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

I rise tonight to speak on the Productivity Commission's report into mental health and the impacts mutual obligations and other elements of our social security system have on the mental health of individuals and families. Mental health and wellbeing have featured prominently this year. The year started with devastating bushfires that deeply scarred communities and our environment. These fires were followed by the turmoil created by the global pandemic and the impacts of social distancing, isolation and economic uncertainties. Whilst the government has increased investment in a range of mental health initiatives and support services throughout the year, experts are warning of the mental health pandemic that is yet to come. This makes the Productivity Commission's report particularly important, and I'm glad the government has finally released it.

The report looks at how our systems are working or not working, as the case may be, and what we need to do better to better support the mental wellbeing of Australians. The report makes a number of very important recommendations and comments. I'd like to focus on the key aspect of the commission's report that I mentioned at the beginning of my contribution, and that's the effect of our income support system on the mental health of both individuals and families. It should come as no surprise that this government's punitive and bureaucratic social security system systemically fails to support people with mental ill health. At the best of times, our income support system causes anxiety and poor mental health. This has only been exacerbated during a recession and while so many people are living with such uncertainty in their lives. The government's refusal to permanently raise the rate of the JobSeeker payment means we will see more and more people being pushed into poverty while our economy recovers. For the 1.4 million people who are currently unemployed or underemployed and relying on the JobSeeker payment, there continues to be a huge amount of anxiety and distress around the future of the coronavirus supplement and how they will continue to pay their bills, put food on their tables and keep a roof over their heads.

Living below the poverty line for an extended period of time is known to have a deteriorating effect on people's physical and mental health. The commission noted that people receiving income support were more than three times more likely to have depression than those in paid employment, which is expressed in one submission: 'I'm receiving Newstart, but it is not enough to live on. I'm struggling to pay my rent. I have to choose between food, medicine and paying my bills. Living like this without enough money or support is unspeakably awful. It makes you feel like no-one cares, like you don't matter. I want to see my psychologist, but I can't even afford to do that. I'm in a dark place.' No-one in this country should be forced to make decisions about whether you put food on the table or pay for your medications. Not only does living in poverty make access to meaningful mental health treatments difficult; the system itself exacerbates mental health conditions and creates stress and anxiety for people who are already struggling to make ends meet.

The commission also noted the challenges that people with ongoing mental ill health face when trying to enter the workforce. These challenges mean individuals actually require a more tailored approach when it comes to working with employment providers, and not the cookie-cutter job plans that are currently the go. I continue to hear that people are being unsupported by providers who have a lack of awareness and training and who are more interested in churning through participants than genuinely engaging with their needs, their career goals and how best to support them. It is no wonder that the commission found that outcomes for jobactive participants with mental ill health are significantly worse, with 82 per cent spending more than 12 months in the program compared to 64 per cent of the wider jobactive population.

The commission also pointed out that the Job Seeker Classification Instrument is failing to accurately place people in the streams they need to get the best support for their circumstances. The JSCI fails to detect mental ill health, resulting in participants being incorrectly streamed and laden with unrealistic mutual obligations that will only cause them more stress and anxiety. As a result, they are more likely to receive demerit points and have their payments suspended. With mutual obligations now being enforced again, I have deep concerns about the increased pressure and anxiety jobseekers with mental ill health will be feeling. It was revealed at estimates that within 30 days of mutual obligation being reinstated, 74,434 payments were suspended by Centrelink. This is almost 75,000 penalties issued in less than 30 days. It was later revealed, during the last sitting of parliament, that the number of suspensions had risen to 250,112—a quarter of a million suspensions.

We know from previous Senate inquiries how distressing it can be to receive a notification that your payment has been suspended for failing to meet one of your mutual obligations. The commission noted clearly, and with no uncertainty, that the implementation of stringent mutual obligation requirements for people with mental ill health will aggravate their symptoms and increase distress—the very system that this government is implementing. The targeted compliance framework is an incredibly blunt instrument, allowing employment providers to suspend a payment and creating a cascading effect of distress and anxiety in individuals and their families. This is a punitive and punishing system that fails to treat participants like real human beings, and causes immense damage to a person's emotional and physical wellbeing.

We also find ourselves in a situation where we have thousands of people on the JobSeeker payment who have only a partial capacity to work but are not unwell enough, or disabled enough, to have access to the disability support pension. Changes to the eligibility criteria for the DSP in 2012, including the requirement to be fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised, have particularly affected the ability of people with complex mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities to prove their eligibility for the DSP. Many complex mental health conditions are episodic in nature. Treatments and reports from psychiatrists can be very expensive, particularly if you are trying to survive on the JobSeeker payment. And the application process is incredibly bureaucratic, with the whole process of applying for the DSP making it incredibly difficult for people with poor mental health and mental health conditions. The requirement to complete a program of support further complicates the eligibility process and leaves people living in poverty on the JobSeeker payment for an extended and unnecessary period of time—people living with poor mental health being further distressed by the very system that's supposed to be supporting them.

The Productivity Commission has made it clear that mutual obligations, the rate of the JobSeeker payment and the DSP eligibility process are all exacerbating the mental ill health of income support recipients. I call on the government to implement the reforms of the Productivity Commission report so that we can begin the work that is required in order to ensure that we have systems in place that support those with mental ill health into recovery and wellbeing so that they can live a good life. We have a system that is literally making people sick and sicker. This has to include reforms to our social security system. I call on the government to permanently increase the JobSeeker payment, abolish the targeted compliance framework and reform the employment services system and the system of mutual obligation. They are not working. They are affecting people's mental health.

If the government is serious about mental health reform, they will take these recommendations on board. They will change the system that, as I said, is not helping people but making people sicker. Mental health reform includes all aspects of the system in this country, not just support services or treatment services but the underlying social determinants of mental ill health. It is time for reform across the board. Please, please, I beg the government: take those recommendations from the royal commission on board and change the system.

Senate adjourned at 22:16