Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying last night, before I had to cease my contribution, the restriction of waivers will disproportionately impact on some of the most vulnerable people in our society. These are the people we should reach out a hand to and support—people with mental illness and people experiencing homeless. They are the people who I am very concerned to hear appear to have been described by Joe Hockey as 'leaners'.

This government does not understand the challenges faced by the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in our community. They are completely out of touch with what goes on out there in the real world, or, even worse, they might understand it but they just do not care. They are quite happy for the most vulnerable unemployed Australians to be the collateral damage in a cruel and heartless scapegoating exercise. It is important for a strong mutual obligation system that we have both the carrot and the stick systems—a system of penalties for failing to comply, accompanied by help and incentives to engage with the employment support system. This is why the waivers are so important.

When there is a serious failure, the waivers allow the department to consider individual circumstances and whether applying the penalty would be appropriate. The department can consider whether the job seeker has the capacity to comply with the serious failure requirement and whether applying the penalty would cause them serious financial hardship. Also, the job seeker has an opportunity and an incentive to re-engage with the system and return to actively seeking work.

What the Abbott government wants to introduce is a system that is cruel and inflexible. There is no argument from this side of the chamber that people should be penalised in some way if they steadfastly refuse to engage in finding suitable employment, or if they do not bother to make any reasonable effort. But, having any restriction on the number of waivers that are applied to eight-week penalties is just plain cruel. This legislation says, 'You have blown it. No second chances. We do not care, even if you start to re-engage. We do not care of applying this penalty is going to cause you serious financial hardship.'

This government can see from the statistics I quoted last night that this legislation will have the greatest impact on the most vulnerable people. Those opposite may be surprised to hear this, but punishing job seekers and blaming them for their failure to find a job—one that often does not exist—and cutting their income support will not improve Australia's unemployment rate. Creating new jobs will improve Australia's unemployment rate. I can guarantee that the government's harsh approach will lead to a boom in one industry. It will create a lot more demand for the welfare agencies, for emergency relief services and for law enforcement, because what this government is proposing to do with the most vulnerable job seekers in our community will have them living in abject poverty.

We may as well go back to convicts, where we won't pay you anything and you can survive on fresh air and then when you do have to resort to some illegal way to survive then we'll lock you up. It is disgraceful. I cannot imagine anyone in this chamber from any side living for six months with no income. I would challenge those on the other side to think very seriously about how people are going to do that.

Labor's approach in government was to boost education and training opportunities. We made changes to Job Services Australia and introduced a system with greater flexibility to manage job seeker to jobs. We prioritised, providing more resources to the job seekers with the greatest need. Across the employment services portfolio during our time in government we helped over 1.6 million people to secure jobs. We did it without punishing job seekers simply because they could not get a job. We will oppose this bill. We will oppose it because it is bad policy. We will oppose it because it will do nothing to improve the prospects of job seekers in getting job. But, most important of all, we will oppose it because it is cruel, heartless and completely inflexible.

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The legislation before us today is a prime example of this government's distorted, heartless and unfair policy agenda. It is further proof that it is intent on punishing the most vulnerable people in our society, tearing up the Australian tradition of a fair go and creating a new underclass.

The bill before us today aim is to overturn Labor's changes that ensured job seekers who incur a penalty for not actively seeking work or training were encouraged to re-engage with the job market. Currently under the Social Security (Administration) Act, job seekers on a particular participation payment can potentially receive an eight-week, non-payment penalty for serious breaches of the rules. These breaches include refusal of suitable work or ongoing failure to comply with their obligations. In order to encourage re-engagement, Labor included the opportunity for job seekers to have the penalty waived if they took on a serious failure requirement like Work for the Dole, job search training or more intensive job searches. Similarly, the non-payment period could also be waived if it would result in severe financial hardship for a job seeker who cannot undertake one of these activities.

The bill before us today seeks to eliminate all avenues for non-payment periods to be waived. In doing this, it denies the most vulnerable people in the country a second chance to re-engage with the job market. It removes all incentives to get more people involved in job seeking. In fact, not only are job seekers not recognise for taking measures to re-engage; they are actually prohibited from doing this under the proposed legislation. This reveals the lie in the government's stated aim of getting people back into work. It is a mere mask for their true agenda of punishing job seekers. If this government actually wanted people to get into work, wouldn't it make sense to encourage any active measures that job seekers take towards this goal? Banning this type of proactivity in job seekers is an affront to both common sense and compassion. This bill, if passed, will guarantee that once people have got to this point, for whatever reason, no matter how legitimate, the likelihood that they will move into paid work will decrease significantly. Similarly, the proposed legislation removes the potential for Centrelink staff to consider exceptional circumstances or to make appropriate decisions to respond to individual situations.

Who will be affected by these harsh measures? The reality is that those who will be impacted are the most vulnerable of all. They might be the homeless or in the midst of a traumatic domestic situation or they could be suffering from serious health issues. They are very likely to be young people. As history tells us, more than three-quarters of people who will be affected by the bill will be under 30. In short, they are likely to be people who are most in need of government support, the least able to rebound after a setback. The government has spruiked that it will save $20 million through this bill. What they will not tell you is what the heavy social cost of such draconian legislation will be. Nor will you hear them admit what the flow-on costs could be to the budget.

When combined with the government's other harsh and unnecessary plan to force young unemployed people to forego the dole the six months year if they are not in work programs or training, Prime Minister Abbott and Senator Abetz have a recipe for massive destitution and ensuing desperation.

In fact, even after a young job seeker has served out the six-month waiting period, they still will not be guaranteed a full six months of income support, because the eight-week non-payment period could also be required. In this context it is not surprising to hear some in St Vincent de Paul chief John Falzon and warned that the government's proposed welfare changes will plunge job seekers into poverty and force them to choose between charity and crime.

We have received this play out in the United Kingdom, where experts claim that harsh welfare cuts from the Conservative government have resulted in a rise in crime rates of up to three per cent in three years. In fact, Derbyshire Labour Police and Crime Commissioner Alan Charles directly attributed the rising crime rates to the welfare cuts inflicted by the government.

The reality is that some job seekers may be able to turn to family or friends, but many thousands of unemployed people just do not have this luxury. For them, illegal means might be the only option left. But, of course, any increase in crime would undoubtedly weigh heavily on our judicial system. Similarly, our health and social services systems will pay the price if there is a spike in depression, suicide, homelessness and other social problems that often accompany financial desperation.

We should never forget that if the hit on the budget will be bad from this ill-considered policy, the toll on families and local communities will be immense. We can see when it comes to addressing unemployment, this government has forgone sensible, considered solutions in favour of persecution, cruelty and prejudice. They ignore the unemployment data and expert research about the reasons for unemployment in favour of founding policy based on spite and stereotypes. But we should not be surprised really. This is true to form for Mr Abbott and his twisted priorities. Despite the espoused goal of helping job seekers to gain the dignity of work, their words belie their cruel and heartless attitudes to unemployed people.

We have had Treasurer Joe Hockey falsely divide the world into lifters and leaners, with the implication that the latter are just too lazy to go out and get themselves a high-paying job. He then went on to use this divisive construction to play on people's greed in order to fan resentment in a desperate bid to gain public support for his draconian measures. I say to Mr Hockey: 'Unemployment is not a lifestyle choice. The vast majority of job seekers are honest Australians, struggling to find their way through difficult circumstances on an income that sometimes does not even cover the rent.'

While Mr Hockey has been busy maligning the jobless, Mr Abbott headed to Tasmania to glibly tell us that it is not the worst outcome in the world if people have to moved for work. Never mind the fact that young people would have to forego their families, their friends and support networks. Never mind the fact that they themselves might be an integral part of other people's support networks. Never mind the fact that it can cost thousands of dollars to move let alone to meet the daily financial burden of living in a high-cost capital city. Never mind the fact that there is no guarantee of finding work, even if they do move. And those on the other side wonder why people say they are out of touch with ordinary Australians.

I recently spoke in this place about the outrageous comments from the member for Braddon, Mr Whiteley, who showed both ignorance and spite in comments on this government's unemployment programs and harsh budget measures, where he said:

It is my very strong view that some of our young people just need an extra prod.

Some people will cry a little longer than others but it is for their own good in the long run.

This attitude is not only a vicious and cruel but it is absolutely unproductive and has no basis in current knowledge about what works to reduce unemployment. The same article quoted the advice from the Minister for Employment, Tasmanian Liberal Senator Abetz, who said that our young people should just go and pick fruit. Minister Abetz went on to say that people can be taught fruit picking 'in five minutes', deriding the knowledgeable observation from the Farmers Association chief of Tasmania, Jan Davis, that farm work, including highly seasonal fruit picking, is not unskilled and it is not grunt work. Senator Abetz continues to present a shallow and simplistic solution to Tasmania's unemployment challenge, ignoring the complex and multilayered issues contributing to the unemployment rate in Tasmania. It is not surprising that leading Tasmanian economist Saul Eslake denounced Senator Abetz's attitude when he said:

Statements like that reflect the degree to which people who make them are out of touch. It reflects a blinkered view and predetermined attitudes.

But if the words of those opposite are bad, their policies are even worse. Rather than listening to expert opinions and decades of research, this government appears to draw from a deep well of prejudice, ignorance and fear when devising their employment policy. The running theme is cruel and harsh measures that punish people for circumstances that in the large majority of cases are completely beyond their control. At the same time as they are demonising unemployed people and taking away their entitlements, they have the audacity to shut down excellent and proven skills training initiatives such as Youth Connections and sack the hardworking productive local employment coordinators everywhere but in Geelong.

They put all their eggs in the basket of Work for the Dole, a program that has already proven that it is the least successful way to get people back to work. In fact, the evidence suggests that far from creating employment outcomes, Work for the Dole could actually discourage people from finding further employment. University of Melbourne Professor of Economics Jeff Borland undertook an analysis of the outcome of the Howard government's Work for the Dole scheme. He found that those who took part in the scheme spent longer on income support payments after they had done the scheme than those who had not. Professor Borland said that the results were not surprising as they mirror the findings of similar research undertaken in the US and Europe.

