Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015 seeks to simplify the existing compliance framework and assist job seekers in understanding what is required of them when they receive income support. This is achievable by renaming all short-term financial penalties as no-show no-pay failures. This language is straightforward and paints a clear picture to job seekers. The message is clear and simple. Job seekers now know that, when on income support, if you fail to show up or participate or undertake your mutual obligations to seek employment, you should not expect to receive income support.

The obligation placed on job seekers to accept suitable employment or undertake training confirms the status of the social security system in Australia—that is, Australia's income support system is intended to help or act as support for those in our community who face genuine difficulty in obtaining paid employment. The income support system is not designed to be an alternative for those who simply refuse to work. This bill maintains all existing protections for vulnerable job seekers, including the Department of Human Services carrying out conversations with job seekers and properly evaluating and assessing if a fair and genuine excuse exists. A conversation may seem trivial but often leads to a much clearer picture of the individual circumstances of the job seeker. Naturally, rights of appeal still exist for those who disagree with the position of the department. More important than all of this is the discretion available to employment service providers. This refers to the ability of employment service providers to determine whether or not to enforce compliance measures or utilise other strategies to re-engage job seekers. This discretionary policy is crucial in ensuring the job plan that has been developed to get an unemployed person into the workforce is tailored to the individual.

The objective and main focus of income support is, of course, to get as many people as possible off government support and into meaningful paid employment. As has been said on numerous occasions, the best form of welfare is employment. Getting more unemployed people into the workforce is a major priority of this government. This government has committed $6.8 billion over four years to encourage job seekers into the workforce. The $24.5 million provided for the reforms proposed in this bill is a small but crucial investment into the entire Australian social security system. This funding is about getting people into work and off government support. It is about changing community attitudes and the attitudes of many unemployed. It is about enforcing mutual obligations, but, importantly, it is about getting people into employment.

Employment not only means income. It bring self-worth and confidence. It brings choices and opportunities. As I have stated numerous times in this House, this government is committed to assisting and supporting people to obtain long-term sustainable employment. I am committed to this because I am conscious of the benefits of work not only to an individual but for their families and the broader community.

When I spoke to the 2014 bill in October last year, I stated then that Australians are generous by nature and always willing and ready to put their hands in their pockets to help those in need. This government strongly believes in a hand up, not a handout. We are always there to give a hand up, but what we need to ensure is that we do not fall into the trap of giving unsustainable handouts to receive nothing in return.

The measures within this bill are not unreasonable. We are simply asking those individuals looking for work and receiving income support to fulfil their mutual obligations. We are asking them to not only honour the Australian taxpayer and the role of employment agencies but help themselves by increasing their chances of finding work. This legislation is not about penalising those genuinely requiring a helping hand during difficult times. It is about making sure the right thing is done by those receiving income support, insofar as doing the right thing for themselves, their families, their self-esteem and their community. I commend this bill to the House.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015, is more of the same from the government. We now have a new Prime Minister, a new leader, but unfortunately we have the same old policies being put forward by the same tired government with the same speakers coming out time and time again, reiterating what they have said many times in the past. This proposed legislation seeks to put in place measures that were announced in the 2015 budget to strengthen the job seeker compliance framework by providing stronger and more immediate consequences for job seekers who do not meet their mutual obligations.

This bill seeks to allow a job seeker's participation payments to be immediately suspended if the job seeker fails to enter a job plan. On the face of it, that sounds very reasonable. A person should immediately enter into a job plan. But what sort of consideration is undertaken in that job plan? Is it something that the job seeker has input into, or is it something that they are basically told they have to do? I hear regularly that a person's background, training, skills and interests are not considered in this type of job plan. The consequences of this is that you are sending people off to interviews and setting them up for failure. They go to the interview and they are rejected, even if it is a mutual obligation such as the Work for the Dole program, for instance. If that person is not suitable, if that person does not have the personal requirements that are needed for that job, if that person does not have the skills that will be needed for the job, they will be told, 'Thank you for coming to the interview, but we do not need you. You will not be suitable for this job.'

I will give an example. I heard recently of an aged-care provider in the Shortland electorate to whom a number of participants for a Work for the Dole program were referred. An aged-care facility is a place where there are a lot of vulnerable people. One of the people that were referred was somebody that had a criminal record, and it was not a criminal record for something minor; it was for a major assault. This was a person that demonstrated that they would be unsuitable to work in an aged-care facility. But the person's job plan had been put in place, and the job plan identified Work for the Dole, and the JSA identified that it was appropriate to refer this person to an aged-care provider. This demonstrates very graphically that the detail that goes into designing a job plan is not sufficient. It is all about getting people back to work. It is not about considering the long-term benefits for that person who is a job seeker. It is just a matter of referring a person to a job and saying, 'Welfare's better than work,' rather than looking at why that person has been a long-term beneficiary of welfare.

The reasons for a person receiving welfare are very complex. For people unable to secure a job, people who have been unemployed for very long periods of time, it takes more than going to an employment provider and having the provider say: 'We're going to develop and implement a plan for you. This is what you're going to do.' It takes a lot more than that to get a person into work. You need to identify the barriers that prevent a person from actually accessing a job. You need to work out why that person has been unemployed for such a long period of time. Once you have identified that reason, then you need to look at the steps that need to be taken along the way to get a person to the point where they will be employable and where they can actually enter the workforce. It is absolutely pointless to refer people off to interviews and to develop a job plan that does not actually look at all the issues. All that is happening is that that job seeker is being set up for failure, and it is costing the government money because the employment provider can say that they are doing this work.

A penalty will also be borne by the job seeker if it is determined that they acted in an inappropriate manner during a meeting. That can be imposed as well. The bill also allows a job seeker's participation payment to be suspended when a job seeker fails to participate in an activity without a reasonable excuse. It would be suspended from the instalment period in which the failure is determined, not from the following fortnight as is currently the case. I have had numerous constituents come to me and tell me that their payment has been suspended. I had one person come to tell me that their payment had been suspended because their car broke down on the way to an interview. They showed me proof of this. It took them quite a significant amount of time to get their payment reinstated. During that period of time, they really struggled. Another constituent had to attend a funeral. Maybe the death of a family member is not deemed important by this government, but this constituent believed that attending their father's funeral was vitally important. If they had not attended their father's funeral they would have had to live with that fact for the rest of their life. They informed the employment service beforehand but, still, their payment was cut off. There are numerous mistakes that are made along the way too. I feel that the compliance is all on one side of the record.

There is nobody in this House who believes more strongly than I do that every person who is unemployed should have the opportunity to get a job. I have spent a very big part of my life helping people find jobs. But this is not the way to go about it. This is punishing people and not taking into account the whole picture and every detail that is needed to get that person to work.

The bill seeks to allow a job seeker's participation payment to be suspended immediately, as I have said, if it is deemed that that job seeker is not putting in place appropriate job search efforts. I refer back to the first example I gave of a person who has a serious criminal record and has been very long-term unemployed. That person needs a plan that deals with a number of issues. They need an employment service that understands the issues that are preventing that person from entering the workforce. They need special assistance. They need a special plan. They do not need to just be in a situation where they are jumping through hoops. Jumping through hoops will not lead to anyone actually securing employment.

A job seeker who fails to accept work will no longer be able to have their penalty waived by re-engaging and undertaking additional activities, even if that would cause hardship. This is very harsh legislation. It is legislation that is not about the person; it is about this government trying to cut their deficit, a deficit that has doubled since they came to power. It demonstrates that this is a government that are not about the people. It demonstrates that this is a government that does not understand real issues that affect real people when they are looking at engaging in the workforce and obtaining employment. Nothing more graphically demonstrates the failures of this government to engage, consult and consider all the issues than this piece of legislation.

The opposition have previously supported similar moves that closely align suspension of penalties incurred in relation to missed appointments—and this is the point I would like to make. We should be protecting the rights of the job seeker to allow them to have that reviewed. It is very simple: they should have the right to have the decision reviewed. We want to protect the rights of the job seeker to show a reasonable excuse. Surely attending your father's funeral should be considered a reasonable excuse if you present the funeral notice—but no. We want to prevent the government's attack on the scope of 'reasonable excuse'. This government is bloody-minded. It is harsh. It does not consider the person. Labor's protection and approach has been very successful in reducing the average suspension time for missed appointments. A reduction of suspension times means that a person is not thrown into financial hardship. It means that the government is listening to people and actually trying to get on with what all of us in this House want—and that is for people who are unemployed to find a job.

