitate steps towards employment and allow for the changes in circumstances and ability to work that is such an intrinsic aspect of life for those suffering from mental illness.

It is essential to understand and appreciate the relationship mental health issues have to welfare dependency and employment. This relationship is very complex, to put it mildly. First, there is that long-established problem of definition. Mental health issues are defined in a variety of ways which result in different assessments of the severity of the mental illness. Narrowly defined, serious mental health issues are psychiatric disabilities that seriously interfere with one or more aspect of a person’s daily life. Such disabilities or illnesses meet diagnostic criteria for effective disorders, including major depressive disorders. More broadly defined with less rigorous assessment criteria, mental health issues may also include symptomatic problems or indicators for risk of mental illness. Although diagnosable mental illness may exist in these cases, these broadly defined mental health issues may actually be merely symptoms of other difficulties in a welfare recipient’s life.

Definition is not just splitting hairs; it affects perception of what people can do. Mental health issues defined narrowly, such as meeting the diagnostic criteria above, tend to be estimated as less prevalent than those defined broadly as merely symptomatic of depression. The barrier that a disability presents to employment can be similarly assessed differently according to who makes the assessment or where the information on which the assessment is made is derived. I am talking about the familiar problem of bias. We are all aware of how using different techniques to collect data can cause variations in the estimates. For example, when sensitive data is collected in person or when data for an entire family unit is collected from a single household member, rates of mental illness can be distorted.

So we cannot simply bundle all people on disability pensions for mental health reasons together. The first step to help people move from welfare to work must be accurate identification and proper diagnosis of clients with mental health needs. Again, this is not a simple matter. The Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service, which currently provides this service, is aware of just how complex it is. I am very worried about the introduction of contestability for vocational rehabilitation services and the reduction of parliamentary oversight of the guidelines. The difficult business of identifying and diagnosing people with mental health needs involves two main processes: screening and assessing. Screening refers to determining the probability that a mental health need exists, often by identifying symptoms of mental illness or other mental health needs; and assessment refers to a formal psychiatric diagnosis of the type and severity of mental illness. Both steps must be done properly.

Under this legislation, private providers would be able to tender for contracts for vocational rehabilitation services, but there is nothing in this legislation to guarantee that the requisite care be taken with people with mental health needs. The fact is that few private agencies use formal instruments to identify clients with mental health needs. Rather, welfare agency staff generally identify clients in need of mental health services simply by observing symptoms, such as anxiety or behaviour problems and depression.

The other main means of identifying the nature and extent of these people’s disability and estimating the effect it would have on their employment is to ask questions in the course of initial and follow-up interviews—questions that are designed to illicit information on symptoms. I guess I do not need to labour the point here. Mental health advocates are understandably very concerned that removing the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service’s right to approve individual rehabilitation services will be a very retrograde step. We want to create a society which strengthens rather than weakens people’s rights, which helps people rather than hinders people with disabilities to lead as full a life as possible, and which solves rather than creates problems for them. Many private providers are not compliant with the provision of the Disability Services Act. The development of effective mental health screening instruments for use by providers is much needed before we can authorise them to oversee a client’s participation in the workforce.

I said this issue of moving a person with mental health issues was complex. Let me explain. After a client is screened for mental health illness, mental health professionals conduct psychiatric evaluations to arrive at a comprehensive assessment. These assessments do not just allow diagnosis of a client’s mental illness; they also cover understanding of how that illness interacts with other possible personal difficulties, such as substance abuse, homelessness or domestic violence. This is clearly a delicate area where practitioners need training and expertise.

To approve legislative amendments which remove safeguards to this effect rather than strengthen them would be completely irresponsible. The responsible way to move mental health clients from welfare to work would of course be to offer them enhanced services that are directly linked to preparing them for employment, usually combining mental health care and counselling with employment related services, such as vocational assessment and training, job preparation and placement, work experience, on the job training and accommodations and adaptations, post employment support, and interpersonal and life skill training. Depending on the degree of disability, there might actually be a need for more intensive support, such as home visits, case staffing, interactive service plans and the involvement of specialised mental health treatment workers. These kinds of programs are typically operated not by vocational rehabilitation services but rather by mental health agencies. It is abundantly clear that enabling people with mental health disabilities to make the transition from welfare to work successfully will require an enormous effort in coordination.

Before the dinner suspension I was speaking about the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 and the importance of more intensive support for those people who have mental health issues. I am concerned that the legislation does not acknowledge the need for improved coordination of services and support and it certainly does not allow for the necessary coordinated efforts between welfare agencies and mental health agencies, as well as between mental health agencies and supported employment providers. The kind of coordination offered could range from structured referral mechanisms to shared funding arrangements and beyond.

In my research into the evaluation of welfare to work programs, I could find very little empirical evidence that isolated the role of mental health strategies in their evaluation designs and analyses. But an examination of programs that integrate mental health treatment with employment related services showed that this combination of services, when properly implemented, can help clients with mental health needs prepare for employment and stay employed successfully, providing that ongoing support and accommodations in the workplace are provided.

I reiterate: to be successful, the programs need to encompass both treatment and employment services, and cannot be short term. That is the problem with this legislation—it simply does not recognise the importance of such a coordinated approach, or the degree of foresight, detailed planning and follow through that are essential. I have known many people with disabilities, particularly with mental health issues, who want nothing more than to move from welfare to work, and I would be happy to support legislation that would help them do that successfully. But the legislation in its current form does not meet these criteria.

A very common feature of mental illness is its volatility: it is usually not a stable state, even when medical treatment is working ‘successfully’. This raises the issue of not only the difficulty at the screening and assessing stages, and the need for ongoing support, but also the need for flexibility and accommodation of change to be built into the legislation. A good example was given by Ms Annette Ellis in the House of Representatives. In her speech on this legislation in the other place, she related the experience of a client who bit off more than he could chew in trying to get off his disability pension and into work and then was locked out of returning to his disability pension. That is what we are going to see as a consequence of the bill before us.

So while I share the desire that people with a disability engage more fully in the workplace, and I can see it is for the benefit of society in many ways to encourage and support them in vocational rehabilitation, I cannot believe that the current legislation will do so successfully. Instead of a long-term, integrated plan to enhance our society, it appears to be a short-term, hastily drafted plan motivated by a belief in the value of increased competition.

We cannot say nothing while the lives of the most vulnerable members of our society are being used in an attempt to win votes—for instance, as a chance for the member for Ryan to appeal to hardworking mums and dads about being taken for a ride while their taxes are funding a lifestyle of ease for surfers and other rorters. The fact is that those mums and dads, all too often, have someone in their family or amongst their friends who suffers from a disability—someone they want to see helped to participate in society. These mums and dads know that welfare to work transition for these people will not be a single, easy step. They know it will require coordinated efforts. And they know that the legislation needs to be carefully drafted and redrafted to ensure that our social policies in Australia are first class. On behalf of these people, I express my reservations with the bill.

I have one final point. There are, of course, people whose disabilities severely limit their ability to participate in the workforce, even on a part-time basis. What I said about screening and assessment applies to these people. I fear that they could easily become victims of the kind of thinking demonstrated by the member for Ryan, again, when he said of people on welfare:

It is not in their interest to stay on welfare and it is not in the national interest of this country.

Well, sometimes it is. What sort of society would we be if we could not look after those incapable of looking after themselves? Is that what the government considers in the national interest?

Senator Wong has forecast Labor’s position on this bill: we will not support it. I am pleased to support the comments made by Senator Siewert in her contribution to the debate, on the lack of coordination between this legislation and other social security legislation. I believe it is poorly conceived and poorly targeted legislation that does not deserve Labor’s support.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to stand in support of the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. I empathise with some of the principles and themes that have been espoused by Senator Stephens and other members on the other side, in terms of their concerns for people with disabilities. No party—the Labor Party or the Liberal Party—has a monopoly on compassion. We all share a desire and an objective in life to care for, and show compassion, empathy and sympathy towards, the disadvantaged, and to do everything in our power to assist and help those who have disabilities and who are less fortunate than ourselves.

The thrust behind this legislation is to encourage those on welfare to get into work. Some $3.6 billion in extra services and expenditure is being spent by this Howard government to make that happen and to encourage those on welfare to get into work. In terms of empathising with Senator Stephens, she has indicated that she is the co-convener of the Parliamentary Friends of Schizophrenia. I commend her and her colleagues involved in the group. It is very important that we in this parliament stand here to express our concern and support for people with mental illness and for people with disabilities generally.

I was very involved with the Motor Neurone Association in Tasmania and nationally before I was in the Senate as my father had motor neurone disease and died from motor neurone disease. I have an empathy with those who have diabetes, both type 1 and type 2. I have type 1 but I empathise with those with type 2. In many instances they certainly have disabilities through, and as a result of the consequences of, their living with diabetes. So there are people in this Senate, in every chair I would suspect, who have contact either personally with a family member or perhaps through an extended family situation or through close friends who know people with disabilities and want to express their support and concern for those people. The heartfelt expressions of concern and support in this chamber from all sides are acknowledged.

However, in my view the position that has been taken by Labor for many years now is the wrong way to go. The bill before us builds on the Welfare to Work reforms and makes amendments to the Social Security Act 1991, the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 and the Disability Services Act 1986. These amendments ensure the continued support and assistance for job seekers to build capacity and find work through employment and related services. In 2002 this government brought forward a disability related bill, the Family and Community Services Legislation Amendment (Disability Reform) Bill 2002 that aimed at reforming the legacy of Labor and their outdated welfare arrangements that had consigned disadvantaged Australians to a life on welfare rather than assisting them into work.

Senator Stephens has quoted in her address to the Senate and I want to inform the Senate of a quote that I have here from the shadow minister for family and community services and now the shadow Treasurer, the member for Lilley. He said at the time that our disability pension reforms were ‘an unprecedented attack on the 3.1 million Australians who have a disability’. He then went on to say in the same speech:

This country and this society desperately need real welfare reform. We need a community, a whole of government and a political commitment to welfare reform.

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot stand on both sides of the fence. This is what Labor have been attempting to do. Labor have opposed the reforms that our government has put forward and on each occasion they have voted them down. We wanted to assist disabled Australians to be rehabilitated and, if necessary, upskilled so that they could return to work if they had part-time capacity. But on each occasion the opposition said no, they did not support that approach. They wanted to keep all disabled people on pensions until they reached old age, irrespective of their capacity and willingness to work.