Even worse, we now learn that not only is the Work for the Dole scheme ineffective, but that the government cannot even get it off the ground. In Tasmania the trial Work for the Dole scheme was announced by the government on 1 July with plans to place 2,000 Tasmanians in the first year. Despite the government's hype, only 40 job seekers were given placements in the first two months across the entire north-west, west coast and north project areas—a complete failure by any measure. Instead of providing job seekers with support, the modus operandi of this government seems to be bullying, threats and intimidation. Its actions reveal a deep vein of hostility towards jobless Australians with no consideration of the circumstances surrounding their situation.

Mr Hockey and Mr Abbott need to learn that you cannot bully and belittle someone into work. It just does not work that way. John Falzon from St Vincent de Paul perfectly captured the problem when he described this government's employment policy recently on Q&A when he said:

These measures will not help people into jobs but they will force people into poverty. You don't help someone into a job by making them poor, whether you're young, old, a person with a disability, a single mum, you're not going to be helped into a job by being put down. You don't build people up by putting them down.

Australia deserves a government that will fight for jobs and support workers and job seekers alike.

The twisted priorities of this government were again on display yesterday with the farcical scenes in this chamber on the mining tax, a mining tax that the CEO of the Tasmanian Minerals and Energy Council yesterday described as being 'pretty neutral for Tasmania'—pretty neutral because no mining operation in Tasmania actually pays the mining tax. This is because the tax only applied to coal and iron ore companies when their annual profits hit $75 million. How does this relate to this bill? For years Senator Abetz, his three amigos in the other place and the other Tasmanian Liberal senators have consistently said that the repeal of the mining tax will create jobs in Tasmania. Yet on the day of the repeal, the CEO of the Tasmanian Minerals and Energy Council clearly stated that this is unlikely. Senator Abetz has claimed for years that the repeal of the mining tax would create jobs in Tasmania when in fact all the repeal does is take a significant amount of money out of the payments and tax incentives out of the Tasmanian economy and gift all that to the owners of mining companies.

Everyone knows, even Senator Abetz, that the price of iron ore has plummeted while the Australian dollar has remained at high levels. These global economic changes have been the major negative influences on mining investment in this country.

Despite these global economic changes, this government and their friends in the Palmer United Party just want to make it harder for Tasmanians to make ends meet. This government is making it harder for Tasmanians to find a job. This government's employment programs have been an absolute failure and their response is not to go back to the drawing board but to punish Tasmanians who find themselves out of work with cruel proposals like those in this bill.

In closing, I simply ask those opposite: when will the government learn that it needs to focus on creating jobs and stop punishing the jobless?

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Labor's opposition to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Stronger Penalties for Serious Failures) Bill 2014. Labor opposes this bill and we do so because Labor supports a just and reasonable job seeker compliance system—a system which encourages job seekers and supports participation for those in receipt of participation payments.

Job seekers need to be encouraged into work. They need to be supported into work with appropriate training and, yes, there does need to be some kind of penalty regime but not a regime which has such harsh consequences as the ones being proposed in this bill before us.

We have seen that the Abbott government is a government which just cannot properly explain its policies. We have seen that over and over in the last 12 months. In this place, we need to look no further than the recent examples by Senator Abetz as he stumbled to try and make a link between women's reproduction and breast cancer, and family planning matters and breast cancer, until the Prime Minister had to intervene. After that, we saw Senator Brandis absolutely fail to explain to the Australian public the security issues that he wants to introduce around metadata. It is not just Labor saying this: you only need look to the Sunday papers, great friends of the Abbott government, who I think gave Senator Abetz and Senator Brandis a 'C' and a 'D' for their efforts. These are the people trying to impose harsh penalty regimes on those in our society who are the least able to defend themselves.

This is a government which is determined to make life tougher for most Australians through its harsh and unfair budget. This is a government which pays off mining companies at the expense of every single Australian worker—8.5 million Australian workers sold down the drain by the Abbott government in its desire to deliver to just a handful of mining companies. It did that by freezing 8.5 million Australian workers' superannuation entitlements, not for a year, not for a few years but for the next seven years. This is a government which is trying to pretend that somehow this stolen superannuation entitlement will magically appear in the pay packets of those 8.5 million workers.

Just yesterday, after it had stolen the superannuation entitlements of 8.5 million workers, the government publicly attacked the Community and Public Sector Union for its wage claim of four per cent a year. Make no mistake: this is a government that will attack the first union to make a claim for that stolen superannuation to go into the pay packets of workers. The government wants us to believe that somehow, magically, once it freezes superannuation, people's pay packets will suddenly increase. What a lie by the Abbott government.

After it has punished everyone else in our community, except those at the top end, it wants to punish further some of the most disadvantaged in our community by its harsh job seeker penalty regime. In respect of this social security bill, I am just wondering—and I am not alone in wondering; the Australian public is wondering and I am sure that 8.5 million Australian workers this morning are wondering—just who does this government represent? Let us have a look. The government does not represent the homeless because there is another program that has not only been frozen but has lost the capacity to actually invest in housing affordability for the homeless. That was done way before the budget.

What about ordinary working Australians trying to find affordable housing? I have read what Mr Abbott said on that. He somehow thinks that if the housing market is buoyant that means it will translate into affordable housing for ordinary Australians. I do not know where that logic comes from but that was a comment made about six months ago by Mr Abbott: that, yes, somehow the market will take care of those who cannot get into the housing market. Perhaps he has not seen what is happening in Western Australia, and he certainly has not been visiting Western Australia, but I can tell you that for young couples, for singles, for those who are currently not in the housing market, whether it is rental or purchase, there is no hope that those people will be able to afford a house as the buoyant market in Western Australia gets further and further out of their reach. What about pensioners? They have been punished too. Despite those promises before the election that there would be no cuts to the pension, we have now got pensioners being punished in this country.

Let us look at another group—working Australians, the 8.5 million of them punished yesterday over their super. They have been punished if they use child care, because the childcare benefit for those on the lowest incomes has had the wage eligibility aspect frozen too. Is there anything that this government has not frozen? So into the future we will see low-income families—and heaven help them if any of them lose their job—have their super attacked and now they will be paying more for child care.

But it does not stop there. What about the kind of promise that women's super will somehow be protected? The maths has been done on that and obviously the government did not bother to do the maths before it decided to cut the bonus payment to low-income women. Those women, through the combination of the effects on their super imposed by the Abbott government, will be about $10,000 worse off at retirement—$10,000 dollars. And somehow the Abbott government is trying to pretend that you will have more money in your wage packet each week. What? I have never heard such nonsense in all my life in trying to pretend that the money that has been stolen from super is somehow going to appear in people's pay packets.

But it does not stop there. What about anyone who needs to go to a doctor? Seemingly, the government is absolutely determined to try to get their GP tax through, and what we saw yesterday from the Palmer United Party is that they are willing to do anything to get their names in the headlines for a few days. So watch this space, Australians, as the Abbott government tries to impose a big tax every time you get sick and visit a doctor.

I heard Senator Cormann or one of the other government senators on the radio this morning, saying, 'No, no, we are not increasing the cost to go to a doctor. After you have been 10 times, you will revert to the Medicare payment and you will not be charged a fee.' But how do you find the money for the first 10 visits when everything else is being attacked?

Let us now get to the unemployed, the last group—

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, on a point of order. Last time I looked this was about social security legislation; it was not about GP costs. Senator Lines is ranging far from the topic under discussion, if I might say so.

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

I have heard your point of order and I do not rule in favour of it. Please continue, Senator Lines, aware of the topic.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government is so embarrassed and so on the nose over its harsh, cruel budget that it wants to try and stifle discussion and cut down comment. I am trying to put these harsh social security penalties into context, because they do not sit out there in isolation. The government would like us to believe that, somehow, those who have been unable to participate in employment have to be punished. Somehow, the whole of the Australian public, unless you are wealthy, unless you are a mining company or a big business, have to be punished. Job seekers are the last in a very long list of ordinary, everyday Australians—fighting to make ends meet, working hard, looking for jobs—to be attacked by this government.

Let us look at this last group, the job seekers, the most vulnerable in our community, that the government wants to impose a harsh regime on. There is no doubt that we should have a carrot-and-stick approach, and that is what Labor had. That is what Labor had. But, no, the Abbott government has to take it one step further, because its whole job seeker program is about punishment. It is about punishment. Somehow, jobs are going to magically appear through the government's trickle-down economic program. Well, let us see what happens in the future; let us see if these wonderful jobs materialise.

In the Kwinana strip in Western Australia, there is very high youth unemployment. These young people are some of the people that this government is seeking to attack—not help or support through appropriate training programs or by having a penalty regime that rewards people when they get back on track, that helps people to get back on track. No, this government has a single step: put one foot wrong and that's it; you will be without any money at all.

Let us have a look at what happens to these people who fall foul of the government's penalty regime. Taking money from people who are disadvantaged in the job market: how does that help? How do we get people into employment when they are no longer receiving a benefit? How do we get them into an appropriate training program? Because work for the dole is a joke. It does not work anywhere in the world. Let us have a look at that. Cleaning windows at the community centre: how does that skill people up for a job into the future? Taking just any job is not going to help either. If I live on the Kwinana strip in Western Australia, is the government really suggesting that I up sticks and take a fruit-picking job in Tasmania? How do I get there? Where is the money for that? I am already being penalised by these harsh penalty measures, so how on earth will that happen? I know: like every other failed program of the government's, it just happens magically! It happens by magic! It is somebody else's problem.

So what happens when a person is penalised and is without any income? What happens about the rent or the mortgage that they might have to pay? How do they get food into their cupboards? How can they even afford to comply with this regime if the local Centrelink office is a bus or train trip away? Does the government just expect them to be picked up by yet another government department—or the non-government sector, which is already overloaded?

I can tell you that, in the southern suburbs of Perth, community services are pretty thin on the ground. The Salvation Army operate out of Rockingham, which is close to Kwinana, but I am not sure how someone on an income of nil, someone getting no money at all because they are being penalised, would actually get to Rockingham. How do they get the bus fare? How do they manage to get from the place they are living to the Salvation Army to get the assistance they need? Or is that just going to fall to yet another department?