It is really hard in our society to survive without any money. If you lose your job, you have no money. If you have no parental support, how do you pay for your food? How do you pay for your housing? You can go and seek assistance from one of the charities. I see this as the government shifting their responsibility onto charities. If the charities can help you, they will. But the suspension period really does create a lot of hardship for that person. It can lead to them losing their accommodation, if they are paying rent, and many other aspects of their lives can be impacted on.

I will end where I began. This is a government that may have changed its leader but it is a government that has the same policies, the same philosophy and the same ideology. It is a government that is not about creating employment and getting people into jobs. Rather, it is a government that is about cutting the budget deficit, a deficit that has doubled since it has been in power.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015. This is about government doing the right thing by the taxpayer, most certainly, but it is also about doing the right thing by those who are not taking the responsibility for themselves, their families and their nation as seriously as they might. At the end of the day, they are going to be better off—as are the country and taxpayer—if they are employed or seriously seeking to become so. This legislation does it through introducing more immediate consequences and stronger penalties for job seekers who fail to meet their obligations. The changes build on the no-show no-pay reforms introduced last year.

Since those changes taken last year we have seen more job seekers attending their reconnection appointments. The bill reaffirms the government's commitment to reinvigorating mutual obligation for job seekers in receipt of support income. In other words, it is doing the right thing by the taxpayer and the country, and it is our job to ensure that happens. The changes implemented ensure job seekers are doing their part and if they do not comply with their obligations they will now be held accountable for them.

Job seekers are obligated to enter into the Employment Pathway Plan. The EPP sets out a number of activities a job seeker must engage in, to become more employable, in return for income-support payments. It recognises that some people are not, in their current state, employable. It is not just about saying, 'Go out and get a job.' They are being helped, they are being urged and they are being assisted, but they have to play their part as well. Under this amendment, if a person refuses to enter into an EPP they will face penalties and payment suspensions. In addition, the job seeker may incur a penalty equivalent to a working day's payment for each day they continue to refuse without good reason. This is not without a safety net but it is there. The measure will act as a safeguard against people not properly engaging with the job search.

Under these changes, financial penalties will also apply to people failing to behave in an appropriate manner at an appointment. I think you can work out what that means. It means you actually have to try when you get there and not deliberately ruin it. Those who choose to behave badly during an appointment, without a legitimate excuse, may have a penalty amount deducted from their job seeker's participation payment. There is no value in a person attending an appointment when they deliberately undermine the purpose of it. It is about pushing responsibility onto the job seeker so they are held accountable for their actions. It will also see more immediate penalties for failure to participate in activities like Work for the Dole or job interviews.

Currently, the legislation only allows for penalties to be applied in future fortnightly instalment periods. That means it could take five weeks before it is applied. This will allow for penalties to be incurred in the current fortnightly instalment. Job seekers who are not engaging in an adequate job search will also be held to account and will face more timely penalties. Under the current system, a person may not be penalised for up to 14 weeks for ongoing inadequate job search. The compliance measures will see payments suspended immediately. Once they show that they have been putting in the effort and searching for employment, seriously, payments will be restored and they will even receive a full pay-back. It is not trying to make life unliveable, it is trying to do the right thing by the taxpayer—who funds people in this situation—and by themselves and their families, in the short and long term.

The bill will weed out those people who are taking advantage of our system. Genuine job seekers will remain supported and unaffected. Those job seekers who are offered a job and turn it down will also be subject to the eight-week non-payment period. If we expect society to support us, we have to do the right thing by society. In 2013-14, 78 per cent of eight-week non-payment-period penalties for refusing work were waived as job seekers opted to undertake additional activities rather than serve the financial penalty.

Those refusing work will no longer be able to avoid the penalties. People choosing not to work should not be rewarded, and the bill ensures those continuing to rort the system will face real consequences. This government—this parliament—would not be doing the right thing by those people who do work, pay tax and fund social security if we did not take this action. The bill will streamline and simplify the current framework. Redundant provisions will be removed and all short-term penalties will be renamed as no-show no pay.

As we have said, the bill adds to legislation implemented last year to further strengthen job-seeker compliance. There is evidence, so far, that there is a positive impact from introducing these penalties. Last year the changes saw rates of people attending their reconnection appointments jump from 65 per cent in 2013-14 to more than 90 per cent in June 2015. The figures tell the story there.

As I have been saying about community expectations, as community and taxpayers fund all social security payments—which are necessary—individuals who are not genuine job seekers are, at the moment, able to escape any real ramifications. Currently there is very little to deter a job seeker from moving into the workforce and choosing to get off welfare payments. Communities should not be expected to support those who do not want to work or contribute to our society. The bill ensures that community expectations are met and that people being supported by income payments are Australians who are genuinely looking for a job—if indeed they are physically and otherwise able to do so. If they are not and they need help to become that way, that is what this is all about.

We need a system that moves people off income support as quickly as possible. I believe these new compliance measures are reasonable and that they hold people to account. Job seekers most definitely need to be actively participating in changing their future, their family's future and in helping their country. As I said, we are not getting rid of safety nets; indeed in some ways we are strengthening them. But our welfare system is about helping Australians who have come on hard times, not people who are taking advantage of the system. Ramifications must be in place to act as a deterrent to people who are improperly relying on welfare, but at the same time the safety net is being strengthened rather than weakened. This amendment sends a clear message to Australia that those in need will be helped and will continue to be helped, while those taking advantage will face the ramifications.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For a government that claims to want to get away from big government and for a party that likes to preach about being a party that supports small government, those opposite really do like to go after job seekers and stand over them. Just consider the words of the former immigration minister, then social services minister and now Treasurer—the demonising language he uses. He says, 'We have got to stop young job seekers taking the welfare bus from the school gate to the Centrelink office.' This is a government that really likes to stand over job seekers, that really likes to demonise them and say that they are people who are bludging on our system. Quite frankly, that could not be further from the truth. Those people who are not genuinely looking for work quite often have something more complex going on in their lives. The majority of job seekers that I have met in my electorate and throughout regional Australia are genuinely wanting and looking for work. The problem that we have in this country at the moment is that there are just not enough jobs for the job seekers we have. There is more that this government can be doing to help create and secure good jobs in this country.

Labor's position, as some of the previous speakers have spelt out, is that we are supporting some of the measures in this bill but not supporting others—because we believe they will make it harder for vulnerable job seekers. It was Labor that first moved to encourage job seekers to engage with employment service providers, and we did this because we believe it is going to increase the likelihood of job seekers gaining work—keeping them active, keeping them positive. Yes, I acknowledge that there is some work we need to do with employment service providers; there are some good ones and there are some that need to pick up their game. That is something that any government needs to be vigilant about.

For these reasons Labor will support some of the proposals in this legislation. Labor believes that more closely aligning the dates of suspensions and/or penalties with the actual date of noncompliance will ensure that people re-engage more quickly. It will also ensure that any mistakes that are made can be corrected sooner. It does happen—we have all heard of examples of people accidentally being suspended and then not realising that that mistake has been made until they have had the money deducted from their pay. Closely aligning the date of suspension with the actual date of noncompliance will help to clean up those mistakes that occur and will encourage people to re-engage sooner.

We have previously supported similar moves in this regard for missed opportunities—ensuring, however, that the right of job seekers to have the decision reviewed is protected so we can make sure that we pick up those mistakes when they occur. It is about protecting the right of job seekers to show 'reasonable excuse'—so that there can be some compassion and understanding about why somebody has missed an appointment. It can be due to simple things: the bus did not turn up; there was a flat tyre; or, as a previous speaker mentioned, they went to a funeral. There needs to be an opportunity for job seekers to demonstrate reasonable excuse, because this is what happens in people's lives.

