Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Family Participation Measures) Bill 2011. This bill establishes two pilots: one that requires teenage parents to complete their education and one that requires eligible parents in jobless families on income support to get themselves job ready. These reinforce the principle of mutual obligation, about which the coalition has always been serious. We do not believe in the welfare entitlement mentality. One of the core Liberal principles is mutual obligation:

… whereby those in receipt of government benefits make some form of contribution to the community in return, where this is appropriate.

Those words are part of the Liberal Party federal platform.

Encouraging people to take charge of their own lives and obtain the skills to be able to support themselves and their families is a good thing for the people involved and for society in general. Welfare dependency clearly has adverse effects. When people receive passive welfare payments with no obligations attached they fall in to a cycle of dependency that can be very difficult to get out of. I am sure that many senators in this place would bear witness to this occurrence in their own electorates. Individuals who are in this cycle of dependence have little opportunity to play their part in Australia's prosperity.

According to government figures, there are approximately 11,000 teenage parents in receipt of parenting payment. Of those 11,000, about 90 per cent have not completed year 12. Completing year 12 is not in itself the ultimate educational goal—there are many other opportunities such as work or apprenticeships—but it is a process of learning. We want to encourage these young parents to continue their education, whether it be in a formal academic setting or perhaps in on-the-job training processes. There are also about 257,000 jobless families who receive income support and who have reported no income in the last year, and these are families with dependent children. In 2007, according to the latest available international comparisons, Australia had the fourth highest rate of children living in jobless families within the OECD.

One of the most dangerous outcomes of welfare dependency is the effect it can have on the next generation. Some kids grow up never knowing what it is like to have a parent with a steady job. There are children who are missing out on learning about the life skills and pride that come with earning for yourself and being able to support your family. That is why the coalition worked very hard to encourage people to move from welfare into work when we were in government.

In terms of the big economic picture, the coalition's record is one where, while in government, we got the budget back into the black, we got rid of billions of dollars of previous Labor government debt and we laid the framework for a secure economic future for the nation. This led to more jobs, lower taxes, more productive workplaces and better living standards, among many other things. In such a positive environment, more people were—and are—able to find work. The unemployment rate under the coalition fell from 8.2 per cent in 1996 to just 4.3 per cent in August 2007—the lowest unemployment level in 33 years.

More specifically, through programs like Work for the Dole, the coalition encouraged more Australians off welfare and into work. From 1997—when Work for the Dole commenced—to 2007, over 555,480 people took part in 32,826 Work for the Dole activities. This helped them to improve their work ethic. It is something that many of us can bear testament to. At the Work for the Dole programs that we attended during that time, the individuals who were involved in these programs often sought us out, came up and said how meaningful and valuable it had been in helping them get their lives back on track. It gave these individuals valuable work experience and helped to improve their self-esteem and sense of pride in making a contribution to the community.

I say these things to demonstrate to the Senate that the coalition does indeed have a proven track record of supporting mutual obligation. This is in stark contrast to many of the words that are used by the Labor government. Time and time again, we have seen that this government makes tokenistic attempts at meaningful action. We have seen repeated knee-jerk reactions to problems that are often of its own making. In many instances, as the saying goes, this government is all about spin and not about substance. There is a growing concern amongst others and by me that we see more tokenism again in this bill. I make the point that this bill establishes a pilot program—not a proper program. It begs the question: why doesn't the government commit to a proper program? One could draw the conclusion that it is concerned that it will once again make a mess of the program—like it has done with so many others—and by calling it a pilot it can say, 'We were just experimenting with this.'

The coalition has consistently pushed for better mutual obligation requirements. Whilst the government has embraced a small part of that with this bill, it is going only part of the way that it should. It raises a number of questions. The first one relates to the monitoring of the teenage parent pilot program. Whilst the coalition welcome the intent behind this bill—it aims to encourage engagement—we still clearly have some concerns. With the teenage parent pilot, we ask: how will the government monitor whether the parents have been complying with their participation plans and how will the government enforce the obligations of the parents? It is all very well to establish a pilot with good intentions, but we need to be able to monitor it effectively to ensure that it is working properly and for its intended purpose.