This regime being proposed by the Abbott government is completely out of order. To punish the most vulnerable in our society by denying them a benefit is not going to work, and there should be the sort of regime that Labor had in place where, once people complied, the benefit started to flow. But, no, this government is saying, 'No, you've done the wrong thing. You'll serve your time.' Where is the carrot in that to attack those who are most in need of our help and just say, 'That's it'?

Being harsh to people will not lead to them getting jobs when youth unemployment and other areas in our community have already got very high levels of unemployment. I just do not understand how that will work. These measures, don't forget, go along with the six-month waiting period so we are creating this whole new harsh regime which says to those seeking work, 'Guess what? If you're out of work, it's your own fault.' That is what we are saying—'It's your own fault you're out of work.' And not only that: 'If you don't take a job or comply and go and scrub the windows in the local community centre, imposing a regime on an NGO that is already struggling, then we 'll punish you further because we'll apply penalties and you'll miss out on your benefit.'

If that is not blaming the job seeker, then I don't know what is—I really don't. How do you put in place Work for the Dole in a place like Kwinana that has got such high youth unemployment? How does that happen? I will not hold my breath, because it is not going to happen. That is for sure.

The non-compliance measures the government is trying to tighten are Labor's initiatives from when we were in government. Our purpose was to allow job seekers the opportunity to re-engage in the participation process. So what has happened to that? How does the job seeker re-engage from a position where they have got absolutely no money? Talk about knocking a person down when they are already down—this just takes it one step further.

The provisions that we put in place were successful in helping job seekers re-engage with their job service providers and assisting with participation while they looked for work. Our provision encouraged job seekers to find suitable offers of employment—and there is a raft of academic research that says that, if you take a job seeker and force them to take a fruit-picking job or some other kind of job that they are not well suited to, it just does not last.

What we know about some of the jobs that Senator Abetz talks about is that they are casual jobs. So are we seriously asking a job seeker to move to wherever in the country to avoid a penalty and pick up any job at a great cost for six or four months, and then what?

This is a government that has no plan. It is not able to develop good policy that is fair and, yes, has some sort of penalty in it. Labor is not saying, 'Let's throw it all away,' but we had a regime in place that was working because we believed that job seekers need to be supported to be able to participate and get a decent job, a job they can hold into the future.

The Abbott government's ideology is well and truly showing in this proposal: we have to punish people, because that is what is needed here. This will fail and fail dismally and, not only that: this bill has the potential to do real harm to individuals. I bet the Abbott government hasn't taken a second to think about that. At the end of this harsh penalty regime are real people with lives and complicated situations who need to be supported. They need to be well supported so that they are in a fit state to be able to get a job, a job that will last them for quite a few years—not a seasonal job, not a casual job, not a Work for the Dole job but a decent job. And we are certainly not going to see jobs magically appear as a result of the Abbott government's market based, trickle-down, 'it's someone else's problem to find these jobs' approach. The jobs will not magically appear, and I would urge the government to re-look at what Labor had in place—to have a penalty regime but to have a regime whereby there can be some kind of reassessment, some kind of re-evaluation, so that people are not harmed by this harsh, cruel measure.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Stronger Penalties for Serious Failures) Bill 2014. Senator Lines's contribution was spot-on: this is a measure that is cruel and unfair and will not do what the government says it is intended to do. It is just another attempt by this ideologically driven government to further demonise and isolate job seekers. The measure in this bill is just one of a number of unjust budget measures, part of this government's all-out attack on job seekers. The other measures include the extension of Work for the Dole and the under-30s measure, which will cut all income for job seekers under 30 for a maximum of six months every year.

The bill we are considering here today seeks to make changes to the compliance provisions for participation payments. The changes in this bill would mean that a job seeker who incurs an eight-week penalty for not taking or commencing a job would be prevented from re-engaging and seeking employment and training to have their payment reinstated earlier. The bill also seeks to limit the number of times a job seeker can have a penalty for persistent noncompliance waived to one. These changes would prevent job seekers from re-engaging with the job seeker process to work off eight-week nonpayment penalties for serious failures. These changes all but roll back changes Labor made when we were in government.

Labor's changes were made to strike a balance in the compliance system—a balance to support participation in a flexible and equitable way, to strike a balance between the carrot and the stick—and it is appropriate that the compliance system has both of these elements, as the current system does. Labor's changes amended the former Howard government stick-only compliance system to ensure that job seekers who suffered a penalty for noncompliance were encouraged to re-engage—and I would have thought that is exactly what we would want—to seek employment and training. These changes were based on extensive consultations and evidence on the perverse impacts the compliance measures had on job seekers, particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged job seekers. Labor's changes preserved the eight-week nonpayment period for breaches of a job seeker's mutual obligations and introduced the ability to re-engage with participation requirements to have withheld income support reinstated. These changes address the fundamental flaws in the Howard government's compliance system—a system that had a harmful impact on vulnerable job seekers, a system that actually prevented people from re-engaging in employment services.

Under the current compliance provisions, job seekers receiving a participation payment—for example, Newstart, youth allowance or parenting payment—may incur an eight-week nonpayment penalty for serious failures of either their refusal of suitable work or persistent noncompliance with their participation obligations. Importantly, these nonpayment penalties may be waived if the job seeker begins to comply with a serious failure requirement, such as Work for the Dole, job search training or undertaking more-intensive job searches.

The evidence to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into this bill was clear. The witnesses at the inquiry hearing were emphatic in their opposition to the changes in this bill. This is reflected in the dissenting report of the Labor senators involved in the inquiry, which recommends that the Senate oppose the bill. This is a recommendation based on evidence, rather than the government's bill, which is clearly based on ideology. In fact, the minister's department were the only witnesses who spoke in support of the bill.

All the other witnesses, and I will name them here because these are organisations that work with vulnerable people and job seekers—the Brotherhood of St Laurence, BoysTown, the Australian Council of Social Services, St Vincent de Paul, Anglicare, National Welfare Rights Network and Jobs Australia—all provided compelling evidence to oppose the bill based on their experiences of working with job seekers and employment services. This should send a clear signal to the government. Unfortunately, it appears that the government is not listening.

The evidence to the committee inquiry made it clear that current system is effective. In evidence to the Committee, the Chief Executive Officer of Jobs Australia, Mr David Thompson, said:

... the measures contained in the bill seek to resolve a problem that does not really exist, that the levels of compliance in the existing system are very good, and the levels of noncompliance are very low.

This position was echoed by the Executive Officer of the National Welfare Rights Network, Ms Amelia Meers, who told the committee:

Fundamentally, the system that we have now is very effective in ensuring that people re-engage immediately and in stopping people from falling through the cracks ...

She went on:

The system as it is at the moment is actually working extremely well—certainly from our perspective and our on-the-ground casework.

In spite of evidence such as this, those opposite are seeking to push ahead—or perhaps more accurately take us backwards back towards the excessively punitive measures of the Howard government.

The bill before us will roll back many of the important changes that Labor made to the compliance system, removing the waiver that allows job seekers to re-enage and have the payment reinstated. I cannot stress how important these waiver provisions are. They are important because they encourage job seekers to re-engage in the process after noncompliance by allowing the non-payment period to be ended if they re-engage with their participation obligations.

In his evidence to the Senate Committee inquiry into this bill, Mr Thompson, CEO of Jobs Australia, said:

The existing measures whereby waivers enable and encourage and incentivise people to re-engage immediately are likely to be much more effective in terms of getting them engaged in the system and getting to work

But under this cruel and harsh bill, job seekers who incur an eight-week non-payment penalty for refusing suitable work will no longer be able to have that penalty waived at all. People looking for employment who fail to comply with participation obligations will only be allowed to have the penalty waived once using the same criteria during each period when they receive payment. This will discourage re-engagement. It will discourage re-engagement because the government is telling job seekers they will not be able to re-engage for eight weeks. They are telling job seekers to go away—out of sight and out of mind. Even if a job seeker wants to re-engage, they will be prohibited from doing so. They will get nothing for eight weeks. We are talking about people who are already vulnerable being penalised. These include people who have a mental illness, people at risk of homelessness, people who may have experienced a recent relationship break-up and others who are vulnerable.

The evidence provided to the Senate committee inquiry made it clear that the current compliance provisions for job seekers receiving participation payments are flexible and effective. Why would you change a system that is both flexible and effective? The government claims it intends to save $20 million over five years by introducing this measure. But I ask: at what cost to those who will be affected? It is unbelievable that this government would rather not pay someone for eight weeks, and for many on top of a mandatory non-payment period of six months, than having them engaged and looking for work.

And as the Labor senators' dissenting report on the Senate committee inquiry into this bill found, jobseekers with a Centrelink recorded 'vulnerability indicator'—meaning that they are disadvantaged in some way, including where they have mental illness or psychiatric problems, are homeless, have recently been discharged from prison, have had a recent traumatic relationship breakdown, or suffer from cognitive or neurological impairment—could be further disadvantaged by the changes in the bill. Data from the Department of Employment shows that of all the 27,400 serious failures recorded against job seekers from 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013, more than half—14,235—had a vulnerability indicator, a mental health indicator or were Indigenous, and a large proportion were under the age of 30. The proposed changes are likely to further disadvantage these people.

Labor's dissenting report also noted evidence from the submitters, which highlighted concerns that the proposed changes would actually exacerbate existing problems and create further barriers to employment. The Australian Council of Social Services stated:

The majority of recipients of unemployment payments have few savings, little access to credit, and many receive little or no support from family. A period of eight weeks without income support is very likely to cause hardship in these circumstances, including homelessness in some cases.

Evidence to the Senate committee inquiry also argued that the changes in the bill will disproportionately impact on Indigenous job seekers who already receive higher numbers of penalties. The CEO of the National Welfare Rights Network, Ms Meers, said:

For a range of reasons under the penalty system, Indigenous job seekers have higher numbers of penalties. It is not because they are not seeking work or do not want to comply but because there might be issues of remoteness or lack of understanding of the actual system—a whole range of issues—that result in that.

Ms Meers went on to say:

When you look at the rates of penalties and the rates of appeals in Indigenous communities, not only do they get more penalties; they generally do not exercise their rights. So removing the ability to work off a penalty, we think, will result in more Indigenous people just falling away from the system and disengaging entirely, ending up without income support.