That is history. That approach is exactly what we do not want in this country, Australia. Labor have opposed every major employment and welfare reform undertaken by the government including—and I just want to advise the Senate of the initiatives that they have opposed—the introduction of the Job Network and Work for the Dole. I know that in my state of Tasmania Work for the Dole is a tremendously successful government program. It is supported not just by the participants, a large percentage of whom end up in a job as a result, but also in large part by the community, by the people in the communities where the Work for the Dole program actually operates. But Labor opposed that as well.

They have opposed tackling Indigenous welfare dependency, and I want to pay a compliment to the Hon. Mal Brough, who has used his earnest and best endeavours and is forging ahead in a remarkable fashion with zeal to address this issue. I think that most Australians are with him in his endeavours on behalf of the government to remove that welfare dependency in the Indigenous community. He is certainly tackling that issue with gusto, and I congratulate him on that.

Labor have opposed key parts of Australians Working Together. They have opposed Welfare to Work. They have opposed the introduction of mutual obligation. What could be more sensible, more right and proper, than this concept of mutual obligation? Australian people have now embraced this concept whereby, if funding support is provided to you via the government from the taxpayer, then there is a mutual obligation for you as the recipient to say thank you and to say, ‘Yes, I do have a responsibility to this government and to the Australian taxpayers and to my community to demonstrate my responsibility and to be accountable for that.’ Those key concepts of responsibility and accountability—being responsible for your decisions and accountable for your actions—have in my view been embraced by the Australian community. Yet Labor, again, have said, ‘No, we don’t support it.’ That is disappointing to me and, I believe, most of the community.

Of course, the community have supported the disability support pension reforms that this government has embraced and initiated. Why would they do this? Here we have an unemployment rate of 4.5 per cent, a booming economy and an ageing population, and there has never been a better time for people on welfare to get a job. The opportunities are out there for those on welfare to actually get a job. That is what we are trying to do. That is why we are investing over $3 billion to make it happen—to encourage those on welfare to get work. In the last year we have seen a rise in the number of people getting jobs. The Job Network made a difference to almost 650,000 people through placing them in a job. Fifty thousand of this group were parents; 47,000 were Indigenous Australians; and 81,700 were from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

The bill before us tonight will provide choice for people who want and need help to return to work. And it is appropriate to be talking about the importance of choice on the anniversary of Work Choices, which has provided the flexibility to allow for more jobs.

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Keep revving it up; keep talking about it.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have seen 260,000 new jobs created across Australia over the last 12 months since Work Choices. Senator Campbell, those are the facts. This is the anniversary, so it is appropriate to mention Work Choices because it is linked in with this Welfare to Work reform. We have seen over a 1½ per cent increase in real wages in the last 12 months as a result of the Work Choices reforms, not to mention the 17 to 18 per cent increase in real wages since the Howard government came to power. More jobs, higher wages, fewer industrial disputes: the facts are on the table for the public to decide between Labor and the coalition.

In terms of the bill, the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service currently assists this group of people. The bill will open up the vocational rehabilitation market to a range of organisations who specialise in preparing people to get back into work, as well as develop relationships with employers who are prepared to give these people a go. In short, the bill will introduce contestability for those vocational rehabilitation services from 1 July this year. The concept of contestability is something that Senator Stephens does not support, nor do the Labor Party.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition (Social and Community Affairs)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not when it comes to mental health services.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not in health services or in welfare services? Mental health services.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Through the chair, please, Senator Barnett.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I am happy to take that interjection and say that it is important to have contestability when it comes to Welfare to Work services such as the vocational rehabilitation services.

I am proud to be a member of the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education that inquired into these bills. I want to thank on the record Senator Judith Troeth, our chair, for the work that she did in leading the committee through that inquiry, and John Carter and the committee secretariat for the work they undertook and the services they provided to our committee.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Marshall interjecting—

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There were a range of submissions to that committee—and I am looking at Senator Marshall as I say this. We received a range of submissions, including submissions from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, mental health advocates and others. We received those and took the witnesses’ evidence on board. We responded in our report on 28 February 2007, just last month. As the report says:

The Welfare to Work legislation, which commenced on 1 July 2006, aimed to reduce this welfare dependency and increase workforce participation.

As I indicated earlier, it was supported by a $3.6 billion investment in getting people off welfare and into work. That expenditure was, as the report says:

… on extra services, including employment services and other assistance to support people to re-enter the workforce and find a suitable job. This package specifically included an additional—

I repeat, ‘an additional’—

$192 million over three years for vocational rehabilitation services …

This is something that those on the other side have neglected to say. This is an investment of nearly $200 million over those few years. That will provide support for those services to help people with disabilities and perhaps people in the mental health arena or elsewhere to get work if at all possible. It will ensure access for all those eligible people with new part-time activity tests or participation requirements—and of course there are those requirements. Those are the criteria that have been set and, if they cannot meet them, of course they stay where they are. As the report says:

In summary, the committee majority sees these amendments as improving the Welfare to Work legislation. It notes that the amendments are the latest measures to increase workforce participation and improve employment rates.

The committee majority turned its attention ‘to three specific matters of concern raised during the inquiry’. I am happy to advise that they included changes to the provision of vocational rehabilitation services, as I have already indicated, the pensioner education supplement changes and ‘the raising of debts through the financial case management system’. In conclusion, as noted by the majority of the committee, we recommend support for the bill. As noted in the report:

A key objective of the government is to maximise the ability of people to find work, particularly those who face the most severe barriers to work, and to reducing welfare dependency.

In considering the evidence given during the inquiry, the committee concluded:

… the provisions of the bill are consistent with the intent of the existing Welfare to Work package. Amendments to the provision of vocational rehabilitation services will pave the way for increased choice as well as encouraging innovation in the provision of services.

I want to conclude with the message that is sometimes advertised on our televisions and on other media which says, ‘Support those who support you.’ I think it is a key concept which distinctly underpins the legislation before the Senate today.

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not want to spend the time of the Senate this evening responding to some of the issues that Senator Barnett has raised in his contribution, although I could use up my whole 20 minutes on one or two of those issues that he raised. Given that we are not on broadcast and we are basically talking to ourselves, there is no point in wasting the time of the Senate.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I’m listening.

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sure you are, Senator Brandis, you always listen carefully to what we have to say. This evening I want to focus on what I see as the main policy issues dealt with by the proposed amendments to the Disability Services Act 1986, the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999. These issues include contestability for vocational rehabilitation services, disabled access, restrictions to the pensioner education supplement and financial case management, the key issues that were addressed by the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education in its hearing on the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. I want to make clear at the outset that the ALP supports welfare reform. It, in fact, encourages people to engage in further training through the use of positive incentives. I say through the use of positive incentives because many—

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You never voted for it.

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Barnett, because we do not vote for your legislation or your hardline ideological agenda does not mean that we do not support welfare reform. We have a different view from yours as to what is meant by the words ‘welfare reform’ and it is not about beating up on people to force them into sets of circumstances for which they are poorly equipped and do not have the ability to actually deal with. It is about providing them with those resources before you force them into a set of circumstances where they have to use them. We do not support these so-called reforms because they do not encourage those on welfare to find work. Instead, they actually punish those attempting to undertake further training and undermine safeguards that have been put in place to protect vulnerable people attempting to re-enter the workforce.

One of the purposes of the bill is to introduce contestability for vocational rehabilitation services. Vocational rehabilitation services assist people with a disability, injury or health condition to get and keep a job. These services are crucial in assisting people from welfare to work. In fact, this bill and its approach to vocational rehabilitation is less about good help for people who need it than about ideology. What we see in this bill is the ideology of the market holding sway in spite of the obvious problems that it will create.

The government is planning to rely on the market to provide in circumstances where that cannot work. A market may be able to operate in some circumstances but not in others. The government cannot explain how they will get around the basic flaws that are in this approach in this bill. What happens for example in small markets where there is only one provider? What is going to happen where the market will not create contestability? Who is going to provide the circumstances in those instances? We know what the result of that is going to be. How is there a competitive force driving the vocational rehabilitation services to provide a good service to the clients? Worse, what about markets where the vocational rehabilitation services do not make any money—what is going to happen in those circumstances? Will the Commonwealth be left to pick up the scraps after the lucrative contracts are filled?

We are offering an opportunity to private providers to set themselves up in good little markets, some of which will be monopoly markets. We will leave the Commonwealth to pick up the slack. That is what is proposed by this bill. That is the structure that this bill will create in respect of these rehabilitation services. We know that there will be small towns where there is simply no way of making a private vocational rehabilitation service turn over enough money to be a viable operation. We are still going to have the Commonwealth in those circumstances doing the work in those areas. What we will be doing is subsidising the lumpy cases while the private sector makes off with the cream, or as our colleagues from the National Party would say, ‘We are socialising the losses and privatising the gains.’ I am not too sure just how good an idea that is.

I do not know whether that type of structure is going to provide better rehabilitation services than those currently provided by the Commonwealth. I suspect neither does the government. I do not think they have thought through this legislation with any degree of detail or looked at all of the circumstances within which it will apply. We have seen the Job Network and the problems that have come from that. It could be that we are going to have exactly the same problems created in respect of the rehabilitation services. There is nothing in here to show how tough cases and tough markets will be best served by letting the market do it. In fact, what is going to occur here is not letting the market do the work but letting the market cherry-pick the locations and clients while the hard cases and those areas that will not make money will simply be left behind.

There is concern from the National Association of Community Based Children’s Services and the CPSU that the lack of safeguards in the new system may lead to reduction of service, poorer rehabilitation outcomes and fewer specialist services. Where it is not an easy or cheap fix, the service may in fact not be provided. The profit motive in these circumstances will simply override the motive to service the needs of the people who need those services. Where money is tight, the otherwise essential elements of the service will be trimmed. Hours of service, staffing numbers and quality of service will be squeezed in the process. The essential problem of for-profit service providers is that, when the squeeze is on, services can suffer. This could be especially problematic in regional areas. The market may not provide sufficient demand to sustain economically viable services. There is the unavoidable potential for market failure.

Lynne Wannan from the National Association of Community Based Children’s Services told the inquiry, when responding to a question from Senator Barnett, that:

In most human services areas it is very difficult to get sufficient demand in rural and remote areas for service providers to be there, basically. Unless they are subsidised by government in one way or another, you are very unlikely to get much. That is certainly the history in children’s services, with the very small numbers of children.