If we expect employers to be reasonable about excuses for why employees may be late to work, then Centrelink, job agencies and service providers should do the same. They should have that compassion and that understanding. We will only support the measures in this bill after preventing government attacks on the scope of what is reasonable excuse. We need to make sure that we are supporting people in helping them to work. We should not be slapping them down and standing over them with a big stick. We need to be supporting these people in genuinely finding work—extending the hand as opposed to slapping them down. As a result of the protections that Labor introduced, the average suspension for missing an appointment dropped from 5.2 business days down to 3.1, and the reforms that are before us today will help to reduce that even further.

Labor, however, is going to fight some of the proposals that are in this legislation. We will not support the broad changes that seek to penalise the behaviour of job seekers based upon criteria that are unfair, unclear and potentially will harm unemployed Australians. We do not support the penalties that prevent job seekers from re-engaging in activities that will help them to find work, especially when we know that such penalties will increase hardship. Also, we will not support any attempts to coerce jobseekers and undermine the mutual nature of the formation of a jobs plan. We need to make sure that there is independence within any plan, and that there is not any kind of untoward behaviour going on.

Labor have referred this bill to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee for hearings and look forward to finding out the outcomes, because this is complex policy and we acknowledge that. We want to hear the experience of people seeking jobs.

As I said, we need to be getting on with the job of creating jobs. These measures would not be as important and necessary if we had a government that was genuine about creating jobs and not just more rhetoric. We are talking about people throughout the age spectrum—we are talking about younger workers, older workers, people who are genuinely looking for work, and there are not a lot of jobs available. There is more that the government can do in this space.

Recently, I caught up with Life Essentials in my electorate, and they are one of the early organisations that signed on the Work for the Dole program. What struck me when I went there was not just the professionalism of the participants but that they saw what they did every day—arriving to work on time, running the rosters and doing the work they did—as a job. They did not need to be under the banner of Work for the Dole. They had been volunteers previously. They were now Work for the Dole participants, and they were committed to the work that they were doing. Why? Because there were not jobs available for them. Their stories—they had been to 200 job interviews; they had submitted resumes over and over again, sometimes not even getting the reply, 'We have received your resume.' They said: 'Lisa, it is simple—there just aren't enough jobs for me. They just don't exist. I don't qualify for training anymore. I'm struggling to get out there and to talk to people in retail. There is a bit of a slowdown in retail. That has been my experience, and I just can't get a start.

Younger workers—youth unemployment in my area is up to 18.2 per cent. That is not because young people do not want work—they do. There is not the entry-level jobs available today for them. This is where the government could be really proactive and look at the space of temporary work visas, and the number of people who are in this country at the moment as overseas workers. There are 1.2 million temporary workers in this country, whether they be on 457, 467 or 417 visas, or international students. The government could help free up a lot of jobs that exist here in this country right now by cracking down and getting tough on the temporary workers and on what is going on in the temporary work visa space.

One of the reasons why local people are struggling to compete in this market is that there are temporary workers here who are being exploited. How can a young person from my electorate in Bendigo compete with someone who is here on a 457 visa, or a 417 visa, and getting paid $5 an hour less? How is this happening? At KR Castlemaine in my electorate—the 'big baco' where they produce a lot of 'dons' and KR Castlemaine, which you all buy in the supermarket—there is a collective agreement in place. That collective agreement has been undercut because the company has outsourced to a third party and employed 417 visas, and taken away jobs from local young people. At the moment, that is completely above board. There is clearly a weakness in the Fair Work Act, and there is clearly no will from this government to tackle that. Those young people who have lost their jobs at that place are now looking for work. They are people who are going to be subject to the rules that are before us today. They are quite willing to keep working at the bacon factory. They are quite willing to keep working there. They are keen to keep working there. But they have lost their jobs to people who are here on 417 visas—the backpacker visas. They have lost their jobs. They have been undercut.

This is where the government can do more to help create jobs—secure jobs, in our community. The youth unemployment rate is almost equal to the number of temporary backpackers that we have in this country. There is a problem with the temporary work visa space. Then we go to skilled workers—the 457 visas and all the scandals that we are hearing, almost on a weekly basis, of workers being underpaid in the 457 visa space. Some companies and employers are not even attempting to take on a graduate.

We have a very high rate of engineers coming out of university who cannot get a job within the first 12 months and the first two years. They might still be working in retail or they are looking for work; yet, time and time again, we are seeing those jobs go to people who are here on 457 visas. I challenge business and this government to come up with a plan that will see pathways from education into skilled professions. At the moment there is a gap. There is a gap in the graduate entry-level space, and this government is doing little to help encourage university students make that next step. Employers and government need to work together to ensure that we rebuild entry-level programs.

This bill does talk about job seekers. It does try to take the tough-stick approach to people who are looking for work. As I have said, some of these measures Labor will support, but others we will not because they go after vulnerable job seekers. This government needs to show compassion and understanding when it comes to people who are looking for work. I have mentioned that most people who are looking for work just need a job, and this government needs to do more to create jobs.

For the other group of people who are missing appointments and not getting there on time—quite often there is something more complex going on in their lives. These are people who might come from intergenerational unemployment, and there are pockets of this disadvantage that exist everywhere. In my electorate, we have parts where there is third generation unemployment. This measure, by cutting their payment off, is not going to fix what is going on in their homes. They need support, education for their children and social workers to go into their homes to help rebuild their confidence. The more sticks and slap-downs that you give them do not empower them to step up and take control and go to that job interview.

What we need to do is to be supporting these people to step up from the grassroots, support organisations like our councillors and support our welfare organisations to encourage them to re-engage and get involved in their community. It is more complex than just cutting them off, sending them a text message and saying, 'Go back to your interview.'

That is why some of the organisations in our electorate are engaging with the Work for the Dole program or other programs to strongly encourage that grassroots movement and to rebuild people's confidence. If only this government could get out there on the ground and start talking to people about the importance of creating jobs. You can do all the reform that you want in this place around vulnerable job seekers, making sure that we have got the rules tough enough and making sure people turn up to appointments, but, if you talk to anybody who is working in this space, what they want be able to offer job seekers is options—options in jobs that are available.

One of the previous speakers said that, if somebody refuses to take a job, they should be kicked off payments for that, or words to that effect. In regional areas, sometimes people turn down jobs because they do not have available child care or they cannot afford the car to get to the job on time. We do not always have decent public transport to help people get from A to B. Not every job is suitable to every person, so there needs to be compassion, understanding and flexibility. I strongly urge the government to rethink its approach to job seekers and to do more to help create genuine job opportunities, because without creating genuine job opportunities we are not going to be able to move people genuinely from social security, welfare and job seeker payments into jobs. Jobs are critical and this government needs to come up with a plan that will create good secure jobs that people can count on.

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives great pleasure to talk about the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015. Having purpose and having a job is very essential. In fact I hark back to a book I have been reading recently, quoting Henry Bolte, the once great 17-year Premier of the state of Victoria. He said, 'If you can ensure that people can get a job and then ultimately buy a house, much of the economy falls into place after that.' This is very true. We have to ensure that we create the economic framework for people to have a job.

The difference between the coalition and the Labor Party on this is how we get to that end. We recognise that governments actually do not employ people very much. It is small business that employs people. It is profitable businesses that employ people, and governments then come along and employ people in those services that surround the economic activity that is driven by business. So if we are going to create jobs then we need to have the economic climate and the opportunity to produce something: either dig it up and sell it, value-add it to make something to provide a service—whether it be an education service, a food service or a marketing service—or grow it. In doing those things we stimulate an economy, and in stimulating an economy we create jobs.

The thing that we have been very instrumental in during a very short time, just two years in the parliament, has been creating the opportunity: the opportunity through a free trade agreement with China, the opportunity through a free trade agreement with Korea, the opportunity through a free trade agreement with Japan and the opportunity through the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It rattled me a little bit when I listened to the previous speaker, the member for Bendigo, who has probably been one of the greatest opponents to the free trade agreement with China, and that disappoints me, because I always want to tell a little story about why extra market opportunities translate to jobs and to wealth in the country.

