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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs (Senator Scullion) to a question without notice asked by Senator Siewert today relating to the Community Development Programme.

This is a very important issue. We heard a great deal of criticism of the Community Development Program, both in the current inquiry—which I'll try not to comment on further because it is an ongoing inquiry—and outside of that process. We have heard of the appalling rate of penalties that have been applied to Aboriginal people living in communities, to the point where the around 35,000 people who are on CDP have copped more penalties than anybody else on the Newstart program. So quite clearly it is having a negative impact.

There has been a lot of criticism about the way the program operates. In particular, people have been very critical of the fact that the CDP is not really like the CDEP, when the government had originally—when it moved to that program—said that it was based on the CDEP. The key element of the CDEP was community wages, where people actually had real jobs at award wages and then got top-up. To give the minister his due—although I'm critical of a whole lot of other aspects of how CDP has been handled—the minister has listened, and at Garma the minister said that the program would be moving to community wages with top-up. That's work, and at award rates.

The reason I asked about when the government is going to articulate further about what the program's going to look like and when it's going to start is that people are obviously sick of the CDP and they want to get out of that program and move to community wages as soon as possible. The minister said that he has developed a set of principles. To date, when people have been asked if they have been consulted, they've said that they haven't been. I don't think we've heard from anybody yet who said they had been consulted about moving to community wages. I'd very much like to see the principles. The minister did not answer my question about what those principles are. I will be writing to the minister immediately asking him to outline those principles. Getting information on what they are and when they will start applying is absolutely fundamental.

But one of the really important points here is that the government finds itself in a quandary. The minister says we're going to go to community wages, based on award rates with top-up. That is work, and it is regarded as work by the community. Yet, at the same time, they want to apply the cashless welfare card. In Kununurra, CDP applies, but they also have—and I'll say here again—the awful cashless welfare card. What's the government going to do with the people who are on CDP working for community wages, based on award wages with top-up? They're going to try to quarantine wages, is what I heard from the government—and that is why I asked. They have two fundamentally different programs here, and they are going to clash. Is the government saying, 'We're going to have community wages and award rates with top-up, but we're still going to quarantine wages'? How can they do that? The minister's response was, 'We might shift it down so we only quarantine maybe 50 per cent.' They still—in the eyes of the community, and certainly to me—may attempt to quarantine wages. That is outrageous. I suspect that's the reason we haven't seen much progress on community wages. What I heard was the government is thinking of quarantining those community wages. That takes us down a very, very dangerous path. That's why I asked the question: is the government going to apply this or exempt people from the community welfare card if they are on community wages? The minister couldn't answer. The government has to answer that question.

Question agreed to.