In fact, that raises a very serious question about the equality of the services that will be provided. For example, will the services in Kyogle match the services in Kogarah? Will the same money be available to perform necessary upgrades to facilities for accessibility in Lismore as will be provided in Liverpool? I am concerned that where it is not worth it for the for-profit operation, services may not be up to scratch. Particularly concerning is how this will affect those in rural and regional areas, as many are already marginalised due to lack of available services.

There are also potential issues with the vocational rehabilitation services for clients with a disability. Many private vocational rehabilitation service providers are not compliant with the Disability Services Act. Nevertheless, in order to get the system rolling, the secretary of DEWR may allow services to be provided by providers who do not have a compliance certificate. I simply do not think that is good enough in this day and age. The current compliance guidelines are there for a reason. They ensure that organisations responsible for providing the rehabilitation services understand the needs of their clients.

Those who work in health and community services will be able to tell you that it is responsible and necessary for both the staff and the organisation to understand the needs of the people they are working with—for example, those who suffer from a mental illness. The Mental Health Council of Australia argued in their submission to the inquiry that this will not ensure: an initial high standard of service; an appropriate consideration for people with mental health conditions; and confidence in the accessibility of the site for people with disabilities. Ignoring the concerns of a peak body such as the Mental Health Council will no doubt have significant ramifications.

The ALP understands that there is a priority on getting new providers into the marketplace. However, there is no point putting the cart before the horse. But this, in our view, is exactly what these amendments do. They prioritise service delivery above care and responsibility for those who will be using the service, discounting the safeguards, such as those which are there to ensure that organisations understand the needs of a variety of people and can provide access to people experiencing disabilities, that are vital. If the needs of people cannot be met, the effectiveness of the rehabilitation that is being provided will be substantially diminished.

Changes to the pensioner education supplement are also cause for concern. The pensioner education supplement is currently worth $31 per week for the duration of a course. That is around $4,000 per year. It is paid to people who are undertaking studies while in receipt of either Newstart or the disability support pension. Disability support pension recipients were reviewed after July 2006 as part of the Welfare to Work scheme. If at this review Centrelink found that they were not eligible for a disability support pension anymore, they still kept the pensioner education supplement. If a recipient keeps the disability support pension at the first review but they are reviewed again and lose it, they lose the pensioner education supplement as well. This is in spite of a commitment to allow people currently undertaking a course to complete their course with a pensioner education supplement. There will now be some people who lose their pensioner education supplement part of the way through a course.

It does not seem to make a lot of sense in terms of the way in which this system should be working. Does the person who loses the disability support pension at the second or later review not need the pensioner education supplement anymore? I would suggest it is the opposite. Do they somehow need it less than the people who are still grandfathered? It seems to not make a lot of sense and, although it is a small group, for the individuals concerned this could pose a serious problem. It seems less prudent than mean. It makes even less sense when the department states that it expects to make no savings from the measure.

Many workers who are on the margins of the disability support pension and who are being shifted back into the workplace need to update their skills. The reality is that they will not get back into the workforce unless they do have the capacity to update their skills. They need to undertake education and freshen up their skills before they can even think about being employed back in the workforce. I for one am concerned that this measure will remove the incentives for many of those workers to undertake to update their skills base. This proposal, in my view, in fact takes away support. It removes the help for those individuals. It actually makes it harder for people to study and improve their skills. It makes it harder for them to move from welfare to work.

Labor does support the changes proposed to allow Centrelink to recover financial case management overpayments. The proposed system will permit the recovery of financial case management payments made to people whose payments have been restored. It is basically to recover what is essentially a double payment. These changes need to occur, as the current provisions around financial case management payments are inadequate. There is no clear process and no guidelines, and mistakes happen.

We note the inconsistency, however, in that a process to recover overpayments is being codified while the payments themselves are not. There is no legislative basis for the financial case management system—it is a process that is essentially discretionary. In determining overpayments, this can lead to some undesirable outcomes, as we heard from the National Welfare Rights Network. Michael Raper told the inquiry that his objections revolved around:

… the lack of clarity and the lack of a legislative base for this system, which means that it is virtually impossible to correctly determine what is an overpayment …

People might have payments clawed back when there is no legislatively based reason to—not declaring income while receiving payments under the financial case management system, for example. Because there are no rules written into the act, there is no clarity as to the basis upon which this recovery can take place. Also, people might have payments clawed back after their initial penalty has been overturned, and the case management money may have been spent on urgent medical expenses. As we were asked in the hearings, what if it were to cover pharmacy bills that had been mounting up? What if it were to cover psychiatry costs?

There needs to be a better way of codifying how this system should work. And those who face having their private finances scrutinised deserve to know what criteria need to be met in order to receive money for ‘essentials’. Consequently, Labor urges the government to put the whole financial case management system into law. There should be clear black-and-white rules that apply to the financial case management system. It is a scheme that has its uses, but it makes no sense to have it operating without any legislative backing.

In conclusion, let me say that Labor have always been sceptical of the government’s Welfare to Work package, and I think with justifiable reason. We do not agree with the government’s carrot-and-stick approach. We do not agree that the best way of helping people to work is with a ‘Welfare to Less Welfare’ scheme. Labor believe in building proper incentives into the system. We think that there should be efforts made to address the causes of long-term unemployment. We should be looking at helping people develop skills and putting a greater focus on resources in that area. We should be offering real training opportunities to people with disabilities. We should be helping people who want to study, not taking their benefits away. Only with a constructive approach, based on investing in people and helping people, can we really get people from welfare into work.

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

The Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 is a follow-on bill to try and tidy up some of the mistakes made with the initial so-called Welfare to Work legislation. I have to start out by saying the whole phrase ‘welfare to work’ is one of the great cons of this government’s current term of office—and that is probably saying something, because there are a few there.

I can well remember when the so-called Welfare to Work package was initially being put forward by the government and was being justified with all their rhetoric. It was examined by Senate committees and question after question was asked in question time of relevant government ministers. I remember counting about 12 different questions, I think, over a number of months, to various government ministers, all asking simply: how does reducing people’s welfare payments get them into work? The only response we got from government ministers was a parroting of the cheap propaganda line that anybody who is opposed to this measure somehow wants to keep people on welfare. That is how dishonest, how shallow and how bankrupt the government’s approach is in this whole area. That simple label of Welfare to Work is a dishonest label that completely misrepresents what the government has done and is used to smear anybody who disagrees with them—and the government is persisting with it.

It is disappointing, frankly, that the government majority on the Senate committee simply saw their role as to parrot that propaganda line further. We had the nonsensical so-called finding that the committee majority saw these amendments as the latest measures to improve workforce participation and improve employment rates. What a farce! The source they quoted for this finding was the second reading speech of the Minister for Workplace Participation. Just parroting propaganda and then repeating it as fact does not make it true. It just makes it repeated propaganda. That is all the committee members from the government side did with regard to their assessment of this piece of legislation.

The government members of the committee made the conclusion that a key objective of the government is to maximise the ability of people to find work, particularly those who face the most severe barriers to work, and to reduce welfare dependency. That is nice to know. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the legislation and it has nothing to do with the parent act either. I fully acknowledge and note that there have been a range of measures put forward by this government, at some cost, aimed at extra services—employment services and other support—to assist people to re-enter the workforce. I fully acknowledge that and I welcome that in as far as it is appropriately applied, and I think there are some questions about aspects of that. But spending extra money to assist people into the workforce and providing employment programs is good, as long as the programs are appropriately operating and they are not just circular training programs with no jobs at the end of them. But that has nothing to do with reducing the income of those people who remain on welfare.

Where does this notion come from that reducing people’s income is going to help them into the workforce? It is an age-old fallacy that to help welfare recipients find jobs you give them a bit of ginger, you give them a bit of spice, by reducing their income and making them scratch around in the dirt; whereas you give the people who are well off more incentive to work harder by giving them tax cuts and more money. That is the total double standard that we have here, and it is being reinforced by some of the changes in this legislation.

The legislation itself goes only to some parts of the totality of the dishonestly named Welfare to Work measures. I will run through those now. It does what is euphemistically called clarifying the definition of the transitional group of disability support recipients and their entitlement to keep the pensioner education supplement if moving to Newstart or youth allowance. It clarifies it by removing it. This will only apply to a small number of people, but it is part of the time-honoured jargon that we have seen since way back before Centrelink days in the social security arena. I can well remember that any time you saw a piece of social security legislation that said ‘clarifying the definition’ or ‘improving the efficiency of’ then you could be pretty sure that somebody’s income was being cut along the way—and that is what we have here. Nowhere is it explained how clarifying the definition and removing the eligibility of a small number of people to the pensioner education supplement actually meets the so-called goal of the government to get people into work. How does reducing their income and cutting the pensioner education supplement, reducing their income even further, help them get into work? That is not answered.

The legislation also allows for financial case management debts to be deducted from social security payments. I will go to the principle involved in that in a moment, but, regardless of whether or not you think it is an appropriate mechanism, how does getting back an overpayment help someone get into work? It has nothing to do with getting into work. But if you raise that point all you will get is the blanket, universal smear from the government: ‘You want people to stay on welfare. You’re against people getting off welfare and into work.’ The government simply refuse to acknowledge the core reality of what they are doing to some of the poorest people in Australia.

Let us not forget that the financial case management system was implemented as a last-gasp attempt to put a disguise over the reality of what was being done to some of the poorest people—people who have breached or seem to have not met their obligations and have their income removed. To try and cover up the fact that they were putting people basically into destitution, the government give people who are in absolutely impossible situations case management to help them manage not having any money. It is an interesting concept. The way they would help them would be with food vouchers, paying the rent or paying the electricity. It is people at that level of poverty who need help, and the government want to regain their overpayments. I am disappointed, frankly, that Labor have seen fit to support that measure. I will be moving an amendment relating to it in the committee stage, and I hope they change their mind. I note that there are some criticisms made about the inadequacy of the financial case management system, but how supporting the recovery of so-called overpayments from a non-transparent system is a good idea is beyond me. But, again, it has nothing to do with getting people into work.

The other measures in the legislation just clarify or reflect changes in terminology—for example, replacing the term ‘pension period’ with ‘instalment period’ and removing references to the redundant payment of rehabilitation allowances. The legislation makes changes to the income test arrangements for the Community Development Employment Projects scheme to reflect the new higher rates. It clarifies the intended treatment of indexation decisions. How those amendments are ‘the latest measures to increase workforce participation and improve employment rates’ is a total non sequitur. What is being put forward and what is being argued is just repeating and parroting propaganda lines. It is quite extraordinary.