The coalition also supports attempts to have parents re-engage with the workforce early. However, the coalition is concerned that with the jobless family trial, as demonstrated in this bill, once again, there is no requirement to comply with the plan signed by the participants. So the coalition will be proposing some amendments to ensure that the parents do comply with their plan. Let me spell this out quite clearly: signing onto a plan is enough for the parents in this jobless family trial, but they do not actually have to comply with the plan that they have put forward. This does not pass the commonsense test. There should be a compliance regime that requires participants in each trial to comply and follow through with what they have promised to do in their plan. In addition, it appears that this bill completely removes the power from the secretary to intervene in extenuating circumstances. The coalition would like the secretary to be able to intervene in extenuating circumstances, and so I flag that we will be moving amendments to reflect that.

In conclusion, we know very well that this is a government that is big on talk and very short on delivery. We know that, unfortunately, this government has breached faith with the Australian people on many occasions, either by failing to keep its promises or, indeed, breaking its promises. While the coalition support the principle behind this bill, we believe it can be improved. We believe that, to encourage parents to improve their lives and those of their families, we need to make some amendments, and we will be doing that to seek to make this bill more effective in achieving its stated aims.

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

It will come as no surprise to the chamber or to Australia that the Greens oppose the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Family Participation Measures) Bill 2011. This is a continuation of the punitive approach that started with the Welfare to Work regime of the Howard government era that Senator Bernardi was just championing. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to show that the punitive approach works. Again, the government is choosing to suspend payments and take a punitive approach, in this instance, to jobless families. We particularly have concerns about the issues around teenage mothers. Instead of supporting these most vulnerable people in our community, the government is again seeking to take a punitive approach. We believe it is unnecessary and ineffective and that it stigmatises young parents who face a number of significant challenges. While we do agree that teenage parents need a lot of assistance and we are aware they have poor educational achievements, threatening them with a punitive approach, to our mind, does not work. We believe it could have grave ramifications for young parents and their children.

We should be aiming to encourage young people and jobless families to overcome the barriers that prevent their participation in employment and education. The barriers that prevent people from participating in employment and education are very significant. The government's own Social Inclusion Board has produced a number of papers that address this very issue. The government is addressing some of the key areas, but it is giving with one hand and taking with the other: 'Do this or else.' As I said, we do support the aim of encouraging young and long-term unemployed parents into education and work. Unfortunately, it is the compliance mechanisms that we have significant problems with.

We are deeply concerned that these measures will further marginalise young and long-term unemployed parents. As was articulated in the second reading speech, this is part of a process of 10 trials around the country. There are a series of measures, some of which include the further rollout of income management, which is being trialled in five sites. Other measures will be undertaken in other sites. The income management measures will be applied in Logan and Rockhampton in Queensland, Playford, Bankstown, Wyong, Shellharbour, Greater Shepparton, Hume, Burnie in Tasmania and Kwinana in my home state of Western Australia.

Despite all the rhetoric from this government and the previous government about Welfare to Work and the punitive approach, the government has provided little evidence that this punitive approach actually works. Yes, there is concern about barriers to education and work, but the government offers no research explanation as to why this particular approach will work. There are reasons why people miss appointments; they can be many and varied. People must overcome very significant barriers to completing their education and barriers to accessing workplaces, as has been articulated in the government's own documents.

This bill continues the pattern of punitive measures that the government insists on pursuing without any introspection. We see the same with the legislation that the government is going to be introducing to continue to roll out the Northern Territory emergency response. Don't let a little bit of evidence get in the way of rolling out a really good punitive scheme! We have consistently opposed the Welfare to Work measures. We do not believe this is the appropriate approach. As I said, the research indicates that in fact it is not the appropriate approach. We need to look at the barriers to education. Yes, we want to encourage young parents into the workforce and we need to address these barriers and not simply dock their income support when they fail to comply. If you are trying to work with people and encourage them to overcome barriers, simply taking a punitive approach and threatening them does not generate the trust that is needed to work in partnership with them.

