Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This afternoon I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. From the outset, I would like to say that the legislation that we have before us this afternoon is only a small part of this program, providing the legislative change to give effect to the payment of an allowance for program participants, while the detail lies in the program guidelines and tender documents. I will keep my remarks to the broad breadth of the program this afternoon, not just the payment matters before us.

Labor does not oppose this bill, but in the very broad context we hold very significant concerns about the policy effectiveness of what the government is putting forward. We know, for example, that programs of this type have a long pedigree under governments on both sides of this chamber. The budget has given a significant amount of funding to establish the Green Army, but Labor thinks that this has been at the expense of more effective environment and conservation programs as well as the broader skills and training programs that have been cut elsewhere in the budget. This is on top of the $2.55 billion that the government is committing to its Emissions Reduction Fund, which in Labor's view is just a slush fund to pay polluters. Indeed, experts in our nation widely agree that this slush fund will deliver no meaningful emissions reductions programs for our nation.

Labor strongly rejects Direct Action. We reject it as an ineffective, expense policy that will have, in our view, a very negligible impact on emissions. The program before us is a component of the coalition's so-called Direct Action Plan. The government has pitched the Green Army as not just a youth unemployment program but a major environmental and conservation program. Let's take a look at what the government is saying here. Contrary to this assertion, Labor is concerned that the budget cuts almost $500 million from Landcare. Any of the conservation benefits from the Green Army will be cancelled out by the valuable work of Landcare volunteers that will no longer proceed because of these significant cuts. This is funding that could have and should have been going to experienced community volunteers. Many of those volunteers are in rural, remote and regional Australia. Instead, the money is going to go to projects done by inexperienced young people and, in Labor's view, this will deliver inferior conservation results. That is of significant concern. Senators in this place have all seen how effective those Landcare volunteer programs are for environmental outcomes on the ground.

Further to this, Labor is also very concerned and sceptical of the Green Army's ability to deliver any meaningful training or employment outcomes, particularly in the context of a budget that cut a wide range of skills and training programs that had been previously established by Labor to link young people with training and employment opportunities. When you add that all up with this budget as a whole and you look at attacks on access to Newstart et cetera, it is part of an incredibly regressive package for our nation's young people. The government, in putting this program forward, has provided no evidence to this place that participants exiting the Green Army Program will have further training and employment opportunities made available to them or any capacity to extend the skills that they may have picked up through the Green Army program.

So the government has tried to give Labor assurances that the program's guidelines and contractual arrangements will address these concerns about training opportunities and, indeed, significant occupational health and safety issues. You have said we can monitor the program and the rollout closely to make sure the government is fulfilling its commitment that participants in this program have an opportunity to obtain formal qualifications. This is something we want to hold you to account on, and we will watch and wait and see. We have a number of concerns about the detail of the program that is founded on the extremely poor environmental record of this government.

You simply have no credibility when it comes to the environment. In my view, it is a record that makes one ask why the idea of an environment minister does not go the same way as you have sent the science minister in this government. You simply have no commitment to it, and it therefore might as well not exist. This record is astounding. It ranges from the fact that you have moved backwards on climate change to risking Australia's global reputation for protecting its World Heritage icons, as is currently taking place in Tasmania. Soon after coming to office the Abbott government was rushing through environmental approvals. The government disallowed the endangered community listing of the Murray River from the Darling to the sea. That was an incredible thing to do, in my view. You went above all reason and advice and sneakily—very sneakily—had the world's largest ever marine reserve system reproclaimed to undo the management plans that put into effect the world's largest marine parks. I am just appalled at the government's actions in that regard. It was an incredibly sneaky and retrograde step. It is one I am incredibly angry about

The government has also begun the process of handing over environmental approvals to the states, giving Campbell Newman control of the Great Barrier Reef and Colin Barnett control of Ningaloo Reef. This government has also all but abandoned efforts to have Queensland's Cape York added to the World Heritage list and has approved every request for development in the Great Barrier Reef catchment that has landed on the minister's desk. That is despite UNESCO threatening to list the Great Barrier Reef as in danger.

Sadly, it does not stop there. In my own home state of WA we have had sharks on the hit list, with the minister approving an exemption for the WA government to allow drum lining off the coast. This is despite the complete lack of evidence that it will have any effect. I know it has had no effect so far. It has caught none of the great whites which are the species that is implicated in the attacks.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because they're not around from January to April.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course they are not around from January to April. So why have the drum lines out then at all? Your very allegation makes a mockery and establishes why it is such a ridiculous policy.

Senator Back interjecting—

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Pratt, resume your seat. Interjections are disorderly. I remind senators of that. Senator Pratt.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. As I said, there is a complete lack of evidence that this policy has any effect. It was a clause designed to be used for national security issues; that is what the government used to implement this policy. This is despite the fact that more people in our nation die from bee stings than from shark attacks. If you are going to call a national emergency, why not call a national emergency on bees as well as sharks? It is just a ridiculous policy.