In 1991, when I was a 16-year-old, we were exporting sheepmeat to 12 countries across the world. We had a bit of a dry time. Sheep were worth 25c, and we dug pits, we lined up with guns and we shot those sheep. On our farm business, we are now exporting sheepmeat to 96 countries across the world. Think about that: 96 countries. Recently, a few weeks ago, we sold for $110 old ewes that 24 years ago we would have shot. That is what comes from opening up trading opportunities. What are the outworkings of that? The outworkings of that are on my property. We are able to employ quite a number of people—that is jobs. Jobs start by creating opportunities, and that is what are doing, and that is really the key focus.

I look across the electorate of Mallee that I represent. Four years ago, we had zero citrus into China. Now we have 10,000 tonnes of citrus annually going into China. Four years ago, we had zero shipping containers of table grapes, and now we have over 1,000 shipping containers of table grapes. All those are hand-picked. All the irrigation systems that are rolled out are ultimately being done by people, and that is jobs. The free trade agreements and those extra market opportunities have meant that, instead of having to take the price that is offered, we have more customers for the things we produce. We get more money in. More money then stimulates people to have more confidence, and they then employ people, and these are some low-skilled jobs.

It is true that, when we think about how we structure an economy, we have to have jobs for people of all different levels, and I am saying something today to the students of Australia who are doing their year 11 and 12 exams: do your best, but don't get worked up about your results, because we want to have a society that has all sorts of skills. Some people will become lawyers—I hope not too many of them do. Some people will become great tradespeople. Some people will be farmers and some people will be teachers. We want to have an economy that allows the diversity of jobs for a whole range of people so they can use their natural God-given gifts to contribute to society. But there also have to be obligations for laziness. We are not saying that there should not be social security, but there have to be obligations for laziness.

I was in the United States in July. We are not like the United States, and I am proud of that. In the United States, if you are unemployed, you get benefits for six months and then they are cut off. In those unemployment benefits you also receive health benefits, but, if you are not working and you are not paying your health insurance, that is also cut off. So you have a six-month period where people have to get a job and, at the end of the six months, they are cut loose. They are cut loose from the health system and they are cut loose from the welfare system. We are not proposing something like that. I do not think any fair-minded Australian would ever support something like that.

What we are saying and what the collective population of Australia is saying to a person who is unemployed is: 'We are going to support you to ensure that you have a roof over your head and that you are fed, but we want an obligation from you. That obligation is that you need to be actively trying to better yourself, either through training or through trying to get a job.' That might not mean you get to pick your dream job. If there is one thing I have learnt through my working career, as someone who did not go to university, is that the best way to get a better job is to be working in a job. When you are working in a job, you are showing to potential or future employers that you are motivated, that you are willing to turn up and that you are willing to get out of bed.

I see that we have children in the gallery. One of the great things about the children in the gallery is that they get to see their House, the people's House. I am going to give a great piece of advice to the children in the gallery up there: the secret to success is to look at what everyone else is doing and do a little more. So, if you work in a supermarket and people are stacking shelves, just do a little bit more. If you are working at McDonald's and you see someone working, just do a little bit more. Even in school, the secret to success is to just do a little bit more. My father always told me, when I was working—and I started by riding a pushbike to clean out horse stables as a kid—to never walk around with my hands in my pockets, because it makes it look like you are not working. It is about perception. If you want to be noticed by the boss and want to be noticed for success, just do a little bit more.

This legislation is really about saying that, for those who do not want to honour the agreement of benefits that are being provided to the Australian people, there will be consequences. So, if you are unemployed and you are in the process of trying to get a job—you are actively seeking and you are working with the bodies that the Commonwealth has funded to help you get a job—and you are trying your best, you have nothing to fear from this legislation at all. But, if you can find lots of excuses to not try to get a job, then I do not think it is unreasonable for the Commonwealth to say that there might be consequences to you not fulfilling your obligation.

In this bill there are financial penalties for failing to enter an Employment Pathway Plan. There are penalties if you fail to behave in an appropriate manner at an appointment, and that is fair and reasonable. If the Commonwealth is going to provide services and can help set you up for a job interview and you turn up at that job interview and actively do not want to try to get the job, then I do not think you are fulfilling your obligations to the people of Australia who are paying your benefits. There are obligations to take the job that is presented to you if it is fair and reasonable. As I said earlier, if you are working within a job, that is the best chance to get a job.

There is a capacity to try to get a more simplified compliance framework. We do not want people to be disadvantaged because they do not understand the system; we want to make sure it is clear that you are getting benefits and, as a result of getting those benefits, this is what we expect of you. Making it more streamlined is fair. We do not want people to be disadvantaged for ignorance. But we do say to job seekers: if you are unemployed, you are not just unemployed; your new purpose is to be a job seeker. It is our obligation as members of parliament to create the economic framework for that take place.

In creating the economic framework for that to take place, we also need to be very mindful that sometimes people find challenges in getting on the first rung of the ladder. People do not always have the greatest start in life. Some people do not always have the greatest role models to follow. We have to break the stereotype and that is the challenge. There are 600,000 Australians living in households where no-one has ever held down a job, which means that a child growing up may not know which role model to follow. That is why I am a strong believer in ensuring that there are also supportive services around to help people get on the first rung of the ladder. I think we are doing it. We are doing it reasonably well, but there is obviously more work to do on this. It can be a multiple approach.

I have a very strong Indigenous community in the electorate of Mallee. We have a program in schools called the Clontarf Football Program. Some might be aware of it. It started with a love of AFL and using AFL football to get people engaged and then help them get job-ready. In that program, quite a few businesses sat down with the Aboriginal kids and said to them, 'These are the jobs we have available.' The guys were so self-confident and had so much ability—they were going on to university or they were going to do this or were going to do that. It really has taken people who may not have got on the first rung of the ladder onto the first rung of the ladder. In Stawell, the community has 20 people in year 10 and, as part of their education, they have to do an interview to be in the program. Then, over a period of 20 days throughout half a year, they get exposure to a different career choice. They might do a day in a bakery and are given a heap of flour and finish by making a product. They might do a day in the council and will realise what human resources are. They may do a day in a law firm. So, over that 20 days they are exposing people to getting job ready. I think there are some real great models that we can roll out across Australia to ensure that people can get on the first rung of the ladder.

To summarise, the federal government's role is of course to create the economic framework. We are doing that. We are very mindful of that. We are doing that through our free trade agreements. We are creating market opportunities. We are trying to instil confidence in small business so that they will employ one extra person. If every small business in Australia employed one extra person we would not have enough people to fill the opportunities that would be available.

We are also providing a welfare system that is fair and is asking some obligations of those who are recipients of it. Then, we are doing a lot of work to try to get people to be able to attain the first rung on the ladder. Ultimately, this multifaceted approach is how we build society. I want to reiterate to young people who are doing their exams and studies at the moment: do your best—there are many jobs and many career pathways out there for you. There are many ways you can contribute to society and many ways you can contribute to making Australia great.

It is not unreasonable for the Commonwealth to ask obligations of those we are providing benefits to. The purpose in doing that is, ultimately, so that people who are receiving benefits can get off these benefits and then contribute to Australian society, stand a little bit taller and be a little bit more proud, because they have a job.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the biggest policy challenges we face in this parliament is the 800,000 Australians who are today out of work. It has been to my enormous distress and frustration that, even since I was elected to parliament two years ago, this problem has grown significantly worse. We have seen the unemployment rate in this country climb significantly since I was elected to parliament. For certain pockets of this country and for certain people who are living in Australia and have a looser connection to the labour market, such as young Australians, the problem has gotten dramatically worse.

Unemployment is a profoundly important issue. For a Labor member of parliament this is absolutely core to our mission. We know that the best way out of poverty is a job, and the fastest way into poverty is job loss. So I want to start by saying how critical it is that we talk in this parliament about this pivotal issue of unemployment.

It has been with some disappointment that I have seen a real lack of discussion in this chamber about this important topic. The debate today on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015 touches on the support we give to people who are out of work. But what I am waiting to see come before this House is a bill about job creation and how it is that we are going to start to get these 800,000 Australians, many of them young people—one in five unemployment Australians today are young people—into work.