It is also unbelievable that these harsh measures in the bill come at the same time that the government want young people aged under 30, who quit a job, to wait six months before they can get a payment. It is worrying that in the past more than 76 per cent of the failures to comply were by young people aged under 30. Professor Shelley Mallet from the Brotherhood of St Laurence gave evidence to the Senate committee inquiry on the interaction between the changes in this bill and the government's proposed under-30 measure. Professor Mallet said:

We feel greatly pained by that proposal—

the under-30s measure—

particularly if you add the eight-week waiver to it. I guess we start with the premise that these young people are our country's future, that they are going to make a significant investment in the economy as well as in the society as a whole and that we risk losing their contribution to the community, with both economic and social consequences as well as, of course, dire individual consequences for them. So we think that is of great concern.

These young people will be forced to live on nothing. As the CEO of the Brotherhood of Laurence, Tony Nicholson, said in an article in the Australian newspaper magazine on 16 August, the government's policy is fraught with danger. Mr Nicholson said:

It seems to assume that young people will have family support and that if they lose income they will have a family to fall back onto. However, if you look at the data there are some 45,000 people receiving the youth allowance who are not living at home and many of those can't move back home and don't have family support. So if you cut the income off to those people they become destitute.

'Destitute', Mr Acting Deputy President Back!

Now in this article, the federal member for Braddon, Mr Whiteley, disagreed with Mr Nicholson's comments about people becoming destitute as alarmist. In fact, Mr Whiteley, who represents an area with the highest youth unemployment in the country, said that 'some of our young people just need an extra prod'—an unbelievable statement, Mr Acting Deputy President. Mr Whiteley and this government do not provide any answers to helping people find jobs. Instead of creating jobs, this government seems determined to punish and demonise job seekers particularly young job seekers.

Labor is also concerned about the impact of and interactions between all the government changes to participation payments, such as those in this bill, and the proposed new funding contracts for employment service providers. The department is going to be handing over responsibility for the decision-making on whether or not a serious failure has occurred and whether there was a reasonable excuse for it from Centrelink to Job Services Australia provider staff. The minister's own Exposure draft for employment services purchasing arrangements 2015-2020 states on page 41:

The Employment Provider will also determine whether the Job Seeker had a reasonable excuse for non-attendance at their initial appointment in accordance with legislation and guidelines.

JSA providers have expressed concern in relation to these changes, including that it will change the dynamic of the relationship between the job seeker and the provider. In its evidence to the Senate committee inquiry, the National Welfare Rights Network stated:

… that means that the DHS powers would be delegate to numerous employment service providers across the nation to make these original decisions which will then have appeal rights from there. But we are concerned about pressure on the employment service providers, the change in the nature of the relationship between them and the job seeker and the almost certainly inconsistent application of the law across the land as a result of outsourcing that decision-making power from the Department of Human Services to employment service providers.

So, as you can see, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker Sterle, this bill is just part of a raft of changes the government is seeking to make to participation payments and employment services—changes that will penalise job seekers, punish and demonise them. Those opposite would have each of these measures viewed in isolation. This is why parliament is only getting to consider the relevant legislation in a piecemeal manner. But these changes should not be considered in isolation, as they are linked: they are part of this government's broader agenda, part of its big picture.

This broader agenda was made very clear in the Abbott government's first budget. Those opposite say they are committed to helping job seekers into work, but that is completely at odds with this and other measures in the budget. This measure will actually prevent job seekers from re-engaging, depriving them of support to find work. In evidence to the Senate committee, the Brotherhood of St Laurence said of this measure:

We believe that it will have harsh unintended consequences for job seekers, so we do not believe it will achieve the outcomes. We know that the evidence suggests that rapid re-engagement is absolutely crucial to achieving positive employment pathways. But what this will do is delay that re-engagement, and in such a moralising way that people could feel defeated by these sorts of measures, because it will have dire consequences for their housing stability and basic living standards.

A number of the submissions to the Senate committee inquiry on the bill argued that the changes go so far that they could be inconsistent with a number of Australia's human rights obligations. In evidence to the committee, the CEO of St Vincent de Paul, Dr John Falzon, said of the raft of government changes:

It is severe not only for the people who are being subjected to this … I would put it to you that what we are seeing is a cumulative desensitisation of mainstream Australia, led by the government, in disregarding the humanity and the basic fundamental human rights of a section of the population on the basis that they are unemployed.

Similarly, in its ninth report of the 44th Parliament, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights took issue with the government's assessment of the bill's compatibility with our own human rights obligations. The joint committee argued that the government's statement of compatibility did not either accurately reflect or sufficiently justify the limitation on human rights that the bill's proposed measures entail. The joint committee also formed the view that the bill could potentially have 'a disproportionate or unintended negative impact on particular groups', which may limit rights to equality and nondiscrimination.

This government has a clear agenda, an agenda that seeks to punish, isolate and demonise job seekers; to strip them of the support and assistance that they need; and to what ends? I ask you, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle: to what ends? Under this bill, people who incur a penalty will not have the chance to re-engage for eight weeks. They will have no support for eight weeks.

This is a bill that goes too far. It is unnecessary, and it will have a severe impact on the most vulnerable job seekers. It is consigning them to the scrap heap. It is saying, 'You're on your own.' It is denying them the chance to re-engage and the chance to take up education, training or a job.

This government is making life harder and harder for job seekers—laying all the blame on them for being unemployed and not taking responsibility for the lack of job opportunities in this country at the present time. The changes in this bill are unnecessarily harsh. They are unjust, and actually discourage participation. They do the exact opposite of what the government says is the intention of this bill. I ask the Senate to oppose this bill.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brown. You have taken all the good lines. It is very difficult to speak in a debate of this kind, where everyone is working on the same information. The core information that we have—apart from personal knowledge and the experience that we all share—is the information that came before us at the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee into this bill.

Interestingly, in opening our report, the Journals of the Senate set out the aim of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Stronger Penalties for Serious Failures) Bill 2014. It said:

The Bill will help restore the integrity of our welfare system and ensure available resources are used effectively and efficiently…

I thought the idea of this bill was part of a wider process of parliament, government and the community working together so that we have the best possible responsive system to give people the support they need to find employment or education, and feel valued members of our community. Silly me; I thought that was the idea of the bill!

Nonetheless, what we heard at our Community Affairs Committee hearings was some idea that this bill would ensure that people got into employment—that there was something intrinsically wrong with the system we had. In the current welfare system for the unemployed there is a clear provision for an eight-week penalty that can be imposed on people who either do not take up suitable work if it is offered to them through the system, or miss some of the expectations of engagement that are in the system.

What we have here is intense effort, focus and information being put forward to address something that is already available in the system. It is widely known. There is somehow a presumption that this is the first time that we have had this form of debate in this place. Indeed, it is not. In the past there have been significant debates in this chamber about the efficacy of imposing a penalty which determines that people will have their social welfare payments removed for a particular period of time as a punitive element of a system that is based on support.

I would just like to put on record that I worked in the system for a number of years. Those of us who have worked in the system remember that there has always been an expectation of rights and responsibilities within our social welfare system. That is not a new concept. It was in the system when it was first introduced, last century. On this issue of imposing penalties on people who are working towards obtaining employment, we had a significant discussion and review about what was then known as 'breaching'—a term which I hoped we would never hear again. I am sure some of the public sector workers feel the same way. Nonetheless, under the Howard government there was an imposition of compulsory breaching of people who did not fulfil their responsibilities under the social welfare system. At that time there was an enormous response from members of the community—from many of the same witnesses who came before us in this inquiry—who wanted to look at a genuine consideration of whether this was an effective mechanism to encourage people to look for work, to take up work and, in many more ways, to retain work—importantly, to be part of the employment system and understand the responsibilities of being employed.

As a result of extensive work and a full inquiry and review into what was then called breaching, there was a great deal of commentary about the various pressures and the evidence base—if indeed there was any—that removing people from payment, as a punitive exercise, would have a real effect on their staying engaged in the system. It would be fair to say that the debate we are having today has been had in the past, because there is no evidence base. There is opinion and views put forward but there has been no independent assessment which shows that having a punitive element necessarily means that there will be greater compliance.

Of course we have mountains of data. In looking at some of the contributions in this place and in the other place to the debate on this bill I have seen the same statistics quoted by just about every speaker. The statistics indicate that there has been an increase in the number of people who have not met requirements in the overall job market. It is still less than two per cent of the overall number of people who are engaged in the market looking for work through the system.

I put on record, very clearly, that we never have a complete picture. If anyone in this place believes that the statistics we have give a true picture of what is happening for people seeking work across our community, they are just kidding themselves. We know that there are so many people who have completely disengaged from the system. They disengage, and that means that they do not receive social welfare, but that is not the only measure of whether someone is engaged in the system. Allowing for the proviso that any stats being cited in this debate do not reflect the whole picture, we have on record from the department that less than two per cent of people in the social welfare system on one of the unemployment payments who are looking for work through the various available networks are not meeting their requirements and are subject to waivers. So the waivers are available now.

The other set of stats that people trot out consistently shows the clearly undeniable fact that more people in that less than two per cent are subject to having their cases assessed, which means they have not taken up work or they have not engaged effectively, not turned up to training, not been involved in a Work for the Dole scheme and all the other things that are listed quite clearly to demonstrate engagement in the current process. What we do not have—and I asked particularly about this during the inquiry—is any real analysis of this data. We have data that proves that more waivers have been imposed under the current system, which actually allows the waivers to be imposed. We have data that shows that those numbers have grown. What we do not have is any qualitative information about the circumstances around each of those decisions that led to the quite detailed interaction between the person, their job provider and then the Department of Human Services, which has the delegation to impose the waiver. Committee members were provided with no information that addresses the personal, individual circumstances—because, again, there is no clear evidence.

Where people are in the system, as part of their responsibilities in receiving a payment through the social welfare system, they must commit. They have to go through a range of processes, including linking up with their job service provider and attending any of the programs that are part of their contract. Then, should suitable work be arranged, as determined by the job service provider, the expectation would be that the person would take up that job. No-one argues with that. That is the way the system works. I am always very worried about making general statements, but I believe you will not find anyone in this place who argues with the need for there to be mutual obligation, which is an intrinsic part of our system—responsibility and obligation.