We see that in the section of the government members’ report that talks about the pensioner education supplement. The report notes the concerns expressed in a number of submissions about the proposed amendments that will remove the eligibility of a small number of people to the pensioner education supplement, which is $31.20 a week to assist people with the costs of study whilst they are on the disability support pension. The clarification of the definition has the consequence of a small number of people not continuing to receive that supplement. It is one thing to say that that is necessary, it clarifies the definition and it improves consistency—all those sorts of things that get used as justification—but at the end of the report, in paragraph 1.22, the committee majority ‘commends the government’s ongoing commitment to supporting people to undertake study in preparation for work’. I am speechless at the gall and the barefaced cheek in making a statement like that straight after a section dealing with the fact that some people are going to lose the pensioner education supplement. And yet the committee majority ‘commends the government’s ongoing commitment to supporting people to undertake study’. It is just ludicrous.

We hear statements from all sides of politics, quite welcome statements, about the importance of improving people’s skills to get new jobs, to get into the workforce, to get better paid jobs and to fill gaps in the workforce. We all talk about those things, as we should, but the rhetoric does not match the reality as far as the government’s legislative approach is concerned. The simple fact is that, because of the government’s dishonestly named Welfare to Work changes, there will be, according to the Australian Council of Social Services, over 80,000 people with disabilities who will be put on lower payments and will have their income quite substantially reduced. I might add that if they do happen to get some part-time work occasionally then they will have their effective marginal tax rates dramatically increased and they will keep less of that money. Those people will predominantly be put on the Newstart allowance because the disability support pension is now available only to those who are unable to work at least 15 hours a week, instead of the previous 30 hours.

People on Newstart allowance can only undertake short courses of study or training, whereas people on the disability support pension can be supported through the pensioner education supplement to undertake a university or TAFE course. We have this double standard where people who can benefit just as much from a university or TAFE course are not getting that significant assistance of up to $31 per week. At least 80,000 of them are people with disabilities, yet government members still want to commend ‘the government’s ongoing commitment to supporting people to undertake study in preparation for work’. It just does not quite match the reality here, I am afraid.

The simple fact is that there is no evidence to demonstrate that reducing people’s income support payments will increase their rate of workforce participation. These so-called statistics that have been trotted out from time to time by this government to demonstrate that it does are being fraudulently presented. The statistics of people entering the workforce may be accurate, but, as to saying that those people are getting jobs because their potential income support has been reduced, no such connection has been made at all and, beyond just a rhetorical flourish, there has been no such attempt to make such a connection.

I want to turn to the financial case management system, because I find this quite concerning. I can fully understand the rationale that, if somebody is entitled to an income support payment, they get paid and it turns out they are not entitled to it—leaving aside issues of fraud, departmental error or those sorts of things and just assuming that they were not entitled to that overpayment—they should pay it back. I fully accept that, but it is worth emphasising the reality of financial case management payments. As I said before, they are payments made to people who are in extremely difficult circumstances. They are not a legislated entitlement in the sense that the Newstart allowance, the disability support pension, the age pension and family payments are. It is a discretionary decision made by a Centrelink officer that this person needs financial case management, which is a nice euphemism for ‘this person is going to be in real strife unless we give them at least some degree of financial support given that we have just made a decision to breach them and take away all their income’.

That is the circumstance. As is pointed out in both the majority government report and the minority report, it is a discretionary payment. Therefore there is no scope for appeal and there is no transparency. If people think they should be getting more support or people think they should have gotten support and did not get it, there is no scope for appeal at all. What the government is seeking to do here is to put in place a legislated requirement and entitlement for the department or the government to take the money back. I assume this circumstance would arise if somebody is breached, loses their payments, is therefore assessed to be in need of financial case management and perhaps their electricity bill is paid, their rent is paid or they receive a food voucher. Meanwhile they are appealing that breach, perhaps with the support of a welfare rights centre or some other community legal centre or a helpful local member of parliament, and they manage to get that decision overturned and their payments are restored. What does the government want to do? It wants to reach in and grab the food voucher or the rent payment back.

At a time when we have a $15 billion surplus, I think that is pretty miserable, frankly. If you are at such a level of poverty that you need to get assistance with those sorts of basic living costs to get through the week, I really do not think it is that much to ask that people are able to retain that money. When St Vincent de Paul give out food vouchers one week and the person gets a job the next week, St Vincent de Paul do not come running after them and say, ‘Give us it back.’ As far as I know they do not. I might say I know that when many people get a job they do donate money back to St Vincent de Paul and say thank you for that support when they feel they are in a circumstance to do so. This is pretty miserable of the government.

You can call it an overpayment if you like, but it is a discretionary payment made in the assessment of the fact that the person is in extreme difficulty; it is not a legislated entitlement. Frankly, it is pretty damn miserable to go running after them and grabbing that payment back again. If they have only just got their payments restored and they were that badly off, I expect most people could benefit from just having that little bit of breathing space to build up a few spare dollars in the kitty for emergencies for a week or a few weeks or a month or two rather than immediately having deductions taken out of the payments that are restored. It shows no recognition of the reality of just how difficult it is on what is already an incredibly small amount of money. I would love to see any of us here try and get by on the basic pension rate or, in many of these cases, the Newstart allowance rate—people who would have been on the pension rate and are now are on an even lower rate. I would like to see how many of us could manage it.

I do not think there is any recognition of just how difficult it is. The last thing you need when you are in that low a circumstance is to have people coming around and grabbing back the money for your food vouchers straight away. I would add again that there is that extra problem of the inconsistency where the right to recover the overpayments is outlined in a legislative way but the making of payments is not and the right to receive those payments is not. It is purely discretionary. That is a real problem. It is an ongoing problem with that system and one that really does need to be fixed.

Apart from the specifics of the concern I have mentioned, it is a precedent. If we get precedents where payments are made in a discretionary manner and that starts building, then we will be moving away from a tradition and from a very sound practice of legislative entitlements, transparent decision making and grounds for appeal. The rationale given for recovering these debts, which the department finally figured out after double-checking its answers, is that these so-called debts incurred under the financial case management system—and I am not sure why you would call them debts but that is what they are called—can be recovered under statute or common law according to legal principles of equity. I am not sure, but it seems to me that ‘legal principles’ in this case sounds like a bit of an oxymoron. It does not sound very equitable when you are looking at the wealth disparity. The government says this is making it easier and simpler for all concerned—well, simpler for the government to get money back from somebody who is not well off but I am not sure it makes it easier for the person who is going to have less money. (Time expired)

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bartlett is quite right to be critical of the government members’ report of the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education inquiry into the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. He is correct when he says the government merely parroted the propaganda from the minister’s second reading speech. I suppose the government members had little choice but to do much else because they were not able to provide any argument as to how these amendments would assist people from welfare to work, which has been the problem with the whole Welfare to Work package.

The second reading speech of the Minister for Workforce Participation, Dr Stone, consisted of a whole four paragraphs. The first paragraph described the technical approach of the bill and where it fitted in to other pieces of legislation. The second paragraph indicated that the government was going to introduce some contestability and therefore provide choice to people with disabilities or injuries. The third paragraph generally talked about Welfare to Work changes in a very global sense. And the fourth paragraph—with no supporting evidence, no data, no documentation, no argument—simply said:

The amendments will enhance the smooth operation of the legislation so that job seekers among the targeted disadvantage groups of the Welfare to Work reforms—long-term unemployed people, parents of school age children, mature age Australians and people with disabilities—can continue to be supported and assisted to build their capacity and find work through employment and related services.

Strangely enough, that is the same conclusion the government members came to in their committee report and, again, with no argument, no demonstration. Senator Bartlett was correct in reminding the Senate that time and time again during the Welfare to Work debate that went on in this chamber the government was asked the question: how does simply cutting payments to people with disabilities or people on welfare provide any plan, progress or incentive for people to go into work? That question remains unanswered today. This legislation certainly does not assist in that process. In fact, we believe it will probably make it worse in many respects.

Senator Barnett came into the chamber—also a member of the committee and, as I understand, the only government member who is going to speak in this debate in support of this bill—and did somewhat better than the minister’s second reading speech, which consisted of four paragraphs. However, for the first 11 minutes of his speech he tried to politicise this whole debate by accusing Labor of not being genuine about welfare and work. He said some things which are simply dishonest, such as that we, the members of the opposition, wanted all people with disabilities to stay on welfare until they were eligible for the old age pension. How he could ever come to that conclusion given the debate that has gone on in this chamber over the last couple of years really beggars belief because that has never been, and will never ever be, the ALP position. We want to treat the most vulnerable people in our community with respect and we want to give them dignity in the workplace. We want to help people with disabilities to get the skills in order to help them obtain appropriate employment to give them dignity in the workplace as well as dignity in life.

But the approach of this government is to force people into work which may be unsuitable and not cost effective by lowering the threshold of the hours of work required, otherwise they will lose their disability payments. While Senator Barnett talked about how the government want to help people with disabilities get work, at the same time this legislation cuts the pensioner education supplement to a lot of people. On the one hand the government say, ‘We want to help people get the skills and vocational training to get genuine work,’ but they simply mouth those words. There is nothing to back them up, because their actions demonstrate that they seek to do the opposite: they seek to remove the education supplement from people in many of these disadvantaged categories.

So for the first 11 minutes Senator Barnett went on this trip rewriting history and he was completely inaccurate. While he did attend the committee inquiry into this bill, I am amazed at how he could come to the conclusions contained in the government members’ report or that reflected the contribution he made tonight.

After 11 minutes, he then went on to say that people have to be accountable for their actions and they have to be able to say thank you to the community. Again, this seems to be the view that everyone who cannot find work—people with disabilities, whether they be mental or physical disabilities; slackers or bludgers; or people who want a free ride on the welfare system—should get up, show some initiative and they would all get work. I think that demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what actually happens in the welfare system. We are talking about some of the most vulnerable people in the community who need assistance, help, education, training and support to get them back into the workforce. To simply come along with a stick and say, ‘We are going to cut your payments,’ does none of the things which need to be done in order to treat people with respect and dignity.