The bill today relates to the system we have set in place to help connect people who lose their jobs back into work. This is a critically important social justice issue. One of the things the evidence on job loss is very clear on is that the best indicator of how long someone will be unemployed is how long they have been unemployed for. What this means is that the quicker we can get people who lose their jobs back into work, it is the very best thing we can do for those people, because every extra day on which they are unemployed makes it that bit more challenging. So, the system that we construct to help people who lose their jobs to instantly connect back into work—to get back on their feet and give them the support and skills they need to find a new job—is incredibly important.

Making the system work well is a very worthy goal, and it is something that Labor comes to the table to discuss, with the importance being on evidence in this and not on ideology. We do not want to assess the strength of this system based on what are really unsubstantiated beliefs about what it may be like to be unemployed and what sort of things we can do to help people. Rather, we should look at the studies that have been done and at things we have tried in the system before. We need to look at what really does make a difference to people who are looking for work.

What principles will we use to consider legislation that touches on this really important area of helping people who have fallen out of work? I think the first one is that we should show real concern for these Australians who are struggling to find work. All of us, as members of parliament, talk to people who are struggling to find work. Every time in the last two years that I have done a mobile office or set up at a train station to talk to people I represent about what is worrying them, I will have a person who is struggling to find work. The sense of incredible distress they feel and the enormous impact this has on mental health and self-esteem cannot be overstated. This is intensely important. It does not just affect the person, but their whole family generally is affected by their falling out of work. So I think we need to be frank and be concerned about these people and provide them with support.

The member who preceded me in this discussion talked extensively about the need for mutual obligation. Of course Labor supports the need for mutual obligation. We support it because that is the fair approach. It is fair that people who are getting benefits from government also give back to their community. But we support it because that is what is in the best interests of job seekers. One of the driving principles of all of this area of policy is that we need to help people and support them and also push them a little bit to re-engage, because people who do fall out of work sometimes can start to slip through the cracks, and we cannot allow that to happen. So, when we talk about mutual obligation we need to be clear that this is not a punishment. It is not trying to penalise people who often, through no fault of their own, find themselves without work. But it is an important principle, because it helps that person.

These are some of the principles through which we have looked at the proposals that have been put forward by the government in this bill. Using that approach we support three aspects to the six changes that are being proposed, and there are three that we do not believe are in the best interests of the system and we therefore will not be supporting them.

I will first talk through the aspects of the bill that we are supportive of. Firstly, the bill seeks to allow a job seeker's participation payment to be suspended when a job seeker fails to participate in an activity, without a reasonable excuse, from the instalment period in which the failure is determined, and not the following fortnight—I will decode that into English in a moment. The second aspect is that the bill allows a job seeker's participation payment to be suspended immediately when the job seeker fails to undertake adequate job search efforts, without a reasonable excuse. The final of the three provisions that we will support is that the bill will rename all failures resulting in short-term financial penalties as 'no-show no-pay' failures.

What does all that mean? The central meaning of all of this is that the government is proposing to bring the penalty associated with failing to comply with the job seeker system close to the action itself, which is the failure to comply. It means that, if you are judged not to have turned up to your appointments and this is a consistent failure, the decision of the government to not continue your payments will be brought right back to the point in time that this behaviour occurred. It sounds like a small thing, but it is actually critically important. What we are trying to do is perfectly line up the failure to comply with, essentially, the punishment or the incentive to re-comply. The reason that Labor will support these provisions, again, has nothing to do with anything punitive; but we know that, when we bring those two things together, the job seeker is absolutely clear about the reason that their payments have been ceased, and we can show that this reduces the time that people are without payment. This is very consistent with Labor's approach to this policy space while we were in government. Labor of course have always encouraged job seekers to engage with employment providers, but the evidence, which we worked on while in government, does show that this short period between the reason for suspension and the reduction in income is important and productive, and previous efforts to line them up have reduced the delay in payment for the job seeker.

All of these things are terribly important because we are trying to tighten up this system to, again, ensure that people who are without work are not allowed to fall through the cracks. We cannot in good conscience allow people who fall out of work to disengage completely from the system. We need to encourage people to keep trying to get back on their feet and get back in the game, and the three amendments that I have referred to are really trying to achieve that. For those reasons, Labor will support them and we are happy to continue to improve the system.

But I mentioned earlier that one thing that Labor will not do is confuse the job seeker system, which primarily exists to support people back into work, with some form of punishment. There are 800,000 Australians out of work today and surely no-one in this House believes that all of those people are completely at fault for what has happened to them. These are broader macroeconomic issues that they, in a sense, are the victims of, and it is completely inappropriate to create a system of punishment to bully those people into jobs that, frankly, do not always exist for them.

For those reasons, there are three measures in this bill that we will not be supporting because we believe they are punitive, are unfair and will, frankly, have terrible social justice outcomes, which will push more job seekers into poverty faster. The first measure is that this bill seeks to allow job seekers' participation payments to be immediately suspended if job seekers fail to enter into a jobs plan. Essentially, job seekers are presented by their service provider with a plan for how they are going to get back into work. The bill is essentially seeking to provide that, if the job seeker does not immediately sign this plan, their penalty will be that their payments are stopped, so they will be left without any income. Labor believes this is unfair because it just takes it too far, essentially. It seems incredibly unfair to ask a person who has fallen out of work to instantly, on the spot, sign up to a plan that they have not had the time to take away, consider and discuss with their family. We know that often these plans recommend things that the job seeker is not even meant to be doing. The shadow minister gave a good example of an older person who had fallen out of work who was asked to go into a Work for the Dole program. Under this bill, the person would not have the time to take the document away, consider it, get advice and speak to people.

The other aspect of this that we do not like is that there is simply no evidence that this type of activity is going to encourage more people into work. What it is likely to do instead is take vulnerable people, force them into signing a document that they have not had the time and the space to consider, and threaten them with a failure to comply and not having any income at all. That is patently unfair.

The second aspect of the bill that Labor will not be supporting is the provision that seeks to introduce a new penalty for job seekers who are deemed to act in an inappropriate manner. One of the critical issues—and this actually spans across the three measures that Labor will not support—is the lack of clarity around what exactly this means. I heard the member from the other side who preceded me in the debate talk about what he believed was an inappropriate manner, but it is not defined in the legislation. What the bill suggests is that the secretary of the department will have full power to define 'inappropriate manner'. This will not be a matter subject to parliamentary oversight, and this is a really problematic feature. We also know that the behaviour of the person deemed to be inappropriate will have to come through multiple different sources—perhaps from the person running the Work for the Dole program, to the job services provider, back into the arms of government. We just do not believe that the powers around something that so lacks clarity should be handed over to the secretary.

I remind the House: of course a lot of things that we do in this House allow a lot of latitude on the part of decision makers and public servants, and sometimes that is appropriate, but let's remember that the end point of this is someone's income being taken away from them. Someone without any other income will be literally with no income. These are people who have rent to pay, food to purchase and families to support. So I think we need to set the bar a little higher than just allowing one senior public servant to define inappropriate behaviour and set up a system where we see multiple points at which messages and communications could get mixed up. I think we need to work a little harder than that and be a little clearer about what is and is not acceptable. Perhaps Labor will be willing to have that discussion if there is a bit more clarity.

The final aspect of the bill that Labor will not be supporting is the provision that would not allow job seekers who fail to accept work to be able to have their penalty waived by re-engaging and undertaking additional activities, even if it would cause financial hardship. In a sense, I have left the worst till last here, because I think this is such a good example of what we see so much of on the other side of the House, and that is this appalling treatment of job seekers without any acceptance that there are a lot of vulnerable people who are job seekers in this country, and we should not set up a system which essentially punishes them for being victims of broader economic issues over which they have little or no control.

Essentially, the way the system works at the moment is that there is a discretion about whether someone's payments will be taken away from them, subject to the person agreeing to undertake additional activities. So, if they miss a series of job appointments or they do not show up to their Work for the Dole program, there is the capacity for government to say, 'We're going to allow you to continue to receive your payments if you agree to do the following things.' This bill seeks to take that discretion away. What we are talking about here is that there will be many more job seekers who will be left without income. The specific provision says that it does not even matter if this is going to cause financial hardship to the person. We are talking here about vulnerable job seekers who are definitely going to be put in situations where they may become homeless, because job seekers are the most vulnerable people, and the discretion to decide whether to take that payment away or not is being dealt with.