We know that, for some people, their disengagement from society and from the community, various illnesses and various life experiences mean that they face a greater barrier or struggle to fit into the structure. That is also agreed; there is no doubt about that. The current act provides that it may be decided by the job service provider—professional, well-trained people who have operated in this industry and are funded by our government to work with individuals seeking work—that the job seeker has shown a wilful or persistent failure to meet their responsibilities. And I love these terms; apart from the stats, the other thing most quoted in this debate are the terms 'wilful' and 'persistent'. If it is determined in the work that goes on—the individual support that goes on between the job seeker and the organisation—that there is wilful or persistent failure to take up their own responsibilities, the current act allows for the job seeker network, whichever organisation has that contract, to refer the matter back to the Department of Human Services. A decision is then made, through the secretary of that department, delegated down to whichever officer is in the local network, to determine whether that person should be subject to a waiver or subject to a penalty. That delegation is clearly spelt out.

Again, we have trained professionals in the system, both in the job seeker network and in the Department of Human Services. This is their job. They work with it day in, day out. They understand the system. Part of their job is to work with the person and the wider community to explain the system—to spell out clearly how it works and what your obligations are, if you are in the system, in continuing to receive a social welfare payment while you are seeking work, because we know that those payments are available while you are seeking work. In fact, if I remember correctly, the term in the act is 'actively seeking work', but I do not have the act in front of me. Nonetheless, that is what occurs. Similarly, if you do not take up a job, again, it is all provided for in the system. You are referred to a job after an extensive process.

I noticed that some of the speakers from the government side felt that there was some lack of understanding by people who oppose this bill about the way it operates or some lack of understanding about the various ways that vulnerability indexes are used and that we did not quite grasp the intricacies of the system. I can say quite strongly that the people who worked on the community affairs committee and the people I have talked with in this area who strongly oppose this bill do understand how it works. What we are saying is that the current system does the job. No system can guarantee that everyone involved in the system will automatically get employment, and that is part of another debate—the genuine lack of employment opportunities and the lack of jobs to which people can be referred. That is a subject for many more debates we will have in this place.

As Senator Brown pointed out in her contribution, to which I listened carefully, this bill is only part of a wider stream of activity going on in this area at this moment. So, while we are considering only this one bill today, senators would be aware that many people in the debate have concentrated on other things, such as the impact of the budget changes and also the impact of the changes in the way that contracts are going out at the moment into the job network. There is a lot of activity within this space at the moment, but the core principles remain the same.

This bill does nothing more than tinker with something that is already in place. In my opinion, what it does is suggest that the professional people working in the system at the moment are not doing their job. If the view from the government is that it is so important to take away any reasonable element of flexibility in the system around the eight-week penalty process, this is how you do it. It is a compulsory judgement in terms of the process: you will automatically get an eight-week penalty if you do not turn up for a suitable job and there is a limit to the number of waivers you will be able to have, as I have said, through that careful system. There is a limit to the ability of the decision maker to make a professional judgement about whether the information in front of them justifies an opportunity for people to re-engage in the system and then come back onto their payment, or whether it should just be an automatic eight-week penalty.

This is what this is all about—stronger penalties for serious failures. The government has decided that serious failures, in terms of not meeting job seeker responsibilities, should not be the subject of an individual arrangements—looking at the individual cases, working with them, understanding their processes and what is going on, and giving them the option to come back into the system. That was the balance we arrived at the last time we had this debate in this place. The balance was there; there were penalties, because you cannot have—and I quote the department and the government—'wilful and persistent neglect' of your responsibilities; that does not allow the system to operate strongly. But what was available—and what was one of the really important elements of the system—was if someone was actually in that circumstance of not turning up for something they were responsible for doing as part of their obligation to the system, or someone did not take up a job to which they were referred, then there was a discussion and a consideration of why. And if there was a reasonable reason, it would be worked with in terms of how it was going to operate into the future. It is most important, for that element of people who have not found a job, that they are in the system working with their job provider, sometimes effectively and sometimes not so well. And if they do not meet one of the requirements of that system, there was the opportunity for the people at the job service network and the human services delegates to work with that job seeker and re-engage them in the system.

My understanding is that one of the core issues is ensuring people are engaged in the system, because if we lose them—if they do become completely disengaged—not only have they lost the opportunity to improve their lives and circumstances and to work, but the community and our society has lost a valuable contribution as well. If we lose them out of the system completely, there does not seem to me to be anything in the bill before us—or indeed in the other pieces of legislation that may come before us from the budget—which looks at how we get those people re-engaged. What we find, and what the stats show, is that when someone drops out of the system there is often an extensive delay before they come back.

The people who are opposing this bill do understand the situation. They do not support people who are not meeting their responsibilities in the system. Again, I take particular insult at terms like 'dole bludgers' which we heard in this place again yesterday. I worked in a department which was then called the Department of Social Security for many years. One of our core principles was to ensure that words like that were never used—to wipe them out and ensure that people who were seeking our support were given respect and dignity as part of our system. They were, in fact, our clients and indeed, later, our customers. But yesterday we heard in this place the words 'dole bludger'. That does not engage people. It further demonises them and pushes them away.

I strongly oppose this bill. The professionals working in the system now know the system. They know their clients. They know the best way to ensure those people fit into the system and accept their responsibilities. Should there be the need to impose a penalty, the ability to do so is there now. Should the people who are charged with the responsibility decide that a penalty should not be imposed, they can give a waiver to the individual provided they pick up their responsibilities otherwise. I think that is a fair and responsive system that makes sure our social welfare system is strong. The bill, as it currently exists, helps the integrity of our welfare system and most importantly ensures that people who are seeking employment and need support to do so will feel that they will get that support, rather than being punished without an effective mechanism to ensure they stay engaged.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise, like my colleagues, to oppose the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Stronger Penalties for Serious Failures) Bill. We now find that the coalition are back to the euphemistic naming of bills that the Howard government turned into an art form. 'Stronger penalties for serious failures': it undermines the whole import of the bill. What I think they are up to is, since they cannot do Work Choices, they are going to punish the unemployed. They cannot attack workers so on this basis they are going to attack the most vulnerable in the community. They are going to attack those people who cannot defend themselves.

Surprisingly, they are also overturning what, in essence, is a system that works. When you look at the social security committee report itself, you find—surprisingly to me but unsurprisingly, I suspect, to many—there is simply no persuasive justification for the changes. Yes, the committee—those that signed off on the majority report—went through what I call the process. They went through the motions hoping that something would follow—but nothing turned up, so they simply signed off on the report and said the bill should pass. There was no justification and no cogent argument and quite frankly, when you read the dissenting report, it is far more persuasive. It certainly persuaded me to speak on this, because of that simple reason. The existing system is set up so that if a job seeker commits a no-show, no-pay failure without a reasonable excuse such as failing to attend an activity where attendance is required, misbehaving at an activity, failing to attend a job interview, or intentionally acting in a manner that may result in an offer of employment not being made, then the consequence of a no-show, no-pay failure is a penalty equivalent to one working day of a person's payment—normally about 10 per cent of a person's 14 day instalment. In other words, it is a proportional response. It is about ensuring that the job seeker understands what their conduct has created for them, and as a consequence a bit of pain is the proportional penalty response. The main aim is about ensuring that we have a connection between the job seeker and employment opportunities. That is what the existing system does. It is a measured framework that ensures these two things: it does not provide an extraordinarily punitive penalty out of kilter with the failure and concentrates on reconnection—in other words, so that a job seeker has to undertake the activities and understands what the required compliance is. That is also proportional.

You wonder who is really driving the legislation that the coalition have put forward. The legislation seems to be a milksop, written by the hardliners who simply think the unemployed should not be paid at all. This legislation takes away discretion from the department that is dealing with people who are unemployed and trying to reconnect them with employment in a positive way. It is not that surprising from the Abbott government, because they are trying to make life harder for lower- and middle-income earners. They have been pursuing a dogmatic, ideological agenda against the best interests of working people since the days of Work Choices. The message that they are saying to the Australian people is simple: if you are not in the top end of town, then you are on your own, and you will want to start working a lot harder than you are already. You can then sum it up in the expression that Mr Joe Hockey said, when he talked about the 'lifters and leaners'. The Treasurer speaks about making absolutely sure where he thinks working people are. It is a disgrace to use that phrase.

The disdain that the Treasurer and the Prime Minister have for working people is a national blight. Saying poor people do not drive cars is just idiotic. I cannot think of any other way to describe it. It is deeply insulting to the people whom the Labor Party spend each and every day defending and fighting for. Upping the retirement age, cutting unemployment benefits, loading a debt sentence on students, upping the petrol tax, putting a tax on going to the doctor, and these draconian amendments all form the foundation of the Abbott government's broken promises to the Australian people. They are making life harder not easier. Mr Abbott took the script from previous prime ministers from the coalition but has taken it to a new level. They up taxes, they do not cut them. They make the lowest-income earners in the community pay to offset the tax booms for the big end of town. How unfair could you be? The handouts of the age of entitlement never ended under the Abbott government. In every single act of this government, the biggest end of town benefits. They get a windfall everywhere they go, while the workers themselves get kicked by this government. It is not fair, and the Labor Party deeply oppose the punitive measures and twisted priorities of the Liberal government.

Yesterday, we saw it taken to a new level again, when they raided workers' superannuation entitlements. It was yet another sorry example of the Abbott government's attack on working people. Let me be clear: the Abbott government do not trust workers. They do not trust them having control of their own money. They do not trust them to have proper employment and job-seeking benefits. In essence, they want to be a parent and have complete control. If the Abbott government really think that measures like this bill are the way forward and will achieve an end product, they are even more than just out-of-touch, they are, quite frankly, off the planet! I think the legislation is only about being punitive. It is only about punishing. It is a milksop to their far-right. The government have not lost touch so much as they never had any sense of the reality for hardworking Australians. The government see rising unemployment and, rather than look at how to address rising unemployment, simply blame the jobless. They say, 'It's your fault.' The government will do anything to fill the Liberal Party coffers but do nothing to help the most vulnerable in the community. If this is their new measure in their first year of government to help the unemployed get a new job and find a career, then I think it belies their true nature. This is a government that only wants to punish the unemployed.