In his last couple of minutes I thought he was actually going to address the contents of the bill, but I was sadly disappointed because the closest he came to that was to say that this bill will provide people with the choice to get back into work and that it provides people with the same choice that Work Choices provides. If that is true, that this provides the same choice that World Choices provides, that is a sad indictment on this legislation. I am not going to talk much about Work Choices, but I will say that everybody understands the choice that Work Choices provides—that is, take it or leave it. In some respects, I suppose Senator Barnett was right: the choice that this provides in terms of the contestability of rehabilitation services, ultimately, will also be a take it or leave it choice. I will talk more about that later.

Then, to my disappointment, Senator Barnett sat down. He did not provide any evidence or any argument as to how these amendments are going to assist people to get back into work. It was simply hollow rhetoric on the belief that because the general bill and the policy position is called ‘Welfare to Work’ that means that if we have concerns about its practical application—and, of course, vote against elements of that reform—we are not genuine about reform. He ought to look past the name of the bill and look at the effect of the bill, and then he may begin to understand the difficulties that we have with this bill and that people with disabilities will have with it.

We say that this bill is yet another misguided piece of welfare legislation introduced by the Howard government. It represents a continuation of the most significant downgrading of the income support system since the Social Security Act was introduced in 1947. ACOSS has estimated that over the next three years approximately 81,000 people with disabilities will be put onto lower payments courtesy of the government’s previous so-called Welfare to Work legislation. Previously, the DSP was made available to those who were deemed to be unable to work at least 30 hours a week. The benchmark has been shifted to 15 hours. This has forced many people onto lower payments, most commonly Newstart, which in turn limits their access to education support. I have already mentioned the hypocrisy of this government when it says that it wants to provide people with better vocational training and better access to education, when the effect of its legislation will be to deny many people who have an existing entitlement access to the pensioner education supplement in the future.

These changes are based on the government’s misguided philosophy that reducing income support will increase workplace participation. This is despite ample evidence to the contrary which shows that countries that have invested heavily in employment assistance have been the most successful in reducing unemployment and welfare dependency. The current changes with regard to the pensioner education supplement would see a person lose their access to the PES who came onto the DSP during the transition period between the introduction and the implementation.

So we already have measures that reduce people’s access to income support, and now this bill seeks to further limit access to training for welfare recipients. This government’s approach is quite clear: place people on lower payments, deny them access to training and education, and simply tell them to go and get a job. Genuine welfare reform should be about boosting investment in employment assistance and providing people with the capacity and skills to find a job and to keep a job. It should not be about penalising some of the most vulnerable people in our society by reducing their payments and denying them access to education. This is occurring at a time when the country is experiencing significant skills shortages.

This bill also deals with the opening up of contestability for vocational rehabilitation services. In principle, Labor does not oppose a form of benchmarking to ensure that services provided by the Commonwealth are actually working efficiently and effectively. We support that type of benchmarking approach. Labor does not oppose competitive tendering of vocational rehabilitation services provided appropriate safeguards and quality control mechanisms are in place. However, this bill does not provide such protections.

Rehabilitation services with the aim of promoting transition into the workforce are currently exclusively provided by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service—a service which currently provides vocational rehabilitation for nearly 44,000 clients. This bill opens up a tendering process so that private providers can tender for the contracts. Community organisations and disability advocates who made submissions to the inquiry have indicated a number of concerns with this process.

CRS, a service which is generally well regarded amongst allied health professionals, currently provides services such as the assessment of an individual’s capacity to work, specialist counselling, workplace assessments and supervised on-the-job training with the aim of assisting clients with a disability to return or join the workforce. It is a specialist service which provides access to allied health professionals such as occupational therapists, psychologists and rehabilitation counsellors. These are professionals who have skills in the rehabilitation sector and an understanding of the unique issues faced by people with disabilities who want to return to work.

The bill removes the requirement that individual rehabilitation programs are approved by the secretary under the Disabilities Services Act. It is of great concern to me that this legislation does not provide appropriate guarantees that the quality and standards of this service will be retained under the tendering process. The National Association of Community Based Children’s Services is concerned that the lack of safeguards could lead to a reduction in services, poorer rehabilitation outcomes and fewer specialist services.

In my state of Victoria there are a number of CRS services that have a specialist focus in dealing with specific areas, such as mental health or acquired brain injuries. These facilities provide the same services as other CRS services, such as neuropsychology, social work and occupational therapy. These health professionals have specialised skills in working with people from these cohorts. It is my concern, and a concern reflected in a number of submissions received by our committee during the inquiry, that under this piece of legislation these specialised services may no longer exist.

This legislation simply fails to enshrine regulatory mechanisms which focus on achieving the best outcomes for people. It also fails to ensure a consistent national service quality. Market forces alone will not ensure accessibility of services, appropriateness of services, quality of services or even positive rehabilitation outcomes for consumers. There is a genuine concern that opening vocational rehabilitation services to the for-profit sector will shift the focus from rehabilitation outcomes to profit making; it will draw services away from less profitable regional centres and specialist units. By moving away from a centralised service, we risk a reduction in the consistency of services, the capacity of the health professionals to share knowledge and information and a decrease in accessibility for some consumers—a key issue for many people with disabilities.

The statutory right to appeal the content of individual rehab programs has been removed without an alternative safeguard. The right to a review is especially important when an activity agreement comprises a compulsory rehabilitation program, as a failure to comply can result in a possible eight-week non-payment period. The extent of the safeguard the government have provided rests with the independent Complaints Resolution and Referral Service. It is a service that helps people talk about their issues and find a resolution, yet this is nothing more than a counselling service and is totally unsatisfactory. People with disabilities have enough barriers to participation. When there is a problem with the system, there needs to be an appropriate failsafe mechanism for dealing with complaints. It is a concern that the inadequacy of this mechanism will make people reluctant to access these services.

The government has shown scant regard for the concerns of those community groups who have appeared before the Senate inquiry and has once again shown its utter contempt for the legislative process. As we are debating this issue in the Senate today, the government has already opened up the rehabilitation market for tender. In fact, the entire tendering process was commenced and completed, with the exception of the awarding of the actual contracts, a month before the bill was even introduced into the parliament. The minister responsible released an industry alert as far back as June 2006, with applications for tender closing on 8 November 2006. This really shows the complete arrogance of the government in dealing with this issue. The government demonstrates an intent to do these things, opens up a tender process and finalises it, but does not award the contracts. The whole system is finalised before this bill is even introduced into the parliament, before the committee has had a chance to inquire into the bill and report back to the Senate and before the Senate has had a chance to actually debate the bill—in fact, before the House of Representatives has had an opportunity to debate the bill. The government has already determined where it will go, and I think that shows a complete disregard for the concerns of the people that this bill affects. As I mentioned earlier, there was a four-paragraph second reading speech by the minister. One government member is on the speakers list so far to actually speak to this bill. It is a bill that is contentious and into which the Senate inquired in the form of its committee system.

Labor supports welfare reform that genuinely seeks to help people move from the welfare system into the workplace. This is achieved by investing in people—providing them with the mechanisms, the education, the skills and the confidence needed to participate in the workforce. This piece of legislation does not address any of these issues. In fact, it further penalises those who receive social security payments. It is a poor attempt by the government to rectify some of the many oversights in the so-called Welfare to Work legislation; instead, it has succeeded in only compounding existing mistakes as well as creating new ones.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is certainly a pleasure to follow Senator Marshall—someone who has an abiding interest in these areas and has demonstrated that time and again in his contributions in the Senate. Let me restate again at the outset that Labor unreservedly support the concept of encouraging people to make the move from welfare to work. Contrary to the coalition’s demonising of these people, welfare recipients do want to change their situations for the better, and this usually starts with a job. We on this side place a great deal of emphasis on work. Importantly, Labor recognise that this process does not happen without the appropriate level of support.

Despite what the government would have you believe, there are still a great many Australians who are failing to see the fruits of the prosperity our economy is said to be reaping. The boom is bypassing tracts of people who are in no position to take advantage of it. I speak of course of the 2.3 million Australians who are looking for work or want or possibly need to work more hours. The government makes much of the unemployment rate, but a significant number of Australians who fall into the category I have just outlined would indicate that they have not been invited to the economic prosperity party.

It is reasonable to assume that a proportion of these 2.3 million people are making the transition from welfare to work. Some of them may also be in danger of reverting back to welfare. I say they are in danger because, firstly, the gradual casualisation of the workforce is removing job stability. Workers who once would have been full-time workers are now employed as casuals and now have no guarantee of receiving a shift. Secondly, these same people are at the mercy of the government’s Work Choices regime under which they may not be reimbursed for overtime or for shift loadings and, more disturbingly, can be summarily sacked with no recourse if they are employed by a business with fewer than 100 employees. Because their tenure is extremely precarious, they are also the least likely to maximise their wages and conditions in an AWA by bargaining with their employers. They have little or no bargaining power and they take what they are given or they get their marching orders.

We have seen these trends emerging over the first 12-month period of Work Choices in sectors like retail and hospitality. Those faring worst are women, who are traditionally at a disadvantage in balancing their family and work commitments, particularly because this government has let the childcare sector degenerate into a shambles in which there are either not enough places for children or it is prohibitively expensive.

These most vulnerable people, an estimated 2.3 million people, are caught in a nexus whereby they are transitioning from welfare to employment and are arguably deserving of the assistance of the government in making the transition and making it a lasting one. A case in point is a woman in Manilla, New South Wales, who has been in contact with my office. She is a sole parent in receipt of Centrelink payments with three children aged between nine and 19. She wanted to return to work but in a capacity in which she could fulfil her duty as her children’s primary care giver. She took the initiative to set up a modest before- and after-school family day care service in her home. She has been doing this for the last seven months and has nine children in her care. She very diligently meets all the standards set out by the Family Day Care Association and the relevant health and safety legislation. She has attended courses at her own expense to make sure she is abreast of things in order to run a day care service. The parents of the nine children she cares for are largely able to work because, thanks to her, there is someone to care for their children. After 11 years of neglect of the childcare sector, regional areas like Manilla have no formal care services available to school-age children. Until my constituent began her day care service, parents had to choose between work and caring for their children.

It appears, however, they may be forced to make that choice again, because my constituent was contacted by her local Centrelink office in Tamworth. They told her that under the new rules to come in after 1 July this year her payments would be stopped if she is not earning more than $202 a week. She would have to become a full-time student or actively look for more work, including filling out an activity statement and attending the fortnightly interviews at Centrelink, a 40-minute drive away, in order to continue to receive support.