We are always enthusiastic to engage in discussions about this important system, but unfortunately three of the most significant aspects of this provision are simply unfair, and Labor will not be able to support them.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015. This bill ensures that Australians who are looking for work and receiving financial assistance meet their mutual obligations to taxpayers. It is not unreasonable for taxpayers to expect that those they are assisting financially will do a few simple things to help themselves and to show their appreciation.

I know that many people in my electorate are doing it tough, but my belief is that you can achieve anything if you are willing to work for it, and work hard. From my personal experience, money was incredibly tight in my family as I grew up. Anything I wanted above the essentials, I had to pay for myself. There is only one way to find money to pay for essentials and other things, and that is to go to work. Both my parents worked incredibly hard, and they taught me that persistence and determination will always beat natural talent, because regardless of natural talent, if you do not turn your hand to what needs to be done, you will not be successful.

I note the contribution of my good friend and colleague the member for Mallee. He spoke about what happens when you stand around with your hands in your pockets. In my family, if you stood around with your hands in your pockets, you got a job. Consequently, my mother used to put me and my brothers outside to work. I think—and I did not realise this until much later in life—that may well have been to get us out of the way. However, it was a good upbringing and it certainly taught us a good work ethic.

At the age of 14 I got my first paid job. Work has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Basically, being without work meant no food—it was all fairly straightforward. My first paid job was filling bags with ice on a Thursday night for $4.00 an hour or 10c a bag, whichever was less. Consequently, I learnt very quickly what it is that you should be doing when you go to work. I might not have been the best at everything I did, but I was reliable and I kept turning up. To the people in my electorate and to the youth that might be listening to this speech, my advice to you is this: keep showing up, listen, work hard and take advice, certainly do not let things get you down, and be determined.

After graduating from public high school at Kepnock State High, I got my first full-time job as an electrical apprentice at the Fairymead Sugar Mill, which unfortunately is now defunct and has been demolished. I saved enough money from that job to move to Brisbane and go to university. I put myself through a four-year degree in engineering at QUT. So it has been a very long and tortuous path to come to this place. Before being elected to represent the great electorate of Hinkler—from Bundy to the Bay and the Bush—I ran my own consulting business, a retail arm and a few other bits and pieces, as well as acquiring some farming operations consecutively, which certainly taught me the value of hard work and, of course, how to pay people's wages.

I would say to the people in my electorate this: if a Woongarra farm boy like me can get into this place, into the cold rooms in Canberra, then anyone in my electorate can achieve anything if they are willing to do the work. Once again, my advice to them is this: take what job is in front of you, because if you wait for perfect you will wait forever. However, I recognise there are currently several challenges to gaining employment in the Hinkler region, including a lack of job vacancies. Unemployment in my electorate is unacceptably high.

The coalition government has introduced a range of measures to support job seekers and encourage businesses to employ. I will come back to that. Firstly I would like to speak a little more specifically about the measures in this bill. This bill builds on the measures we introduced last year to apply a no-show no-pay rule to attendance at appointments and the payment of welfare. Before we introduced the changes, only 65 per cent of job seekers who missed an initial appointment actually turned up for their second rescheduled appointment. By comparison, in June 2015 over 90 per cent of job seekers are now attending their rescheduled appointments. Between September 2014 and March 2015, the average payment suspension period fell from 5.2 to 3.1 business days. That is quite an achievement. It means more job seekers are doing the right thing and taking advantage of the help that is on offer, which is substantial. It also saves jobactive organisations and other agencies time and money. They can spend more time helping people find work and less time pursuing job seekers and reporting noncompliance. The no-pay rule will be extended to other mutual obligation requirements, such as entering into a job plan. Job plans list the activities that a job seeker must do in return for their income support, such as looking for work and participating in activities like Work for the Dole.

I make the point that job plans take into account personal circumstances, which may impact a person's ability to comply with the requirements. Unfortunately, some job seekers are refusing to enter into job plans—can you believe that? They are, in effect, saying, 'I would like the taxpayer's money, but do not expect anything from me in return.' I would like to see them try that with an employer.

I would like to talk briefly about one of my former employers at the Moreton mill, a chief engineer by the name of Graham 'Sharky' Williams. Graham was an incredible personnel manager who held a lot of respect from everybody that worked there. Every time we hired an apprentice, he opened with the same line: after he introduced himself, he would ask the apprentice if they knew what size shoe he wore. At that stage the poor apprentice, on their first day of work, was nervous and did not know quite what to say, and the boss told him it was a size 10 and if they played up they would find out what he would do with it. It is all figurative, but he got the best out of the people who worked at the plant simply because he encouraged them to persist and to keep showing up.

Under this bill, payment will be suspended until the job seeker accepts the job plan. There are safeguards in the system so that those with a reasonable and genuine excuse for noncompliance will not be penalised. Unfortunately, some job seekers are treating their meetings with jobactive and Work for the Dole with contempt by not behaving appropriately. If a job seeker does not behave appropriately at an appointment, payment may be suspended until the job seeker attends a new appointment and does behave appropriately. In the past, it has taken up to five weeks for a financial penalty to be applied. This is too long, and makes the penalty less effective. Under this bill, those who do the wrong thing will have their penalties deducted from their next fortnightly payment. Job seekers who do not undertake adequate job search efforts without good reason will have their payments immediately suspended until they demonstrate adequate job search efforts.

Australia's income support system is there as a safety net for those people who genuinely cannot find work—we have one of the best social security systems in the world—as opposed to supporting those who simply do not want to go to work. That is why we have introduced measures to ensure job seekers accept the offer of a suitable job when it is made—not jobs that are beyond their skill set but jobs they are capable of doing. An eight-week nonpayment penalty can now be applied to job seekers who refuse work without good reason or fail to start a job as planned. I have had many jobs that I did not like every part of. In fact, I do not recall ever holding a job where I liked everything 100 per cent. But that is the reality of working life. All of these changes are important in helping maintain public confidence and trust in our social security system.

Earlier I mentioned that we had introduced a range of measures to support job seekers and make them stand out in what is a highly competitive jobs market. Through Work for the Dole, the National Work Experience Program and the Green Army, job seekers are learning important skills while contributing to their communities. Young people can also gain new skills through the reinstated Australian Defence Force gap year. The 2015 budget included $330 million for a youth employment strategy to help young people transition from school to work. Young job seekers who find a job and stay off welfare for 12 months will receive a job commitment bonus of $2,500, and a further $4,000 at 24 months. These are substantial incentives. We are providing concessional trade support loans of up to $20,000 and spending $200 million each year to lift apprenticeship completion rates. We are also providing up to $9,000 to help people relocate to take up a job.

Giving genuine job seekers the hand up they deserve is just one piece of the puzzle. We are also taking steps to give businesses the confidence they need to expand, because ultimately it is businesses that create jobs and employ. Businesses that employ young or mature age job seekers can access wage subsidies of up to $10,000. We have reduced the company tax rate to its lowest level in 50 years and are allowing small businesses to claim an immediate tax deduction for each asset they purchase up to $20,000. There are a range of grants to assist businesses to innovate, conduct industry research and expand into new export markets. Off the back of the free trade agreements we have signed, I am sure businesses will be successful. There is the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme for job seekers who have an idea for a new business but need some advice to get it off the ground. As you can see, the coalition government is doing everything it can to ensure our social security system is robust and fair, and to help people into work.

I will continue to work hard to attract the investment into Hinkler that we desperately need—things like the Knauf manufacturing plant, and our proposal for a dive wreck of Hervey Bay, with HMAS Tobruk, which could potentially add $5 million to our local economy. But I cannot do it alone. We all have a role to play in creating local jobs for current and future generations. There are two simple things people in my community can do to boost our local economy—they can shop locally and buy from our local businesses, and they can tell everyone just how good our region is. You should never talk down your local region—our regions are the best thing we have going for us. Going to work is not only good for the individual and their family. When the local employment rate is high, the entire community benefits. There is nothing more substantial for a person than to be able to find their own way through life and to pay their own way. I commend the bill to the House.

Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sure it is self-evident to everyone here that public policy should constantly be checked and improved where it can be. Change in itself is not a bad thing, and reform is often a good thing. When it comes to getting people back into work in this country, we should be constantly looking for ways to improve the situation, to improve their lot and get them back into work. Regrettably the unemployment rate in this country is stubbornly persistent. Seasonally adjusted, the current Australian unemployment rate still sits at 6.2 per cent, and it is somewhat higher than that in Tasmania at 6.4 per cent. As high as those figures are, the real figure is undoubtedly much higher. Because of the way we measure the unemployed rate in this country, in essence if someone works at all, even an hour a week, they are not recorded as being unemployed and they are certainly not recorded as being underemployed. I have heard it said that the real unemployment rate might even be double the reported unemployment rate, and the underemployment rate might be double that again. If you start to add that up, a quarter of the work force could be either effectively unemployed or genuinely underemployed. So we do need good public policy to create more jobs and to get these people into jobs or into more work. This is especially the case in Tasmania, where the unemployment rate is higher and in particular the youth unemployment rate is higher. Nationally the youth unemployment rate sits at about 12.2 per cent, but it is 17 per cent in Tasmania, according to the official figures. According to community organisations in south-east Tasmania, around the Hobart area, it sits at almost 20 per cent—one in five young people in southern Tasmania are unemployed. That is not good enough.

I want to put a human face to those statistics. Too often in this place we talk about grand public policy and big reforms and big money and big dollars. I remind honourable members that we should always be putting a human face to these conversations. Every one of these people is a real human being. Some of them are struggling mightily against the odds and, to their great credit, are often achieving. I will give some cases of people who are not being well served by the current arrangement and will find things much more difficult if this Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015 is to become law.

The first example is a 58-year-old female constituent of mine who is on Newstart. She simply does not understand how to apply for jobs online, and the job service provider has not taken the time to explain it to her. Even if the job service provider were to explain it to her, she could not apply for jobs at home anyway because her internet has been cut off because she cannot afford to pay for it. That brings me to the point that, according to ACOSS, Newstart currently is about $280 a fortnight below the poverty line. If we want to help these people, if we want to help this 58-year-old woman from my part of the world, a good way to start would be to increase Newstart to a level that allows her to live a better life and to have the resources to actually get a job—to have the internet on at home. This woman, to her credit, is doing volunteer work at the botanical gardens, but that is only nine hours per week as opposed to the required 15 hours. She has applied for volunteer work with the Salvos, but she simply cannot get the 15 hours a week that she is required to achieve. The very sad footnote to this particular story is that this woman's adult child is disabled and, because of the obligations that are already on her before this bill becomes law, she simply does not have enough time to spend with her disabled child and cannot do the things that her disabled child desperately wants to do, like going camping, because of the requirements that are already on her.

Another human face of the current unemployment situation in this country is a 25-year-old Iranian woman with limited English. She does not understand the changes that were made in July and has been repeatedly cut off from her payments. The issue for this woman is that she keeps reporting late, but no-one has bothered to get a translator to explain this to her. She thinks that her payment rates just vary and that is just the way things are. She has been underpaid and no-one has helped her out. We are talking here about an Iranian woman with limited English. The Multicultural Council of Tasmania has raised with me that they are getting a number of complaints with regard to the new requirements, as people not only do not understand them but also do not have the English or computer skills to comply with them.

Another example, another human face, is a 26-year-old female constituent who is enrolled in a two-year fast-track nursing degree that must be done full time. Because she is doing it as a second degree she is not eligible for youth allowance, so she is on Newstart. She was told, until we remedied it, that she had to drop her full-time degree—the pathway to becoming a nurse and getting a great job—so that she could meet the Work for the Dole requirements. I am pleased to report that in this particular case my office raised the matter with the department and her situation was eventually remedied. But what about the people who do not have the wherewithal to get their situation remedied or to talk to the very good staff that I have? These people fall through the cracks.

Another example, another human face to these figures, is a 63-year-old man who is expected to apply for 10 jobs a week. That is 40 a month, but in the last four years he has only ever had seven replies to his applications. He recently did receive a reply thanking him for his application but saying he was unsuccessful as they had received over 300 applications.

These are the human faces of the current situation, and it is a very sad collection of human faces. Will this bill remedy things? Regrettably, it will not. These are not malingerers or bludgers. These are not people who are trying to rort the system. These human faces, these individuals I have described, do not deserve additional legislation that could, at best, be described as punitive—and that is how I would start to describe this bill—or could even be described as vindictive. The underlying philosophical base or foundation for this bill is an assumption that most job seekers are out there trying to rort the system. The reality, of course, is that most job seekers desperately want a job and will do everything in their power to comply with the government's existing requirements and new requirements, but they cannot always do it.

This bill has a number of problems that will just make things worse. For example, people will be forced to sign up to a job plan without any opportunity to discuss or negotiate it, and if they do not agree with the job plan they will be penalised. That cannot be fair. The penalties for what is described as 'inappropriate behaviour' will disproportionately target people with behavioural problems or mental health problems. If you do not show up for an interview you will not get paid. So if you are asked to attend a meeting but have something in your personal life that prevents you attending that meeting you will not get paid. Genuine reasons—such as being physically or mentally unwell, having childcare issues or other equally valid reasons—would not be deemed as valid reasons.

We need a better approach to unemployment and underemployment in this country. We are not going to solve it by putting in place increasingly punitive and even vindictive legislative requirements—requirements that basically take money off the unemployed at the first excuse, and arrangements that punish people unfairly. Most of these people desperately want a job. Some of them have very difficult lives. Some of them have complex lives. Some of them are looking after other people—looking after a disabled child, in that example I gave. We need a better approach to helping these people.

For a start, we could increase Newstart. I make the point, again, that ACOSS has found that the current rate of Newstart is $280 per fortnight below the poverty line. When you are paying people that little amount of money—those few dollars—they are not being given the circumstances to lift themselves up out of underemployment and unemployment.

We need better help for the young. I have said that youth unemployment in south-east Tasmania is almost 20 per cent. What are we doing to help them? We are doing less and less to help the very young. In fact, we say that if you are under 22 years of age and your parent or parents have a modest wage you cannot even access Centrelink benefits. That is not good enough.

We need better help for the aged, for older unemployed people. There are a whole range of things that the previous government could have done to deal with the ageism that exists. It is next to impossible for someone over the age of 50 to get a job, and I am sure there are many things that we could do in this place to make it easier. For a start, there should be a cabinet-level minister for older Australians, and there are a whole lot of other ideas that could be implemented to improve the circumstances for older unemployed people.

We need to stop job-killing policies. I spoke in this place just yesterday about the Shipping Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 that was debated in the House of Representatives yesterday. It is a so-called reform by this government that will kill 2,000 jobs nationally, including 230 jobs in Tasmania. There are 230 jobs in Tasmania that will go as a direct result of the shipping bill that was debated by this House yesterday. This government and the previous government between them axed 198 workers at the CSIRO in Tasmania. This government has axed dozens of jobs at the Australian Antarctic Division in and around Hobart on account of the so-called efficiency dividends that they have had to implement. The University of Tasmania has lost positions because, like all universities around the country, it has had to deal with $4 billion in underfunding on account of decisions of the previous Labor government. Thank heavens deregulation is not going to go ahead, because that would cost the tertiary sector another $5 billion. The now-famous Cadbury money keeps coming up in this place. There was $16 million that was identified as desperately needed for the City of Glenorchy area because that disadvantaged area needs economic stimulus. That has been pulled by this government—with the support of the Labor Party, I add. In regard to Defence contracts, Hobart has a wonderful Defence manufacturing precinct, but the previous government and this government have sent virtually no work there.

In regard to arts funding, Tasmania has a wonderful arts sector and, in fact, is on the cusp of an arts led economic revival. Yet, in the 2014 budget, the Australia Council nationally lost $28.3 million over four years. In this budget the Australia Council has had to implement an efficiency saving of $7.3 million, not to mention the $105 million that has been cut from the Australia Council budget to set up the slush fund, the National Program for Excellence in the Arts. Tasmania has almost entirely small and middle sized arts bodies. All of them—in fact, every arts body in Tasmania with the exception of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra—will bear the brunt of these cuts to the arts sector.