The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling has stated that the families in the bottom 20 per cent will have an average of five per cent reduction in disposable income. The top have a decline of only 0.3 per cent out of the budget. So it is clear that it is about saving money, and you are going to save the most from those who can least afford it. You are going to punish those in the lower socioeconomic group because you can, and because you do not want to touch those who are wealthy and who support your Liberal causes. You want to make sure those at the bottom end of town pay for it.

When you look at the report itself, the key issues summarise where this report did not end up. It should have ended up by saying—and it might have been courageous for Senator Seselja—this bill should not have passed. When you look at it, even though the chair supported the passage of the bill, some of it crept through and you can hear it in the key issues. The committee noted:

… Brotherhood of St Laurence contended that the Bill created a high risk of unintended consequences, by impacting on jobseekers who may find themselves in breach of their obligations due to circumstances beyond their control, such as mental illness, domestic violence or homelessness.

It goes on to say that the way the system would work would not create incentives for workers and for those who are unemployed to re-engage. It ultimately creates a situation where those who are unemployed will find it harder to find employment—will find it harder to live and be able to get themselves re-engaged with work. Ultimately, the committee's view fell on this:

The committee notes the concerns raised by witnesses and submitters

But, quite frankly, I do not think that those who supported the bill listened to the submitters about their concerns. They simply noted them because they were ideologically driven to come to the outcome which they landed upon.

However—

the report went on to say—and this is the broad Abbott brush, the Mr Abbott brush where you simply brush aside the concerns of the submitters, the issues that were raised by witnesses and how it would attack those most vulnerable in our community. It did that with a 'however':

However, the committee also notes that the Bill will only impact the small proportion of jobseekers who have received but nevertheless refused an offer of suitable employment without a reasonable excuse or who have persistently and wilfully failed to comply with their participation obligations.

The grand scheme of this is that it is only a small number who are going to be hurt, so we should not bother too much about it. We should pass the legislation, notwithstanding that. The committee went on to say that it considered that it important to limit the number of eight-week penalty waivers a jobseeker can access but never really made any justification as to why. The committee was 'satisfied', apparently, that:

… appropriate safeguards exist such that no penalty will be applied for a failure that was directly attributable to a jobseeker's vulnerability.

Let's hold that phrase for a moment. In fact, we may want to revisit it again, and again and again, because what the committee have said, as the chair, is that they are 'satisfied' but make no argument as to why they should be satisfied. I am not satisfied. When you read this report, you cannot be satisfied that appropriate safeguards exist or that no penalty—not some penalty, but no penalty—will be applied for a failure that was directly attributable to a job seeker's vulnerability. Should this legislation pass, every time a vulnerable job seeker gets smacked with a penalty Senator Seselja should apologise, because he is wrong.

When you look at the dissenting Labor report, I think you can find the evidence there of why this is a harsh and punitive measure. Labor supports a just and reasonable job seeker compliance system which encourages and supports participation. Why? Because it is about getting those who are unemployed to reconnect with the labour market. We all know that a job now for job seekers is about how they can pull themselves through and participate fully in society. They will benefit now and in the long run. That is why we do need a compliance framework in place, and that is why we do need a system that ensures that there are provisions that make and help job seekers reconnect. But it has to be flexible. It has to ensure that the job seekers receiving participation payments are both flexible and, above all, effective.

The submitters to the enquiry raised not only the real concerns that they had about the punitive nature of the bill but also the way it would operate. It would operate in such a draconian way that the potential financial impacts of the changes in this bill on vulnerable job seekers would be terrible. The removal of incentives for re-engagement of job seekers, who are in breach of their participation obligations, is also one that was completely not supported by the dissenting report, but ultimately the major report did not highlight why we should depart. That is why I oppose this bill and it is why Labor opposes this bill in its entirety. There is no saving grace contained within it; it simply seeks to make it harder and harder for those who are unemployed. You can turn to some of the key submitters, such as that from the National Welfare Rights Network, which said:

Fundamentally, the system that we have now is very effective in ensuring that people re-engage immediately and in stopping people from falling through the cracks. There are still some people who fall through the cracks, but we consider it to be likely that there will be a lot more should this bill go through. In the end, you only have less than one per cent of people incurring multiple penalties. The system as it is at the moment is actually working extremely well—certainly from our perspective and our on-the-ground casework.

These are people at the coalface; these are people who understand that there are problems in getting job seekers to re-engage, but they want them to re-engage. Why? Because they understand the long-term benefits of the job. They do support a compliance framework and they do support a system which is both tough and fair. They do not support a system that is simply tough, and so tough that it will punish those people who are unemployed.

The Labor senators said they were concerned at the proposed changes would discourage re-engagement altogether even in circumstances where a job seeker is willing and able to re-engage during the non-payment period, but the government wants to prohibit them from doing so. The government has taken the draconian to a new extreme—even where the job seeker has suffered a penalty, has worked out that they have made a mistake and wants to re-engage, the government under this piece of legislation says, 'No, stay there, you cannot re-engage. We're are going to continue to punish you until you get it. Even if you say you have got it and you want to re-engage—too bad, so sad—we are going to continue to punish you for your original mistake.' I do not know any legislation that is so unfair, unjust and, of course, such a nightmare to administer.

We will have the opportunity at estimates to hold this government to account, should this legislation pass. We will have the ability to remind Senator Seselja of how satisfied he was that it would not attack those most vulnerable in our community; we will have the opportunity of looking at whether it works. I, for one, am completely convinced that it will not work; it will only provide a punitive punishment to those who are most vulnerable in our community. We will have an opportunity to test that again and again. The Australian Council of Social Services stated that:

The majority of recipients of unemployment payments have few savings, little access to credit, and many receive little or no support from—(Time expired)

Glenn Lazarus (Queensland, Palmer United Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Palmer United Party does not support this bill. The Palmer United Party is the only voice in Australia prepared to stand up for all Australians. We will not be supporting many of the Abbott government's ruthless budget measures and we will not be supporting this bill.

Australians are facing very difficult and challenging times. In my home state of Queensland, we are facing an unemployment emergency. Communities are hurting, people are struggling and families are suffering. In Queensland, unemployment is at a record high level of nearly seven per cent—the highest level we have seen for some 12 years. Disturbingly, youth unemployment is at an unprecedented high level. In fact, according to the Brotherhood of St Laurence, youth unemployment has spiked in key Queensland areas, jumping 88 per cent on levels of youth unemployment two years ago. Youth unemployment has risen by 88 per cent in Cairns, 79 per cent in Moreton Bay North, 68 per cent in Brisbane West, 61 per cent in Brisbane South and 43 per cent in Ipswich. If this trend continues, youth unemployment could hit 50 per cent in parts of Queensland by the year 2016.

Clearly, we are facing an unemployment crisis in Queensland. And these figures do not even include the issue of underemployment. Many people are working, but are only able to find part-time or casual work, because there are simply not any full-time jobs available. The Newman government has systematically destroyed confidence in the economy and the job market in Queensland since coming to power in 2012—slashing jobs, cutting critical government services and eroding community spirit. The economy is so depressed that businesses are not putting people on; they are laying them off. Businesses are scared and unsure of the future because of the state of the economy and because of the potential impact of the nasty budget measures the Abbott government is trying to push through.

The role of government is to support its people to ensure they are safe, secure and provided with basic and essential services. The role of government is also to create an environment which fosters economic growth, the pursuit of opportunities and the creation of jobs. Despite this, the Abbott government is attempting to implement a budget which will hurt the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in our community and diminish their opportunity to contribute to this great country, to achieve, succeed and pursue a better life. Australians did not vote for the Abbott government's nasty budget measures at the 2013 election; Australians did not vote for higher university fees; Australians did not vote for a GP co-payment; Australians did not vote for fuel price increases—and just for your information, Joe Hockey, low-income Australians do drive.

In fact, many low income earners often drive long distances. In my home state of Queensland, which is a large and expansive state, the only way to move from place to place in many areas is by car. Because access to public transport is poor, the cost of public transport is high and the state of the rail system is such a mess and in such a dilapidated state, the most efficient way to get from A to B is by car. In fact, this is another reason that farmers are doing it so tough: our country's rail, road and port systems are in such a poor and inferior state that our farmers cannot get their products to market as quickly and efficiently as they would like; the nation's infrastructure is letting them down. This country is systematically failing our farmers on every level and nobody seems to care. The Palmer United Party cares about our farmers. We appreciate that farmers are the lifeblood of our country and play a critical role in ensuring food security for Australia. Farmers deserve better, and the Palmer United Party is determined to ensure that Australia does more to support and assist our farmers.

In 2013, Australians voted for hope and promises of a better way of life—promises which have now been broken by the Abbott government. Australians voted for better solutions to build a better Australia. The Abbott government has failed the people of Australia miserably. Thankfully, the Palmer United Party is working hard to rebuild Australia. We are listening to the people and we are developing ideas to turn this country around.

The people of Australia have been duped by the Abbott government. They have been deceived. The Palmer United Party will not allow this rot to continue. The Palmer United Party is determined to ensure that the Abbott government's cruel, unjust and unfair budget measures are not implemented. The people of Australia want a government which will grow Australia, not cut, slash, undermine and burn.

And that's what this bill will do. It will impose harsh penalties and abolish the rights of Australians to a genuine right of appeal should they find themselves in a situation where they are hit with a non-payment penalty for refusing or failing to commence work without good reason. While we need to ensure that we have systems in place to ensure that those who do the right thing are rewarded and those who do not are appropriately dealt with, without sufficient safeguards in place which outline the nature of exhaustive and acceptable definitions of 'suitable employment' and 'reasonable excuse' we cannot possibly allow this bill to pass.

Why would the government want to impose harsher penalties on vulnerable Australians? Why would the government want to strip the departmental secretary of the power to overturn a period of penalty on any grounds? Does the government not trust their own departmental secretary to make the right decisions? Is there a breakdown in the relationship between the departmental secretary and the government? Why would the government want to remove some of the secretary's powers? Why would the government want such important and critical decisions regarding the livelihood and future of everyday Australians being managed by departmental staff without any process for review by the head of the department? These are all good questions that do not have satisfactory answers.