The absolute mindlessness of the system is such that it would force a woman who has taken the initiative to establish her own business—and in the process supporting seven other families in their endeavours to remain employed—to essentially forego that business and look for another job so she can meet the $202 a week income test. She in fact earns that each week, working 25 hours during school term and up to 40 hours a week during school holidays. She does have significant outlays while meeting regulatory costs, but she is getting by and having a go. She is working towards being able to make her day care service self-sufficient so that she will not have to rely on benefits to supplement her income. But the heavy hand of this government’s spiteful approach to workforce participation is threatening to force her out of business. I believe her case has been referred to the national office as a test of how the new regulations stand up, and I hope the minister and his department have the sense to realise the pettiness of the government’s approach. Incidentally, I also believe that Centrelink staff are privately dreading the introduction of the post-July regulations, because clients will have to be interviewed every fortnight, meaning the queues at the counters will grow longer and no doubt patience and tempers will be tested.

Hearing stories like this, I find it inexplicable that the government would continue its miserly pursuit of job seekers and as part of this bill deny them a key piece of assistance in the pensioner education supplement. Currently, people moving from parenting payments or disability support pensions to Newstart or youth allowance as a result of last year’s Welfare to Work legislation remain eligible to receive the PES until they have completed their courses, which is a very reasonable proposition. Those people in receipt of the PES are studying or retraining to enable them to better transition to the workforce. But that entitlement now disappears if those same people had applied for the pension payment between May 2005 and June 2006 and, after having been reviewed under the new legislation, they were assessed as having a partial capacity to work, which I believe is currently set at 15 hours a week. This does not apply to people moved onto Newstart or youth allowance if it is their first review following the 2006 changes, but it does if they are transferred upon subsequent reviews.

This may result in a scenario in which people, part way through a course of study, will now lose their entitlement to the financial support contained in the PES. More than likely they embarked on that study under the fair assumption that the support they were receiving through the PES would not be ripped out from under them. I can see no benefit in this move for the government other than as a further expression of its spite and total disregard for the genuine Australians who are just looking for a fair go but are falling through the cracks.

I am not alone in my criticism of this provision. Catholic Social Services Australia shared these sentiments in their submission to the Senate inquiry into this bill. They said:

Many individuals in difficult circumstances who have invested considerable time and effort in furthering their employment prospects are likely to be forced to jettison half-completed courses—courses commenced and continued in good faith in the expectation that the Commonwealth’s Pensioner Education Supplement would be available for the duration of the course. A person so affected could be forgiven for some scepticism, disillusionment and even bitterness during their next phase of complying with participation requirements. Employment prospects would be impeded, educational resources wasted, and motivation far from enhanced—thereby undermining the Government’s objective of increasing paid labour force participation by people with a disability.

In other words, we have a government willing to take away the opportunity to retrain and re-enter the workforce from those who most want to. We are talking here of people who have suffered from a legitimate disability for an extended period of time, long enough that they have received a DSP and been reviewed at least once post 2006, and have still been in receipt of that pension. These are people who are making overt efforts to get back into work by skilling themselves so they can make the transition.

That is the ultimate irony of the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 and the government’s approach to welfare to work. On the one hand they say they want more people to get back to work, particularly disabled people, and on the other hand they rip away an important subsidy that was helping them do just that. The conclusion of Catholic Social Services Australia is, I think, extremely accurate: you will have people in the middle of study suddenly unable to support that study and losing an opportunity they had to be an attractive potential employee.

The rhetoric and the action do not match up. The government keep shifting the goal posts for job seekers—‘Get off welfare, get into the workforce,’ they say, ‘but don’t look to us for help. In fact, we will make it harder for you to achieve the standards we set.’ If only job seekers got as much leeway and as many second chances as government ministers!

I think another disturbing provision in this bill is that people who have been breached and subject to an eight-week non-payment period can be liable to pay back the money it cost for their financial case management. This case management may include receiving funds to pay for bills and other essential items like food. The government has already, by putting in place the case management system, acknowledged that its breaching policy is sending families to the wall. A two-month non-payment period for a family can mean they cannot pay rent, they cannot pay for food and they cannot clothe their children. They then have to go to charity for assistance, charities like the Exodus Foundation, which I have spoken about before in the Senate.

Very few organisations actually volunteered to sign up to the government’s case management system. Major charities like St Vincent de Paul, the Brotherhood of Saint Laurence and the Uniting Church all refused to take part in the scheme because they opposed the principle underpinning it. One of those groups that did agree to take part was Hillsong Emerge. They receive $650 for each person referred to them by the government. It says much about them that no other major charity would sign up because they detest the policy. Hillsong Emerge have a history with government grants and their use of them, so I am not surprised they were quick to sign on the dotted line.

But now the government wants people who have been breached and referred to organisations like Hillsong Emerge for financial help to pay them back. This adds insult to injury. Breaching a benefit recipient places that person in a situation where they have no means of surviving, where they can no longer pay for accommodation or medication. If they receive assistance via case management, they must then be subjected to the indignity of repaying those costs.

I challenge senators from the government to stand in this chamber and argue the merits of this system. As we know from Senator Marshall’s contribution, only you, Mr Acting Deputy President Barnett, have had the courage to at least stand up for your convictions. What do I say to people like my constituent from Manilla, who could be left high and dry by a cruel system or to the dozens of families trekking in, some by foot and over long distances, to the Exodus Foundation at Ashfield just to give their children a hot meal?

Senators on the other side, and their colleagues in the other place, will come to their day of reckoning later this year, and I predict the cruel spite they have visited on Australian families will come back around. I conclude by relating the sentiment expressed by my constituent in Manilla, New South Wales. She said that she had voted for John Howard three times but neither she nor any member of her family will be voting for him again. In her own words, ‘I voted for John Howard, and look what he’s done for me.’ This government should have a close look indeed at what it is doing to Australian families.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor oppose the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 for very good reasons. It is another example of this government making life harder for those in our community who are already doing it tough. It is another example of the government’s complete failure to accept that investment in, and equitable access to, education, which is the key to both national and personal economic prosperity. It is yet another example of a government that encourages private provision of public services without any substantiated justification for doing so. It is also an admission by an inept government that the welfare legislation it ran through the Senate last year is full of holes that need fixing.

Instead of using its majority in both houses of parliament to pass positive, forward-looking legislation which would genuinely help our most disadvantaged Australians to get out of the cycle of welfare dependence, this government wastes its majority, abuses its majority, and continues to demonstrate its lack of vision, lack of innovation and blind adherence to old-fashioned ideas of a tired Prime Minister whose time is nearly up but who wants to kick a few more disadvantaged Australians on his way out.

The main provisions of this bill will amend existing welfare legislation. If it is passed, the bill will remove the entitlement to the pensioner education supplement from some people who most need it; introduce contestability for the provision of vocational rehabilitation services for eligible welfare recipients, thereby enabling private providers to tender for the provision of services currently provided by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service; and enable recovery of debt that may be incurred by persons who have received financial case management during the time they are enduring the eight-week non-payment punishment that this government introduced as part of last year’s changes to the welfare system. There are also amendments to income test arrangements for CDEP recipients and other measures which the Labor Party could, in other circumstances, have supported.

Labor does not oppose in principle either contestability or recovery of genuinely incurred debt caused by overpayment of welfare benefits and of course we support measures that really do assist Australians to move from dependency on welfare benefits to participation in the workforce. But this bill does not do that. This bill is more of the ‘if you are struggling, if you are poor, if you are vulnerable, we are going to punish you for it’ mentality that we saw in the previous raft of so-called Welfare to Work legislation and in the Work Choices legislation.

Labor believe that those people who can work should work, but we also know that some people are so far behind in job fitness that they need special assistance to get anywhere near the job market. We are a wealthy nation and we can afford the compassion and the time and the money to genuinely assist people to extract themselves from welfare dependency. We can also afford to accept that some people will, unfortunately, always be dependent on government welfare benefits and that is something that the nation can also cope with and absorb. Labor knows that the best way out of dependency on welfare is to have a job because with an appropriate job comes not just money but engagement with the community and access to opportunity. The best way to get a job that suits your particular circumstances is to have access to the education and training to give you the skills to do a job and then to get on the job support that helps you stay in work.

The Labor Party knows that the future of our nation lies in a better education system and more investment in education for all Australians from early childhood onwards. For this reason the federal Labor leader, Mr Kevin Rudd, has recently released a discussion paper about the critical link between long-term prosperity, productivity growth and human capital and has called for an education revolution to secure the nation’s wellbeing far into the future. Labor has also started the debate about new directions for our schools, a progressive education initiative that highlights how puerile is this government’s contribution to education which is basically about slashing funding, criticising teachers and decimating funding for universities and tying funding for universities to implementation of Work Choices. Labor has a vision for the future of education in our country, a vision that builds on our long tradition of investment in education for all Australians. Unlike this government, we are not content just to sit back and hope that the resources boom—and the accompanying low unemployment—continue. It will not and we need to be prepared for that. Unlike this government, which has cut funding to universities by seven per cent in the last decade, unlike this government that has turned away 300,000 young people from TAFE colleges, unlike this government that has allowed HECS debts to rise by 430 per cent and introduced university degrees that cost more than $100,000, Labor will invest in education because it is the basis of our economic future.

Given the history of the Howard government’s abysmal record on education, we should not be surprised that one of the things that this bill will do is change the entitlement to the pensioner education supplement. The PES is a weekly allowance of some $31.20 intended to assist people with the cost of study while on the disability support pension. As we know, the best way to help people off welfare is to help them get the education and the skills they need to get a job. That was the intent of the PES and it was understood that under the Welfare to Work legislation those people on DSP who moved onto Newstart or youth allowance would keep the PES until they finished their course of study.

Under this legislation now those persons who started receiving the DSP during the period from May 2005 to July 2006 will lose the PES if they are reviewed off the DSP after 1 July 2006. Not only do they get dumped onto the dole—and a lower rate of income—they also lose their education supplement. While $31.20 might not seem a lot to some senators, to someone on welfare it is a significant assistance and could well be the difference between completing a course and not completing it. Being able to purchase essential study tools, including books, photocopying and internet access, and pay for travel and other costs is essential to successful completion of a course of study. In its submission to the inquiry into this bill ACOSS calculated that a person who was reviewed off their pension with two years of a three-year course to complete would miss out on receiving $3,200 for the remainder of their course. This is not a huge amount of money and, as we know from the government’s own figures, the number of persons involved would not be particularly significant. Catholic Social Services Australia, also in a submission to the inquiry into this bill, said on the matter of denying people the PES:

... outcomes ... of the Bill are a negligible financial saving for the Commonwealth accompanied by a high cost in economic, productivity, social and human terms.