Across this and many other budget measures, some of which are still to come and some of which we have already debated in this place, the government plans to make life harder for people on pensions and allowances. We believe measures such as the changes to the eligibility criteria for the disability support pension which we have debated in the place, as well as the failure to index thresholds and the failure to index supplements, all have cumulative effects on families. I have consistently asked in this chamber and also in estimates whether the government has done any work to assess the cumulative impacts of these measures on families and sole parents. To date this has not been adequately addressed. The approach the government is taking is simply continuing and extending measures that the previous government started. We continue to see the erosion of allowances for those on income support. It becomes worth less and less. The inequity between allowances and pensions gets worse. Those on Newstart are living on $132 less than those on the age pension, for example. This measure will make this issue even worse for those most vulnerable in our community, teenage parents.

A lot of these measures to get tough on people on income support—income management, for example—seem to us to have been imported from the US, where they denigrate and demonise people on income support. We now seem to be taking the same approach in Australia. Transplanting these measures from one country to another does not necessarily work, particularly as we have very different issues in Australia. As was pointed out in the second reading speech for this legislation, there are around 11,000 teenage mothers in this country—about 2.5 per cent of those who receive the parenting payment. This is a small percentage. While the Greens think teenage pregnancy is good for neither the parents nor the children—we do not advocate it—we believe that what we need to be doing is working out how we can help mothers in this situation. As has been articulated, most of these parents do not have a year 12 education, and of course we all know about the link between education and better job prospects but also life outcomes for both the parents and the children. But what impact does threatening to take away their income support and carrying it out have on the mother and the child?

We are particularly concerned about the impact of this heavy-handed approach on young women—some of the most vulnerable people in our community—who are dealing with very significant issues in their lives, not to mention the fact that they are mothers at such a young age. As well as that, they will have to deal with a punitive approach by Centrelink, the very organisation that they are now supposed to go to to access case management and to access support to participate in education—and the organisation that will threaten them if they do not turn up. Again, this is not the way to help young parents and teenagers to re-access education and re-engage with the system.

While it is true that once young parents comply they will get back pay, how are they going to afford their day-to-day living expenses? How will they survive? How will they feed their children and pay their utility bills? This policy assumes that parents have support networks, secure tenancy and enough money for basics. Of course they do not have those things. There is a high potential for them to not have support networks—they may be alienated from their parents. They certainly will not be in a position to have a secure tenancy and it is unlikely that they will have enough money for basics. Realistically, on top of all that, education is going to be at the very bottom of the list. As Welfare Rights Network and ACOSS write:

An initiative designed to support young parents should not involve any risk of increasing the levels of poverty or children being left without access to food, essential health care and shelter.

That is exactly what will happen if you take this to the final point of the legislation: children will not be guaranteed access to food, essential health care or shelter.

What should an initiative look like that actually supports young and long-term unemployed parents? As we have already articulated, this group have the least education and are disenfranchised. They need encouragement, support and incentives to assist them to re-engage with the system and to assist them to access education and meaningful employment that suits their needs and improves their standard of living. We must offer as much support as possible—support in getting an education, learning life skills and helping them find employment that they can mix with their child-rearing responsibilities.

Yes, coordinated case management is essential and individualised, tailored engagement participation plans can make a real difference, but it must be done in a way that cultivates a young person's confidence and skills. If you take the punitive approach, that will create a very different relationship for that young person with the system that is supposedly trying to help them. We know that case management has proven effective in helping to improve social outcomes. We need to invest further in this rather than spending money on enforcing compliance processes. We need to help young families address obstacles and barriers to their participation, such as lack of child care and poor access to public transport. While there is some support offered for child care, we believe it is not enough. We also know that in most of the trial locations where this process is being rolled out public transport is poor.