It seems the Abbott Government wants to penalise Australians for struggling because the government has failed to create an environment which supports the creation of opportunities and jobs. There are no jobs in many towns and communities across Australia. The government wants job seekers to apply for 40 jobs a month. Where are the jobs? Ask the unemployed youth of Queensland. The answer is there are no jobs because unemployment is at an all-time high. That means there are more people looking for jobs than there are Jobs available. Despite this, the Abbott government is still allowing foreign workers to come into Australia on 457 visas. These foreign workers are taking jobs away from Australians—Australians who are desperate to work.

Only a small number of Queensland nursing graduates are able to find work in their sector in Queensland. Life is getting harder for everyday Australians; it is not getting easier. The cost of living is increasing for everyday Australians. Basic essentials are getting more expensive. The stresses and challenges of everyday life become even greater during difficult times. Why would we want to place greater strain on everyday Australians at a time when things are already very tough?

We will not support this bill. We will not allow the Abbott government to remove human rights and access to due process from Australians. The government needs to ensure that it enables the department to manage its programs, responsibilities and obligations appropriately, efficiently and effectively; therefore, retention of the secretary's power to overturn penalties is an imperative element of this requirement.

Australia has a new voice. Australians can rely on the Palmer United Party to listen and act to ensure the interests of all Australians are protected and progressed. Mahatma Ghandi once said:

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

The Palmer United Party is committed to being the party of the people and for the people. We hold the balance of power in the Senate. We are serious, determined and focused and intend to continue to deliver real results for Australians. As each day passes, we grow stronger in our resolve to succeed. We are overcoming challenges and attacks from the duopoly 'Bill Abbott' and biased media and, with the growing support of the Australian people, we are winning, kicking goals for everyday Australians.

We have already removed the carbon tax, resulting in the pass through of cost savings to Australian households. We have clearly stated to all Australians that we will fight to stop the Abbott government imposing a GP co-payment. We will fight to stop the deregulation of Australian universities. We will fight to stop many of the Abbott government's nasty budget measures. We will fight for all Australians.

Australia needs new ideas, better solutions and a new way forward. Abolishing the rights of Australians is not the way forward, and therefore the Palmer United Party will not be supporting this bill.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a relief it is to hear Senator Lazarus not say, 'This is not my first speech'! I am sure Senator Lambie will be relieved not to have to say that after her first speech later today, and I wish her well in respect of that.

I will speak to this bill and say that I cannot support it. I will outline those reasons, but I think it is fair to say, after Senator Lazarus outlined his party's position very well, that—insofar as this bill relates to the job market in the sense that, if the job market is contracted, it does make a difference as senator Lazarus has said—I am concerned that yesterday with the mining tax repeal there were also repealed benefits to small businesses in terms of accelerated write-offs. I did a media conference not so long ago with Peter Strong, the COO, of the Council of Small Business of Australia, and he had genuine concerns about the chaos that will cause and confusion for small businesses, some who have claimed the write-off, thinking they could, and now will have to pay that back or really plan differently because it has disrupted their business plan. If you accept that one of the biggest drivers of employment growth in this country is the small business sector then that is something that is a real concern. That is the problem when you rush legislation through.

I am not having a go at Senator Lazarus, whom I have a lot of regard for.

Glenn Lazarus (Queensland, Palmer United Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sounds like it to me.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I am saying that, if you rush things through and do not have appropriate debate—and it happened in the previous parliament with the ALP government and the Greens with the gag on many occasions—you end up with some lousy policy outcomes. I direct this to the Liberal Party of Australia. Their great founder, Sir Robert Menzies, back in 1942 spoke of the 'forgotten people', including the small businesses of this country. I think that small business in the 21st century Liberal Party have been forgotten by this government with the changes that were announced yesterday. I say that with more sorrow than anger. I also direct it to the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Abetz, who I do have a lot of regard for.

Let us go to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Stronger Penalties for Serious Failures) Bill 2014. Serious failures can occur when a job seeker refuses a suitable job offer without a valid reason or consistently fails to comply with participation or activity requirements. The penalty is an eight-week non-payment period. These are penalties that the former government put in place. Under the current law that was introduced under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments there is an option to undertake a participation requirement, similar to work experience, instead of the non-payment penalty. Under the current law the secretary of the department has the discretion to waive the penalty in certain circumstances—for example, if it causes severe financial hardship or if the person is unable to undertake the participation option. This bill removes that discretion where a job seeker has refused or failed to accept an offer of suitable employment. The bill also removes further discretion where the secretary may end the eight-week non-payment penalty early. That is also the case where there has been compliance. For whatever reason, if a person shows compliance then there can be that discretion exercised by the secretary.

The government also introduced regulations relating to the matters that the secretary must consider when determining whether or not a job seeker has a reasonable excuse for failing to meet the participation requirements. We are talking about a reasonable excuse. This was disallowed by the Senate last week, and I supported that, but as it stood, the instrument meant that the secretary would no longer need to consider: firstly, that the person did not have access to safe, secure and adequate housing or that they were using emergency or shelter accommodation; secondly, the literacy and language skills of the person; thirdly, that the person was subject to criminal violence, including domestic violence; fourthly, that the person was affected by the death of a close family member at the time; and, fifthly, if the person had previously been released from prison. That is why I commend the work of Senator Rachel Siewert in her advocacy in relation to this and that is why I supported Senator Cameron's motion to disallow, and that is why I voted with the Palmer United Party because it was the right thing to do in that context.

Research from the Social Policy Research Centre, SPRC, indicates that the eight-week non-payment period is more likely to impact on people who are already struggling. The financial strain could seriously affect access to safe and secure housing. Data from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations in 2008 shows that approximately 15 per cent of people who were subject to the non-payment lost their accommodation. A further 50 per cent of people experienced difficulty in paying their rent and were put at risk of homelessness. While there needs to be compliance measures in place for those who genuinely are not doing the right thing and are not making an effort to find work, people should still be treated humanely and with dignity and respect. There are serious concerns that this measure in this bill will have a harmful impact on people who are already struggling. My fear—and I think it was reflected in the comments made by Senator Lazarus—is that if this bill is passed it will drive more people into crime and violence in order to survive. That is not what I think we should be doing as a society. The impact of the non-payment period may also establish a vicious cycle where job seekers are penalised and, being in such a bad financial position, they will be more vulnerable to further breaches. There is no case for changing the current system. If there is a case, it is certainly not in this way.

Senator Lazarus touched on the issue of jobs in regional Queensland. Guess what, Senator Lazarus, not only do I agree with you but there are also problems in the suburbs of Adelaide with employment because of the decision that was made by General Motors Holden to leave manufacturing towards the end of 2017. This will have a huge impact on the automotive supply chain not only in South Australia but also in Victoria. There are 33,000 direct jobs in the automotive component sector and another 12,000 or so in the original automotive manufacturers, who will all be sadly and tragically departing by the end of 2017. There are other tiers of that sector. There is a significant multiplier effect. It is estimated that there are upwards of 150,00 to 200,000 jobs that rely on that sector. There will be a potential catastrophic collapse of employment in South Australia and in Victoria if we do not ensure that there is appropriate transition funding.

I have worked on this with Senator Ricky Muir, Senator John Madigan and Senator Di Natale from the Australian Greens. We need to ensure that the Automotive Transformation Scheme and the funding that was butchered—effectively $900 million and, in particular, $500 million over the next three critical calendar years—is maintained. We need to ensure that the criteria for that funding is altered so that it gives real hope for manufacturing. We are not talking about corporate welfare; we are talking about letting those businesses transition to other businesses like the mining sector, in the renewable energy space, or even locally build a car from another country where it could be assembled here or from the ground up. I have been speaking to people about that in my home state and interstate. We need to ensure that that funding is in place. The dairy industry was provided with significant funding to transition as a result of the deregulation a number of years ago and this is a similar concept.

I must say, the statement made by the Treasurer, Mr Hockey, last year when he effectively taunted Holden, 'Are you going to stay or are you going to go?' I just found reckless and irresponsible. I say that with great sadness because I have a lot of time for Mr Hockey on a personal level, but I think that statement was reckless and irresponsible. It was basically giving the finger to General Motors' headquarters in Detroit and there is going to be a huge chasm that needs to be filled in terms of those jobs.

We need to consider this piece of legislation in the context of a weakening job market. Our manufacturing sector is collapsing. Our farming sector is struggling for a whole range of reasons. Senator Lazarus touched on that yesterday—food labelling laws, the duopoly and a whole range of other measures. I heard today that Coles is retrenching several hundred people, and that is sad. I criticise Coles for their market share and some of their practices but they are a significant employer and, from speaking to people, they are a good employer, as is Woolworths. My complaint is not with the people who run Coles; my complaint is with their level of market share and the consequences that flow from that.

I cannot support this legislation, particularly in the context of a weakening job market. If there is another way to deal with those who genuinely are not seeking employment, we should do that. Having said that, you, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, and others in the labour movement have spent a lot of effort and energy attacking me on the issue of penalty rates. I will not apologise for my position. I believe that if you want to stimulate employment in this country and open up the job market then you are not exploiting young people if you limit the casual loading rate to, say, 25 per cent on weekends. Many businesses across this country are shut on weekends and have cut back their hours because it is not economical for their survival. I defy anyone to say that a small business with 20 employees or fewer is exploiting casual workers who get 25 per cent above the award on the weekend. Those businesses make up the backbone of jobs in this country. That is a debate we need to have.

All around your wonderful home state of Western Australia, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, there are tourism areas that cannot be open on weekends because of penalty rates. Destroying those job opportunities does not make any sense. Unlike Senator Day—and I wish him well with his real first speech today—I do not support reducing the minimum wage. I support the award system, but I do not support the current system of penalty rates, which has been a job killer for young people and a heavy burden on small businesses across this country. That is something that needs to be considered in the context of the employment market in this nation.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commence my remarks by officially congratulating Senators Ketter, Bullock and Lazarus on their first speeches. We have had a wide-ranging debate on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Stronger Penalties for Serious Failures) Bill 2014. I thank honourable senators for their contribution. We strayed into all sorts of other areas, all of which are of interest and all of which need to be considered, but at the end of the day I invite senators, even at this late stage, to focus on what this bill is all about.