It is not just the opposition that is opposed to this element of the bill. Advocacy groups such as Catholic Social Services Australia and ACOSS can also see the hypocrisy of the government’s argument and the failure of this proposed legislation to deliver what it is supposed to deliver.

A report that is useful to this debate entitled Dropping off the edge was recently launched here at Parliament House. The report, prepared for Jesuit Social Services and Catholic Social Services Australia, highlights the particularly strong link between intergenerational poverty and low educational attainment. The report goes on to say that by detaching individuals, families and whole communities from the modern economy in this way disadvantages holding back the nation’s economic potential. Labor couldn’t agree more that perpetuating the link between access to education and poverty is detrimental to the nation’s future wellbeing. But of course this government does not get it at all.

The government senators’ comments about this provision of the bill in the Senate committee report offer no good explanation for taking the PES from people who need it most. The government senators say that it is not about cost saving as the number of people potentially affected is not great. The government senators even say that it is a valuable support for people. You have to ask: why take it away? When the government senators say in the report that this is not about persecuting people on welfare, you have to wonder whether this is in fact an example of the government crying wolf. For the very good reason that education is the key to work and work is the key to getting off welfare, Labor does not support removal of the PES and we will move an amendment to this effect.

As I said, another provision of this bill is to enable contestability in the provision of rehabilitation services which are currently provided by the well-regarded Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service. Even the government senators on the Senate committee that inquired into this bill made mention of the CRS and commended the efforts of that organisation. While the government senators were complimentary of the CRS, there is little in the government senators’ report of the inquiry to justify the move to contestability. It is not, we are told, a cost-saving measure, nor is there any criticism of the CRS’s services. Instead, there are unsubstantiated and wishful comments along the lines of ‘contestability will increase choice and encourage innovation’. Well, where is the evidence for that? There was none presented to the inquiry, and the government senators did not present any such evidence either.

What we do know about contestability and privatisation without safeguards is that it always has the potential to put the provision of services outside the purview of government accountability and public scrutiny. The Scrutiny of Bills Committee, of which I am a member, has had some correspondence with the minister about the committee’s concerns that the bill would give the secretary of her department the ability to delegate all or any of his or her powers to any employee of any company to which the department has outsourced the provision of services. The committee was also concerned that there was no requirement in the legislation to take into account the capabilities or qualifications of private providers of services. The minister’s initial response to the Scrutiny of Bills Committee was that there would be a range of legislative and contractual safeguards to limit the delegation of powers and to ensure appropriate service delivery and monitoring of that delivery.

The committee then asked the minister for more information, because, as the Scrutiny of Bills Committee observed, contractual safeguards may well be included in contracts between private providers and the government department, but such safeguards are not known to, and probably would not be made known to, the Senate as a whole—because of the commercial confidentiality of such contracts—and such safeguards would not necessarily be subject to disallowance by the Senate in the manner of legislative instruments. The minister’s eventual response included the fact that VRS providers must comply with the disability service standards; that those standards are a legislative instrument and subject to disallowance; that the requirements to comply with the standards will be in the contract that VRS providers enter into with the government; and that compliance is independently assessed. Further, the minister advised that the section 5 guidelines will be developed at some point, in consultation with community organisations and people with disabilities and their advocates and will be subject to disallowance.

While the Scrutiny of Bills Committee’s inquiry was eventually answered to the satisfaction of its members and its limited terms of reference, what the committee’s inquiry did reveal was a very complicated trail of accountability and an as yet incomplete process. But here we are being asked to vote on this legislation prior to all the necessary checks and balances being in place. It is indicative of this government’s attitude to public scrutiny, it is indicative of this government’s haste and ineptitude, that the Scrutiny of Bills Committee detected much about this legislation that needed to be questioned and followed up, not once but twice.

Clearly, representative groups in our community are not satisfied that the bill offers the necessary protections for clients of VRS. The Senate committee inquiry into this bill heard from a number or organisations that are particularly worried about the future of provision of rehabilitation services, particularly for groups that have special needs. The Mental Health Council of Australia stated in its submission:

… the most effective rehabilitation programs are those tailored to meet the individual needs of consumers. By moving to a contestable rehabilitation services market, there must be assurances that specific rehabilitation programs are developed with the needs of mental health consumers as the primary motivation.

The Mental Health Council went on to say:

… the current move to more generalist employment agencies … does not create a favourable environment for mental health specialist rehabilitation services.

It is Labor’s view that contestability for rehabilitation services should not be introduced unless there are guarantees that all persons who need rehabilitation services receive the services they need and that the services are delivered in a way that is cognisant of their special needs.

It is galling, and indicative of this government’s extraordinary arrogance and contemptuous attitude to the parliament, that the tender process for rehabilitation services has commenced before this bill has even been passed by the parliament. There are, of course, parallels with the government’s reckless attempt to push through legislation creating the access card: despite nervousness in its own ranks about that—subsequently borne out by the Senate committee report on the so-called Human Services (Enhanced Service Delivery) Bill—the government started the tender process for the card and its system without waiting for the parliament to pass the legislation. Now it has had to pull that legislation, but the department has a tender process to manage. It is another example of the government’s abject failure in accountability and responsibility.

As other senators have said, this bill also goes to the issue of recovery of overpayments that Centrelink claims have been incurred by persons in receipt of financial case management. The bill, if passed, will allow Centrelink to recover what it declares to be debt from a person’s income support payments. No-one in this parliament supports welfare fraud, and Labor understands the need for any government payment system to be accompanied by legislation that enables recovery of overpayment or debt. It is appropriate that legislation should be provided for that and that the legislation be accompanied by proper guidelines and transparent appeal mechanisms. Our concern with this legislation is that the financial case management system is a discretionary program and not prescribed in social security law in a way that would make the program fully accountable and accompanied by proper appeal mechanisms.

We should not forget that the people who are in receipt of financial case management are without any financial support from the government because they have been breached. These are Australians who are really doing it tough, and financial case management was only introduced because the government’s harsh breaching regime was unpalatable to most Australians, who expect a modicum of respect and care for those who, for whatever reason, fall foul of our welfare laws. I am sure that every senator in this place would have been approached by some Australians who have been breached and who are desperately trying to survive and provide for their families in that difficult situation. Labor did not support the breaching regime in the so-called Welfare to Work package—we did not support the package at all—but if we are going to have a breaching regime, if the people of Australia are stuck with it, then let it be part of a legislative package and subject to accountability and appeal and to the checks and balances that this government hates but that responsible governance of the nation demands.

In conclusion, Labor would support legislation that genuinely helped people to end their dependence on welfare payments and assisted them into paid work when that is appropriate and possible. This bill does not help people most in need to end their dependence on welfare. This bill is another example of the government’s impoverished and stale policy making. Instead of creating a visionary and sustainable welfare and education system that is a stepping stone to financial and social independence, this bill will lead to further uncertainty and disadvantage for those Australians who most need our help.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been waiting for this opportunity for a while, primarily due to a matter that has been before my office in Brisbane over a substantial period of time which highlights the harshness and the blind stupidity of the Welfare to Work legislation. I listened to Senator Bartlett and I think it is fitting to open with a quote from the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education which looked at the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. At point 1.8 on page 2, it said:

In summary, the committee majority sees these amendments as improving the Welfare to Work legislation. It notes that the amendments are the latest measures to increase workforce participation and improve employment rates.

This is a highly sterile approach to the humanity, the welfare, the wellbeing and the dignity of individuals. I think that sums up the attitude of this government—no heart, no compassion. I think it is worth while that I place on the record of this chamber the difficulties experienced by one family in particular.

This bill seeks the staged introduction of contestability for vocational rehabilitation services. Contestability of itself is not going to improve the plight necessarily of some welfare recipients. Bearing witness to a person on whose behalf I have made representations as a result of Welfare to Work legislation, I think you will see that there is a lot to be desired in this legislation of itself and in the broadest sense. I am going to quote from a letter that this person’s parents wrote to me but I will not mention any names nor identify any of the key players. I want to look at the heart of the issue. In some places, the particular statements that I will make may seem a bit staccato and may seem a little bit difficult.

These parents were very much at the end of their tether in dealing with the plight and the difficulties of a young member of their family. They wanted to bring to my attention the further problems which they have encountered with Centrelink. The person in question has had ongoing problems with depression and drug addiction. After I forwarded their complaints to the minister—so the minister has been aware of this matter and I must say that there has been good correspondence between the minister and me—they were interviewed. The result of the interview was that they were told that the person was exempt from having to attend appointments with the Job Network. So they felt some sort of relief out of the process at that stage.

Remember, they are now accounting their frustrations following on from that. They go on to say that prior to the expiry of the person’s medical certificate, the person was instructed to attend a job capacity assessment. The person lodged a further medical certificate written by a person who is one of the country’s leading psychiatrists in drug addiction. This certificate stated that the person was unfit for work but the person who carried out the job capacity assessment decided that the specialist in this field did not know what was best for the person in question.

The young person then received a letter stating that they had been passed fit to participate in a program for 15 to 22 hours per week. This was to be overseen by a provider and it was stated clearly in the letter that no further certificates would be accepted. So this was the end of the line for this person who has severe depression and drug addiction problems. The person in question had been attending sessions with the psychiatrist for all of the year in question and the sessions continued even after the letter from Centrelink stating that the person was fit for work. The person in question had not used hard drugs for two years and was receiving therapy for prescription drug abuse and cannabis use. Considerable progress was being made in these areas, as the parents write saying that the person had not been misusing prescription drugs for the whole year. Cannabis however was still an issue and the fortnightly sessions were to reinforce the abstinence from hard drugs and work towards detoxing from cannabis.

The parents went on to say that they were not opposed to their child going to a provider as they believed that they would help to find some part-time work or work experience for their child if the child were well enough to go. They went on to say that they were very shocked to find that the program that their child was put into was one for hard drug users. When the child came home and told them that that person was to attend a counselling and group therapy session with ex-drug users and others who were still using, they were horrified. They have been working for years with the help of the psychiatrist, whom they name, to move their child away from the drug scene and to have their child dissociate from drug users.