We have seen our nation go backwards on any number of environmental fronts and climate change. We here in Australia, who were once seen as progressive and forward thinking, are now the laughingstock on the world stage, winning an unprecedented five Fossil Awards at the climate change talks in Warsaw late last year. Most recently, the government has approached the World Heritage Committee to de-list some 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. This is all while the new Liberal Premier of Tasmania has promised to tear up the Tasmanian forests agreement. This is a devastating outcome for the Tasmanian economy as well as the environment, and as a Western Australian I also think it sets a dangerous precedent for us. In my view it is a shameful record by any reckoning you make of it.

This is the very same government to which we will be entrusting our young people for this green army program. The government has been entrusted with one of the greatest honours in public life: to protect and promote Australia's wonderful natural assets. Instead, this government appears to be absolutely intent on destroying them. And our Prime Minister is not embarrassed for the whole world to know what he is doing. It is an appalling record.

Against that background of really poor environmental management—in fact, environmental destruction—Labor's concerns furthermore revolve around five other main themes. They are: work health and safety protections, workplace rights, the potential displacement of existing workers, training provisions and the transition of young people from the Green Army into meaningful training and employment.

Firstly, Labor is concerned that this bill does not provide adequate protections for participants in the Green Army scheme in the areas of occupational health and safety, workers compensation and rehabilitation. If the government was truly concerned about these things, as they say they are, they would ensure the participants are deemed to be proper employees and, as such, are covered by a range of Commonwealth laws that include the Fair Work Act, the Work Health and Safety Act and the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. The government makes the point that people are to be paid a comparable training wage. If that is the case, why aren't these young people in this program to be treated as workers equivalent to those in other training programs?

The environment department has made it clear that organisations delivering the program will be required to have relevant insurance, so I guess that is a start, but it is by no means enough. We have been informed that the government will take out insurance to ensure that any participant who is injured in the workplace will receive the care and support they need. What we do not know is how difficult it will be for participants to make a claim, as this is likely to vary from state to state. So Australians have the right to be suspicious of this government's motives because the government has made it clear that health and safety are not a priority when it comes to this program. The government is seeking to deceive the Australian public into believing that this is an environmental program. Why does the government need to do that? Because it does not have a coherent environmental policy.

Make no mistake, this is an employment program and, as such, participants should be treated as employees. We acknowledge that Green Army participants will be paid at the equivalent of the training wage which, while not overly generous, will be more than the income support payments many of them would otherwise receive. These payments will be similar to the training wages received by thousands of other young Australians who are in vocational education or training. But, unlike trainees or apprentices, those in the Green Army are under the supervision of the Commonwealth. Denying them the status of 'Commonwealth employee' leaves them in a no-man's land in terms of the employer-employee relationship, which is where a range of workplace rights, including the ones I have mentioned, should have come into play.

Labor also has significant concerns about the displacement of existing workers. The government must assure all the hardworking Australians in local government and other organisations that employers will not be able to displace them and rely upon Green Army participants to do their work. There is no justification for a program like the Green Army that can provide employment pathways if the participants then go on to displace existing workers. We have had some assurance through program documents that organisations cannot use the Green Army to undertake work they are legislated to do. Nevertheless, in Labor's view, that uncertainty remains. The potential displacement needs to be fully addressed by the government in its design of the program.

I will turn to some other points in the time I have left to speak. Unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment, causes great hardship to people, their families and communities. Entrenched unemployment also undermines the economic strength of Australia. Access to recognised training delivered by a registered training organisation under the AQF system is noted in program documentation for the Green Army as an optional component of the program—that is, to be negotiated with each participant. This gives me and Labor no confidence that participants will actually get access to training.

The government is very short on detail about the training components in the Green Army program: namely, which vocational skills are to be provided to participants and are these areas that have been identified by the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency as areas of emerging skills need? It does not appear that that is the case. But, if that is the case, why select the Green Army as a place to put all of these young people? Why not give them more relevant skills that will help them in their future? The training needs to aim at providing our young people with real and marketable skills that are in demand by employers. There is no work experience better than paid work experience in a real workplace, with serious support mechanisms to ensure all young people can reach their potential.

Labor believes that environmental based work and training programs can be an effective pathway to work for many job seekers as well as providing environmental benefits. These programs have the potential, if they are well designed and implemented, to achieve both those goals. But we cannot just address youth unemployment; we know there are massive future costs not just in terms of welfare and social supports but also in terms of each individual's lost opportunity. Real employment is one of the cornerstones of sustainable communities and economic development. Access to quality employment promotes social inclusion and improves our living standards. Our jobs in life are not everything, of course, but they help give us our identity, security and opportunity in life.