I want to first deal with the contributions of individual senators. Senator Cameron always thinks that decibels are a good substitute for logic. He shouts and screams, but I think people listening to his contributions may well come to the conclusion that the rhetorical flourishes that he engages in may be an indication of deep-seated ideology rather than a practical approach to some of the issues that this nation faces.

I want to say that I agree with Senator Anne Urquhart when she said that the vast majority of job seekers are honest, hardworking Australians. We agree with that. This bill would target, at most, one or two per cent of job seekers—and I will go into that later.

Senator Lines said that Labor just wants a just and reasonable job compliant system. We say amen to that. We fully support that. But I simply ask: what is unjust and unreasonable about asking a perfectly capable job seeker to take up an available job? Why should the Australian taxpayer continue to fund the lifestyle of the job seeker who has no good reason not to take up a job?

My colleague from Tasmania Senator Carol Brown claimed that the current system is effective. I will go through the numbers to show the huge blow-out that has occurred since Labor changed the rules. The number of people reported for refusing to work in 2008-09, which was the last part of the Howard government legacy, was 644. In 2012-13 that had ballooned threefold to 1,718 people and the penalty was waived in over two-thirds of the cases. That was the penalties for refusing work. I now turn to penalties for serious failures. In the last part of the Howard government legacy there were 8,850. By 2012-13 that had ballooned yet again threefold to 25,268 and in that cohort 73 per cent of the penalties were waived. So in both of those cohorts there has been the virtual trebling of the cases.

I simply ask: during that period of time was there a trebling of the unemployment rate? Of course there was not. It is correct that the job market has tightened, but it has not tightened to the extent that would justify the blow-out in these figures. What is the reason for this blow-out in the figures? It was the change that Labor made to the rules. Funny that. I see Senator Cash in the chamber. This is exactly like when Labor changed the rules for illegal entrants into the country and there was a massive blow-out. Labor tried to point to anything else but the change of rules as being the cause. When we were able to basically get the rules back to where they were guess what happened? The boats stopped.

Similarly, I plead with the Senate that there is a situation here where Labor recklessly changed the rules. We have now had a trebling—a blow-out—of the figures, and Labor and Greens and others around the chamber want to blame anything and everything else other than the change in the rules. I turn to Senator Seselja's very reasoned and good contribution—that this has nothing to do with the 98 per cent of job seekers who do absolutely the right thing by themselves and the Australian people.

Senator Seselja's was the best of all the contributions. I share a high regard for the senator but—with great respect to him—how can he assert that if these changes were to go through there would be a break-out of violence and crime around Australia because we know what would happen if the rules we are proposing were put in place? They existed before, in the Australian landscape: they existed under the Howard government.

When Labor changed the rules in 2008-09, did violence decrease? Did the crime wave decrease? Of course it did not. There is no statistic, no evidence in any way, shape or form, to assert that it did. So why on earth would Senator Xenophon assert that there would be a break-out of crime and violence if we went back to the system that existed in 2008-09? There is no evidence. It is great for a headline—and Senator Xenophon is great at that. We all admire his media savviness but, with respect, there is just no evidence to support that assertion.

He talked about penalty rates as well. As I indicated earlier, it has been a varied contribution by senators, but the government's view—very strongly—is that all those arguments Senator Xenophon put to the chamber should actually be put to the Fair Work Commission, as they are the body responsible in the Australian workplace relations landscape to set wages and penalty rates.

The bill introduces two changes to strengthen the job-seeker compliance framework by tightening the rules regarding the waiver of penalties for serious failures. Job seekers who fail to accept or commence a suitable job will incur a mandatory eight-week non-payment period. For job seekers who are persistently non-compliant there will be provision—regrettably, nobody acknowledged that in the speeches against this bill—for a one-off waiver of the non-payment period. So there will be the opportunity for people to be reminded of the consequences. But all subsequent episodes of noncompliance will incur the eight-week non-payment penalty.

We as a government strongly believe that job seekers in receipt of taxpayer funded income support should be expected to do something in return for that support. What is more, 98 per cent of job seekers agree with us and do the right thing. The coalition's support of the principle of mutual obligation is well known and it has overwhelming community support. As part of the mutual-obligation framework job seekers in receipt of taxpayer funded income support have participation requirements, and 98 per cent of job seekers fully embrace those participation requirements. These requirements include undertaking job searches, meeting with employment providers, undertaking training or, ultimately, accepting a job. Participation requirements are fair and taxpayers are right to expect that job seekers do their bit in order to find a job and, in the meantime, receive income support. It is not fair to get something for nothing when you can and should be doing something and you are capable of doing so.

There are existing rules surrounding job seekers and participation requirements under the current legislation. Job seekers already incur an eight-week payment penalty for refusing to take a job or failing to meet their participation requirements. However, under changes made by the previous Labor-Greens government, those penalties can now be too easily waived. Under Labor, amendments were introduced in 2009 that allowed the non-payment penalty to be waived if a job seeker engaged in an 'intensive activity', such as—guess what—an increased level of job search. They already have a 20-requirement. All of a sudden, the Labor Party is saying, 'Chances are, if you were to increase the job search to above 20—to 40, in certain cases—that's not such a bad thing after all.' If we propose that as something in a draft or discussion with the community, it is evil writ large, it is penalising people, but under Labor's scheme that was part of the alternative activity. I do digress.

Job seekers who refuse a job or are persistently non-compliant can repeatedly avoid a financial penalty by doing an alternative activity. That is the current situation. This change, not unsurprisingly, resulted in more job seekers flouting the rules and avoiding a financial penalty. As I have indicated before, in 2008-09 there were 644 penalties applied for refusing work. In 2012-13—after Labor's changes—there was a virtual tripling to 1,718 serious failures, for refusing a job—and the penalty was waived in over two-thirds of the cases. This is almost three times the number of incidents where job seekers refuse a job.

There were also the over-25,000 serious failures for repeated noncompliance, which was a threefold increase as well, and the penalty was waived in 73 per cent of the cases. What does this mean? It means that since Labor's changes job seekers—and it is a very small cohort of whom we speak—who refuse a perfectly good job or do not meet their participation requirements more often than not have no financial penalty applied. Because of that, the numbers have ballooned. It also means that this cohort of job seekers who do the wrong thing—by themselves as well as their fellow Australians—can continue to ignore their mutual obligation requirements without serious consequences. This bill will ensure that the existing penalties for serious failures are applied more rigorously, as they were in the past, in keeping with the reasonable expectation of Australian taxpayers.

Those senators who made contributions to this debate kept talking about 'the government, the government, the government'. Well, the government ain't got any money. Any money the government has comes from overseas borrowings or from taxes. If it comes from overseas borrowings, the Australian taxpayer will ultimately have to repay it with interest. So it is not government money; it is money out of the pockets of our fellow Australians. I think our fellow Australians agree, along with the other 98 per cent of job seekers who do the right thing, that we have an obligation to them as well. The coalition stands firm in its expectation that people in receipt of income support should be asked to undertake reasonable activities in return for that support—and that, where they do not, appropriate financial penalties should be applied.

This bill ensures that there are appropriate penalties for those few—but regrettably growing number of—job seekers who deliberately do not do the right thing by the Australian taxpayer and themselves. The government knows that the majority of job seekers understand their obligations and comply with their participation requirements. This bill is not of course targeted at that vast majority of Australian job seekers. This bill is only targeted at those job seekers who deliberately refuse a job without reasonable excuse or have been deliberately, persistently and wilfully noncompliant.

During the debate on this bill, many senators have said that, in the name of social justice, these noncompliant job seekers should continue to be funded by their fellow Australians. I have a different view of social justice. I have a view that a fair country, a decent country, will assist people in tough times but that it is right for Australians to expect something in return—and 98 per cent of Australian job seekers, the overwhelming majority, are meeting that expectation. Regrettably, in the name of a perverted sense of social justice, there are senators here championing the cause of that very small cohort of two per cent who persistently and wilfully do the wrong thing. These are job seekers who do not meet their mutual obligation, not—and I stress this—because of a disability or a vulnerability but simply because they choose not to do so. Disability, vulnerability—those sorts of matters would of course be taken into account, but it is not fair that the taxpayer has to fund the lifestyle of job seekers who deliberately do not meet their obligations. This behaviour is not fair to the taxpayer or to themselves. This behaviour is also not fair to the genuine job seekers who are regrettably and undeservedly stigmatised by this very small group of job seekers who are not prepared to do their bit in return for income support.

Under this bill, job seekers who incur an eight-week non-payment penalty for refusing to accept a job without good reason will no longer be able to have that penalty waived under any circumstances. Job seekers who incur an eight-week non-payment penalty for persistently failing to meet their participation requirements will only be able to have their penalty waived once. It is important to note that job seekers will not be forced to undertake work that they are unable to do and that the personal circumstances of job seekers will be considered in all cases. I do not know why that was so deliberately ignored in the contributions of honourable senators, but it is a matter of great regret not only to me but also, I think, to the other 98 per cent of Australian job seekers and to the Australian taxpayers who shake their heads and wonder what sort of social justice is being espoused in this place. Safeguards will remain to ensure that, where a person has a reasonable excuse or a particular vulnerability, such as a medical condition, these factors are appropriately considered before the penalty is applied.

Penalties already exist for job seekers in receipt of income support who refuse a job or wilfully fail to meet their participation requirements. This bill simply ensures that these penalties are more rigorously applied. This is fair to the job seeker—because they will be doing themselves a favour—and it is also fair to the taxpayer and that vast majority of job seekers who do the right thing. The bill will only affect that relatively small group of job seekers who either refuse a job without a reasonable excuse or are persistently and wilfully non-compliant. Safeguards will remain. Not one of the contributors to this debate has indicated why somebody that refuses a job without a reasonable excuse or is persistently and wilfully noncompliant should not be penalised. This bill will ensure that all job seekers in receipt of taxpayer funded income support meet their obligations. That is not only fair but is what Australian taxpayers expect. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill be now read a second time.