We believe the support incentives are not enough. We do not believe that this is the appropriate way to tackle this issue. We do not believe we need this legislation. We believe we need to be addressing these problems by putting more resources into engaging with families and empowering them to take control of their own lives rather than pursuing a punitive approach.

At this stage, should this legislation go through, it is unclear whether there is sufficient protection for young parents and consideration of their special needs. For example, when a teen appeals the suspension of their payment, will they receive an automatic payment pending review? They should. Will Centrelink staff receive specialised training in engaging with young parents? Will Centrelink address the specific issues that so strongly alienate young parents from the system and address the barriers to their participation in the system? Will they be able to understand the requests for special consideration or appeals, even if a young person does not use the correct terminology? In these instances, you are dealing with a group of people who have the least experience in dealing with the social security system.

We are also concerned about the risk of domestic violence and the impact that this can have. We already know that there is a very poor application rate for exemptions due to domestic violence. I think it is around three per cent. We are concerned that in the broader community there is a lack of engagement with and understanding of how to apply for an exemption due to domestic violence. For this particular group of young people, knowledge of that particular exemption is guaranteed to be even poorer.

What will happen to participants if they move outside the trial sites? Will they continue to be subject to the requirements of the trial where there is no guarantee they will be able to access the various supports that this program purports to put in place? What will happen to those people? One of the trial sites for the income management process is Kwinana in Western Australia. We know that in that area the government could not get enough participants and had to expand it virtually across the whole of metropolitan Perth. Will we see teen mums moving away from the trial sites and further away from any family support that they may have? If the case management proves to be adequate and we see them moving away from that, will they still be subject to this? I am looking forward to these questions being addressed by the minister in the summing up.

Matt Thistlethwaite (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The purpose of this Social Security Legislation Amendment (Family Participation Measures) Bill 2011 is to allow for the conduct of participation pilots for teenage parents. The amendment delivers on a commitment made by the government in the last budget. During the budget, the government announced the introduction of these participation pilots for teenage parents. We did not simply announce this participation pilot; we have also backed it up with encouragement, support and incentives for greater education for teenage parents. The form of that support came in the budget through expenditure of $80 million over four years to provide additional training places for single and teenage parents in receipt of income support. I do not believe it is fair at all to characterise these reforms in isolation as punitive measures.

The bill will implement a commitment made by the government in the last budget. It will implement what is known as 'the teenage parents' trial from 1 January 2012 and what is known as 'the jobless families' trial from 1 July 2012. These trials, which will occur at 10 disadvantaged locations throughout the country, were announced in the budget as part of the Building Australia's Future Workforce package. The trials will provide for new services, opportunities and responsibilities to boost the educational attainment, job readiness, child wellbeing and functioning of families with young children in some of the most disadvantaged locations throughout the country.

Specifically, the basic elements of the teenage parents' participation pilots are that parents on income support will be required to attend six-monthly interviews with Centrelink once their child turns six months of age. Once the child is 12 months old, the purpose of the interview with Centrelink will be to develop a participation plan aimed at improving the educational outcomes of the parent by focusing on their most basic needs. No. 1 amongst those needs is an adequate education. The plan will focus on school completion, on foundation skills or certificate level qualifications as well as the health, safety and education of the child. Support for the participation plan will continue until the parent achieves year 12 completion or the child turns six years of age.

The bill recognises that there is no greater benefit that we can give our kids in modern day society than an education. A basic year 12 education is a passport to employment and participation within society. We need to ensure that we do all we can to encourage and provide an incentive for teenage parents to ensure that they complete that basic passport to participation and employment in our society. Under the trial, teenage parents will need to work towards obtaining their year 12 qualification or its equivalent whilst continuing to engage in a range of activities focusing on the health and wellbeing of their child. Parents in the jobless families trial will need to develop a plan outlining how they will move towards being job ready once their youngest child starts school and how they will prepare their child to be ready to go to school.