In conclusion, Labor does not oppose this bill before the Senate and does not oppose the idea of a Green Army program in principle. But we are incredibly concerned about the ability of the program to deliver workplace rights and protections, meaningful and recognised training and employment outcomes for participants. We will be keenly watching the rollout of this program very much in the hope that these issues are addressed throughout the tender and delivery process.

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

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. This bill purports to be a solution to climate change and to provide work for unemployed youth. On both counts the coalition's Green Army bill is ill-conceived and lacks vision. The bill does not provide the foundations to seriously combat global warming or youth unemployment. It is very unlikely to deliver genuine, lasting environmental outcomes, and it fails to support young people in finding meaningful work. Where is the vision in a program designed to temporarily deflect from the serious issue of abating climate change and slowing the effects of climate change? The Green Army bill appears to be little more than a clean-up program devised to keep youth off unemployment benefits for a brief period of time, with no thought to what happens to them afterwards. It is very likely to entrench young people in unemployment and poverty while diverting energy and resources away from more effective environmental programs. The bill devalues the work of those who have in fact been trained for and pursued careers in environmental protection and, due to the voluntary nature of the individual training component, offers no genuine pathways into ongoing employment for the participants of the program. For those who participate, there is no guarantee that this will be any more effective or less degrading than the previous incarnations of this program, such as Green Corps or Work for the Dole.

This program is also seriously compromised by the coalition government's cutting of funds to natural resource management and Landcare. The most the Green Army bill can hope to achieve is a temporary improvement while failing to effectively abate climate change or create a career for its participants. For all these reasons, the Greens do not support this bill. I am particularly disturbed by the government's approach to land management and climate abatement programs. The Green Army Program funding allocation is not all new money, and it should not be counted as new money when in part it replaces funds that were previously available to natural resource management groups and Landcare groups to undertake high-quality conservation work. In Senate estimates the Department of Agriculture confirmed that there was no money left in the Landcare bucket for new Landcare grant programs between now and 2018. The net effect of this program will be to transfer funding from skilled natural resource management workers and volunteers with a long-term focus to unskilled work-for-the-dole style volunteers and short-term projects. This is a devastating blow for local Landcare groups around the country, and it is an insult to spend $525 million on the Green Army while destroying the Landcare program which has been delivering environmental outcomes for over three decades.

It is now becoming extremely clear that the carbon abatement scheme will be focused on tree planting—and not planting native trees that will last 100 years and are based on biodiversity principles but rather moving towards 25-year plantings in plantations. Maybe we will be going back to the old MIS days. By passing this bill, we are effectively just creating a labour force to plant trees in the landscape. We need to be doing better than that. We have a much more mature landscape management process in this country than that.

Apart from our broader concerns that this bill is just a smokescreen to cover up lack of action on climate change, we also have very specific concerns about the nature of this program and the way it will operate. While it may seem an improvement on its previous incarnations of Work for the Dole and Green Corps by introducing the option for flexible accredited training options, it still fails to guarantee appropriate training and support to the participants and applicants. Training is in fact an optional extra to be negotiated with each individual rather than a core feature of the program—which you would think it would have been, given all the government's rhetoric. This has the potential to be flexible and responsive to the individual needs of the program participant, if in fact it is done properly. However, as the National Union of Students noted in their submission:

We are concerned that young people looking for work will be in an unequal bargaining position when trying to negotiate training outcomes with providers.

It may be extremely difficult for young people who have been disengaged from learning and from the work force to be able to know in advance what their training needs might be and what will lead to a positive personal outcome when they first enter this program. This, coupled with the fact that there is no incentive within the program funding for program coordinators to introduce another level of complexity to their program by encouraging participants to develop a genuinely tailored training program for delivering specific outcomes, means it is unlikely that they will be motivated to negotiate these outcomes.

Nor are there periodic reviews of the individual participation agreements which could provide an opportunity for participants to seek additional training. These have not been built into the process. Rather than offering training as an optional extra, service providers and team supervisors should be contractually obligated to ensure that participants are fully informed of their training options and actively engaged, and they should be required to be provide training and to participate in training processes.

We are extremely concerned that participants in the Green Army Program will not have access to an appropriate number of hours or basic employment protections that other trainees are entitled to. Suspending access to income support payments is extremely problematic if the program does not at least meet the income provided through the social security payment. Because there is no guarantee of minimum hours, it is possible for individuals under the program to be worse-off than if they were on Youth Allowance. As the Australia Institute submission points out:

The program plans to pay people for up to 30 hours a week for up to 26 weeks but we do not know if the hours are to be regular nor how they are to be agreed between the ‘employer’ and participant. It would be a cruel outcome if participants were motivated to join but found they were earning less than they had been on Newstart because the hours were not there. Likewise someone who is sick or has other sudden family caring responsibilities may suffer a drop in income. It is not clear that there are leave arrangements that would be available to ordinary workers.

Debate interrupted.