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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I rise to take note of the document pursuant to continuing orders from the Department of Human Services, received on 5 September 2019. I urge people who are keeping a close eye on programs like ParentsNext to have a look at it—to have a look at how much money is being spent on these contracts for ParentsNext providers who also happen to be registered training organisations. You can see where I'm going here, folks. These are providers for a botched program, ParentsNext, where, for example, Mission Australia got $21,289,730.53. Others have had contracts of $18½ million or nearly $14 million. All these service providers are providing services to supposedly assist single parents, the vast majority of whom are single mothers, and supposedly train them to prepare to go back to work.

Some of these mothers have very young children, as young as six months old. These are the people that are being sent to Storytime at the library, to swimming lessons. It's a program that can't decide whether it's an early intervention and prevention program, a pre-employment program or in fact an employment program. Again, just recently, I had a parent ring me up to say that, even though she had some part-time employment, she was still stuck on ParentsNext. So much for this program supposedly enabling single parents to become prepared for work when they are already prepared for work.

I'm particularly concerned about those providers that are also RTOs. Talk about a recipe for making money! They are absolutely creaming it, aren't they, when they also run an RTO. But then go and have a look in this document at Indue; they're the people that are providing the cashless debit card. They have received $38,786,915.20, and guess what—confidentiality? Yes. Then go down to the Centrelink Call Centre Enhancements Initiative—$94,476,872.60. That is nearly $95 million to run the Centrelink call centre. Well, they're not getting much value for money for the $95 million, let me tell you, because there are still people ringing my office, saying, 'It's so hard to get through to Centrelink.' In fact, last week we had an example where somebody was in hospital and their partner was trying to phone Centrelink to say they were unexpectedly having to prolong their stay in hospital, and she kept ringing and ringing and couldn't get through to Centrelink. She had to ring my office, and we got through and we managed to get the issue dealt with. So much for the Centrelink call centre—$95 million. I can tell you how to better spend that sort of money so you can get much better service from Centrelink. Then you've got Serco Citizen Services Pty Ltd getting $36,300,000 for labour hire.

These are extremely expensive contracts that are going to a failed system to prop up private enterprise, instead of employing people properly at Centrelink to provide proper services to the most vulnerable members of our community, who need to get into contact with Centrelink, who need to be able to report their earnings. Have a look at these documents. Millions and millions and millions of dollars are being wasted on flawed services by this government, yet it won't raise Newstart, which will actually not only help people but also pump $4 billion into our economy and enable employment of at least 12,000 people.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senators, just bear with me. With documents, can we work through each page in order—with the indulgence of senators—so all those people following outside in Australia and listening, who would like to know where we're at, can follow the agenda too.