The teenage parents trial is funded at $47.3 million over four years; the jobless families trial is funded at $71.1 million over four years. Currently, only parenting payment recipients with children aged six or seven years of age have participation requirements and can be required to comply with the terms of an employment pathway plan. A failure to meet some of those requirements can—not necessarily will—result in sanctions being imposed under the job seeker compliance framework. But, as I stressed earlier, it is important to note that these reforms are coupled with additional spending in this area to provide the necessary encouragement, support and incentive for those who may be subject to this trial to gain basic qualifications and a pathway to employment.

The amendments in the bill broaden the participation requirements and compliance sanctions for parenting payment recipients with children under six who are part of the 'teenage parent of jobless families' trials operating in those 10 disadvantaged locations throughout Australia. The bill is designed to create new opportunities for the 4,000 single parents who reside in those 10 trial locations. In my state those locations are Bankstown, Wyong and Shellharbour—areas where there are lower socioeconomic indicators and lower levels of educational attainment amongst certain age groups and areas where there are difficulties in some locations related to entrenched poverty and the cycle of poverty.

These reforms are aimed well and truly at trialling in these areas new ways to ensure that members of our community who otherwise may have been susceptible to being driven into that ongoing cycle of poverty—the poverty trap, intergenerational poverty—are provided with a circuit-breaker. That circuit-breaker comes in the form of support from Centrelink and government through those additional funds focusing on teenage mothers and ensuring that they continue to pursue basic educational outcomes.

For teenagers who do become parents, this bill will provide guidance and support to enable them to learn life skills, to get and finish a decent education and to give their child the best start in life. Being a parent is tough for anyone, and no-one disputes that. There are additional burdens and difficulties that come with being a teenage parent and that is why this government is committed to providing the support and guidance that these young parents need to develop their skills and work readiness, helping them to provide a better future for themselves and their children.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all senators who have made a contribution to the debate. This legislation delivers on the budget commitment for the teenage parents and jobless families measures under the government's Building Australia's Future Workforce package. These measures provide new services, opportunities and responsibilities to boost the educational attainment, job readiness, child wellbeing and functioning of families with young children in some of the most disadvantaged locations in the country.

We have a growing economy and a strong labour market but not all Australians are benefiting equally from this. Joblessness among families continues to be a significant, social and economic problem in Australia. It is associated with higher rates of poverty, poor health status and low educational attainment for parents and their children. There is a strong intergenerational tendency for joblessness in families. By taking steps to build family functioning and skills, this government aims to break the cycle of welfare reliance and give disadvantaged parents and their children a brighter future.

Through the teenage parents and jobless families measures, the government is providing greater opportunities for parents to build on the own skills and capabilities, providing a pathway to better life outcomes for themselves and their children. The government recognises the important role that parents play in caring for their young children. These measures are being introduced to enhance this role, not to reduce it. There are often many services available in local communities that can provide the support and assistance parents need to plan and move forward in a positive way. These measures encourage parents to make the most of the services they are entitled to in their local communities. By introducing requirements for teenage parents receiving parenting payment in 10 trial locations, the government is sending a clear message that having a child does not mean the end of your education. Teenage parents in the trial will be required to engage in activities to help them attain year 12 or an equivalent qualification. They will also be required to do activities with their child or children that will maximise their health and education outcomes. Children need good early childhood development opportunities to help them become school ready both socially and academically.

Parents in the jobless families trial will be required to attend interviews with Centrelink where they will develop a plan focusing on job preparation and future employment. They too will be asked to do activities in their local communities designed to get good early health and education outcomes for their children. These measures are about building on and enhancing family functioning, skills acquisition, community engagement and making sure that families are well equipped for the future. All Australians on income support should have the opportunity to access the full range of services available to improve the lives of their families, but with this opportunity comes responsibility. This bill strikes the right balance in ensuring that those opportunities are made available to parents who need them while clearly stating that parents need to meet their responsibilities to ensure that early health, education and well-being outcomes are achieved for their families.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.