The letter went on to say that their child had told them that the program would include sessions on how to inject safely and on home detox. They became very alarmed. Their first action was to ring the psychiatrist to see about them writing a letter to stop it from happening. Unfortunately, the psychiatrist was away and so their child decided to attend the interview with Centrelink to tell them that neither they nor their parents were happy about them being around drug users and attending group therapy sessions with them. The counsellor who saw the person in question agreed that it was not an appropriate placement for the young person, but then proceeded to tell the person that they knew that this person had been in jail for cooking speed. They apparently talked for half an hour about speed, and the consequence of this interview was that the young person in question went straight out and obtained some speed and went on a binge. So much for getting people from welfare to work—the complete opposite was achieved by this process.

The parents went on to complain to me that they could not understand why their child had to attend the program when their child’s medical certificate was current at that stage. They said that their child would be very ill for a number of weeks and that this was particularly infuriating because they were able to secure some work experience at another site for him or her and, of course, he or she could not turn up because of the experience that they had just undergone. They say that not only did the Job Network not find their child some meaningful employment but their actions put the work experience program which they arranged in jeopardy.

Here was a family who were completely frustrated by the process and whose young child, who has some quite severe disabilities, was being pushed down a path quite inappropriate for the difficulties they were facing in life. The parents went on to say in their letter to me that the system of mutual obligation seems to be one which the employees of Centrelink and the Job Network take to mean they should ‘make things so difficult that the sick person will not make further applications for money.’ To say that these people were frustrated, disappointed and at their wits’ end is an understatement indeed. Bear in mind that this letter I am quoting from now was probably written some six months after they had first sought my intervention to bring some sanity into the processes in respect of their child. Their letter went on to say that the consequences of this refusal by Centrelink to accept the new certificate ‘are now devastating for our family and we would like you to follow-up on these issues.’

I have tried not to quote selectively from the letter but to give the Senate a reasonably broad understanding of the frustration of these parents caused by the system imposed by this government. It was interesting to then read the response of the then acting minister to one of my items of correspondence where the then acting minister acknowledged the correspondence that I had forwarded on behalf of my constituents and acknowledged the concerns about their child’s participation requirements. It went on:

Centrelink staff are required to make decisions about welfare entitlements based on legislation. They have no authority to make decisions contrary to social security law nor discretion to make exceptions in individual cases. Similarly, I have no such authority.

That to me is a tragic statement of what this legislation is really about. It is really about taking to task those people who are least able, capable and likely to defend themselves. In this particular case, this particular young person had been to hell and back, in many senses of the expression. The system placed this person highly at risk once again.

We then had that opening statement that I read from the committee majority where they said:

... the committee majority sees these amendments as improving the Welfare to Work legislation.

I would say that those senators need to go back and take a very close look at what the Welfare to Work legislation does. It is a one-size-fits-all piece of legislation with no exemptions or exceptions. The frustration that this family, who are constituents of mine from Queensland, have suffered, in my mind, bears that out well. It seems that there is an attempt to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and to try to vary the make-up of the sledgehammer is not going to change things as this legislation seeks to do. Changes cannot be made by the government agencies, as I understand it, nor the minister. Heaven forbid what it will be like with private providers empowered to make the decisions.

I now turn to paragraphs 1.27 and 1.28 on page 8 of the majority report of the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education. This is the view of the government senators, under the heading ‘Conclusions and recommendation’. Paragraph 1.27 says:

A key objective of the government is to maximise the ability of people to find work, particularly those who face the most severe barriers to work, and to reducing welfare dependency.

That is very high and mighty, and may be laudable in some senses, but for the young person whom I have talked about in this debate this evening it is a diabolical challenge indeed, because all it means is frustration, not only for that young person but for that young person’s family, who are equally sharing in the frustrations and challenges of that young person. This is a terribly mechanical approach and it says nothing about the welfare, wellbeing and dignity of the individual. It does nothing for the welfare and wellbeing of the individual whatsoever. It delivers an ideological outcome for this government rather than looking at the welfare, wellbeing and dignity of the individual.

Paragraph 1.28 says:

In considering the evidence to this inquiry, the committee concludes that the provisions of the bill are consistent with the intent of the existing Welfare to Work package. Amendments to the provision of vocational rehabilitation services will pave the way for increased choice as well as encouraging innovation in the provision of services.

If that is the case, all I can say is: heaven help us. One might say that the case I have cited tonight is the extreme. It may well be, but there is no room to cater for the extremes in this legislation. If this legislation is about encouraging innovation, heaven knows what is going to happen to the likes of this young person. I fear for young people such as the person I have talked about in this debate this evening, as well as for their parents. There is no sense of empathy, no sense of understanding of the dilemma that these people face in trying to come to grips with the mechanical realities of a piece of legislation that has been designed by this government to deliver some rah-rah lines out there which resonate with some sectors of the community but which fall on deaf ears with many who see that people like that young person I spoke about are just kept out of sight and out of mind.

The person that I spoke about this evening is a real person. The family are real people. They have real values in life. They are not trying to rip the system off. They are not trying to take the system down. From my discussions with the parents, I know they would love their child to be an eligible, real and great contributor to society. The facts of life are that that is not happening. They want their child to be a good citizen, but of course that child has suffered as a result of certain disabilities over the years—depression and drug addiction. Seeing that child put back into a situation where her or his life is put at risk by being exposed to the same difficulties that they are trying to avoid makes a lie of this legislation indeed. The sentiments come from the spin doctors. I would ask them to look realistically at the need to cater for those people who are least able to defend themselves in our society. Look at those people not through the prism of economic expediency but as individuals with a dignity that deserves to be relished, cherished and identified by our society.

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. While Labor oppose this bill, we are committed to welfare reform; but our commitment is to real welfare reform—welfare reform that addresses the reasons someone is not working and delivers practical solutions, welfare reform that provides opportunities for people to get the skills that an employer needs, welfare reform that encourages employers to give people with a disability the opportunity to demonstrate their ability, welfare reform that acknowledges that being a parent is an important job in itself and that work helps to make families more secure, and welfare reform that ensures people receive a fair reward for their effort.

Labor believe that those in the community capable of working should do so, but unlike the government we believe in a system that properly assists people make the transition from welfare assistance to active and ongoing employment. What concerns us about the legislation before us today is that this legislation fails to do this. What concerns us is the way the Howard government has approached welfare reform through its Welfare to Work changes. It is that to which I intend to speak tonight.

This bill amends the Disability Services Act 1986, the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999. Under this legislation, those who receive Newstart allowance or youth allowance will generally have to engage in activity in return for income support, and in some cases it will be necessary for them to attend a vocational rehabilitation service.

As it stands today, vocational rehabilitation services are provided by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service. The government wants the rehabilitation services to be contestable to enable private providers to tender for contracts. Labor does not oppose, in principle, competitive tendering in the vocational rehabilitation services market, provided that it can be consistently proven that services are not diminished. Unfortunately, the government seems to hold the principle that competition alone will ensure quality of service. This conviction is evident in this bill, as it fails to introduce adequate safeguards and regulations, as Labor senators reflected in their Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Committee inquiry report. The welfare sector demonstrated similar apprehensions in their submissions to the bill’s inquiry.

Herein is the problem: many private providers are not compliant with the provisions of the Disability Services Act, but if this legislation goes through it will mean that the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations will be in a position to allow services to be provided by some providers who do not hold a certificate of compliance. Concerns were raised by advocates of people with a disability that this could be problematic, particularly when dealing in the area of mental health. It opens the door for providers who do not hold a certificate of compliance and therefore may not have the necessary expertise to be dealing with clients with complex mental health issues. This is not acceptable.

Labor senators were in agreement with the Mental Health Council of Australia that this will not assist in any way to ensure an initial high standard of service, appropriate consideration for people with mental health conditions or confidence in the accessibility of the site for people with disabilities. This is just one example of where this legislation fails. It fails also to provide a guarantee that vocational rehabilitation services will be accessible to clients with a range of disabilities. It fails to guarantee that expertise through a vocational rehabilitation provider will be available to all clients.

The National Association of Community Based Children’s Services and the Community and Public Sector Union highlighted concerns that the lack of safeguards could lead to a reduction in services, poorer rehabilitation outcomes and fewer specialist services. The concerns raised are numerous and serious in their impact. There is a lack of adequate appeal mechanisms, through the removal of the statutory right, to appeal the content of individual rehabilitation programs through an internal review process or the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. That has been removed without an alternative safeguard being put in its place. This could have a significant impact on individual cases where an activity agreement comprises a compulsory rehabilitation program. A failure to meet the requirements could result in a significant non-payment period.

There is a failure to guarantee that vocational rehabilitation services will be accessible to clients with a range of disabilities. There is the possibility of so-termed difficult cases being passed over by rehabilitation providers in favour of less complex ones. There is the probability that rural and regional areas or small regional centres will not benefit from the increased choice of providers. The bill will only give choice to people in areas wealthy enough to sustain the profitability of a private provider. Further to this, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations has also not ruled out private providers replacing CRS Australia altogether in some areas. This, in effect, is merely a change of providers as opposed to a choice.

Labor remain concerned about the lack of assurance that people with a disability who are in genuine need of vocational rehabilitation services will get the help they need. But the concerns do not end there. We have concerns about the restriction of access to the pensioner education supplement. Over the next three years, through the Howard government’s Welfare to Work changes, approximately 81,000 people with disabilities will be put onto lower payments, mainly Newstart allowance. We are still waiting for an explanation on how reducing access to education and training and income support payments can help someone to get a job or increase rates of participation in the workforce.

Labor senators made it clear in the opposition senators’ report on the inquiry that any restriction to the PES will discourage people trying to move from welfare to work and that, instead of further restricting access to the PES, there should be a concerted effort to better support people to move from welfare to work through education. A person who is seeking to improve their skills base should be encouraged and provided with assistance in trying to achieve their goals. A person doing this in an attempt to move from welfare into the workforce should be encouraged and supported where possible. They should be rewarded for their effort and for taking positive steps towards workforce engagement. People on the edge of discarding welfare dependency should be given a level of assistance that ensures they make that final leap, not be cut off before they reach the other side, not have the last few hurdles raised to the point where they are impossible to jump over and not be disadvantaged to a point where they give up. This government’s welfare changes reduce the financial rewards from work and make it even more difficult for people to get the education or training they need to move into the workforce.

Debate interrupted.