I have already spoken about the shipping bill, which was debated in this place yesterday, shamefully. That will cost another 230 jobs in Tasmania. It will probably cost $100 million of investment by SeaRoad, who have already signalled that they are unlikely to go ahead with the replacement of two vessels because of the bill that was debated in this place yesterday.

We need to stop treating the unemployed as bludgers. We need to understand that most of them, the overwhelming majority of them, desperately want work, and we need to put in place policies that will create that work. We need to stop having policies that are killed jobs, particularly in Tasmania. We have a population of 500,000 people, which is as big as a city on the mainland. When you take a couple of hundred jobs out of a place like Tasmania it hurts, and it is not good enough to then turn around to the newly unemployed and have a vindictive policy against them.

In my last few seconds I will just say that the role of government is to prevent disadvantage and to help the disadvantaged. A vindictive, punitive bill like this does not achieve that. (Time expired)

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015. The member for Denison, with respect, is all complaints and no solution. For those three years he was, of course, pivotal. He had a very significant and influential position in this parliament with the balance of power. To complain now, when he is effectively irrelevant, is just beyond the pale.

Before I get on to the bill before the House, in respect of the Shipping Legislation Amendment Bill 2015, one MUA job that might be saved on a coastal shipping vessel potentially will cost two, three or five jobs, often in other unionised workplaces, whether that be at Nyrstar in the member's own electorate or whether that be at places like Norske Skog in my electorate. As Ray Mostogl from Bell Bay Aluminium has articulated more clearly than anyone in this place has done previously, when we lost our international shipping service by virtue of the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Bill 2012—which, I have no doubt, the member the Dennison supported—his costs of shipping went up 63 per cent. Deadweight tonnage on Australian flagged ships has continued to fall under the changes that were made in 2012. I said in my contribution the other day that I will give the benefit of the doubt to the MUA and even to those on the other side that the bill was well intentioned, but they have failed. Tasmania is the island state in the island nation. It depends—blind Freddy could understand—more on shipping than many other parts of the country. I just simply do not understand how a Tasmanian could come into this parliament and say that losing our international shipping service is a benefit.

Everything this government has done since coming to power in 2013 has been about supporting job seekers and supporting the economy to grow more opportunities for more people. At the end of the day, our system of welfare is one of mutual obligation between the taxpayers of Australia and those recipients. That is the basis of our system, and Australian taxpayers understand and appreciate that. We all know—or, at least, some of us know—that the best form of welfare is a job, whether it be for the individual concerned, their family, the community to which they can be a more constructive contributor or the nation more broadly and the finances of the Treasury.

We understand that the issues for those people who are unable to find a job because of mental health are enormous. But, again, everything this government is doing is to support them. That includes the Innovation and Investment Fund. The member for Denison should know about this because his electorate benefited from that $13 million program. With contributions from the private sector, it turned into $40 million. That created 400 jobs as recently as in the last 12 months in our state of Tasmania. It also includes the $60 million contributed to irrigation schemes in the state. It is not about accessing water in those areas of the state that are dry and that with the inclusion of water can create more products; it is about the surrounding towns. It is about the dairy, vegetables, fruit and finishing of red meat products that can occur. It is about the families that have come to those towns in rural and regional Australia. That is what it is all about. It is not about the TFES, for example. That is $204 million to expand the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme. It is not about that economic infrastructure. At the end of the day, it is about enabling our state to compete on a level playing field and create more jobs.

There are also the coastal shipping reforms I have just mentioned. What makes one job on an Australian flagged coastal vessel worth more than one job in the member's own business, for example? What makes it worth more than farmers in my electorate or a job in, as I mentioned before, Norske Skog or Bell Bay Aluminium? I do not understand.

The small business and jobs growth package was focused, as the name suggests, on creating more opportunities for more young people. It was to encourage small business. As the member for Denison rightly said, we depend so much on small businesses within our state. That was a $5.5 billion package in the last budget. It was well received all around Australia because it was about encouraging small businesses to have a go. It was about encouraging small business through the instant asset write-off program that allowed them to immediately write off assets up to the value of $20,000 and tax concessions of 1.5 per cent for incorporated small businesses. And 70 per cent of them are incorporated. There was a $1,000 tax deduction. That was all designed to make those businesses more profitable and give them more incentive to employ more Australians.

There was the renegotiation, for example, of the job services provider contracts. That is not specifically related to the legislation that we have before the House, but it was about not having an up-front payment when you got people on the books. It was about delivering outcomes. That is something that is starting to change. I went into the MAX Employment office in Bridgewater the other day. It is not far from the member's own electorate. They are seeing within their own processes and procedures the things they need to do. Whether it is a part-time job or a seasonal job, there are benefits to the people there. The structure of payment now is that they will get paid only when they get people into work, not when they get them on the books.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the free trade agreements that we have negotiated with South Korea, Japan and China. I have said to Minister Robb that the China agreement could be redescribed as the 'Tasmania-China free trade agreement'. The member for Denison should know that very well. These have enormous benefits to our state, whether it be to the university in the member's own electorate or whether it be to farms, small businesses, agricultural producers and manufacturing businesses within mine. That is everything that this government has been focused on.

The legislation before us today is another effort to encourage young people to get a job. It builds on the successful reform already implemented within the sector last year. These reforms are already working. They have improved attendance at re-engagement appointments with employment services providers from a 65 per cent attendance rate in 2013-14 to more than 90 per cent in June this year.

These very positive reforms have meant a reduction in the average time a job seeker's payment is suspended before they re-engage with the provider from 5.2 business days in September 2014 to 3.1 business days in March this year. This means that more job seekers are taking advantage of the help on offer and receiving their income support as intended and that providers are spending less time reporting noncompliance and more time actually helping job seekers look for work. To me, that make sense.

This latest amendment will pave the way for a simpler and more effective compliance framework to ensure that job seekers are meeting their mutual obligation requirements at every point throughout the job search process. The planned reforms will not only see faster re-engagement and fewer failures in the first instance; they will provide substantive financial savings to the community because of the decrease in non-compliance work required.

Getting job seekers into jobs is the key focus of employment services, but there have been significant weaknesses identified in compliance arrangements for those same job seekers. Under the current system, it can take up to five weeks from the day a job seeker fails to attend a Work for the Dole activity until the penalty is actually deducted from their income support. It can be longer if the job seeker is difficult to contact. Allowing the penalty to be deducted from the very next fortnightly income support payment, where feasible, will help create a stronger link between the failure and the consequence. This should lead to better participation in Work for the Dole activities.

Work for the Dole is, indeed, another a key part of the government's efforts to improve employment services and job seeker's employment prospects. I think across Australia it is a program that has broad general support. To make sure this is successful we have had to ensure that job seekers are attending the training activities ordered for them. Effective penalties applied in a timely manner have had the most success in achieving that. I mentioned mutual obligation. It is the basis of our system of welfare, in this country, between the recipients of that welfare—in the case of job seekers—and the taxpayers of our country.

This bill will not introduce new penalties. Job seekers who fail to participate in an activity, without a reasonable excuse, will still lose one day's pay for each day they fail to attend. This will mean that the penalty will be deducted straight away, rather than in five weeks or more, if they are difficult to contact. In 2013-14 a total of 4,342 job-search related failures were applied, but none resulted in the application of a financial penalty. This is ridiculous and we are moving to remedy and improve this compliance regime.

In the same way, job seekers who refuse to take up suitable job offers are supposed to incur a serious penalty. Currently, only 22 per cent of these job seekers are subject to the penalty, because of waiver provisions. All people have to do, to avoid the penalty, is to agree to participate in extra activities for the duration of the penalty. These are not vulnerable job seekers but have been identified as eminently employable. They have been offered work and have refused it, without good reason, to incur the penalty in the first instance. As I said, mutual obligation is the basis of our system.

Eight-week penalties for refusing work have existed since 2006 but waivers were only introduced in 2009. And guess what? The member for Denison was involved in that. In 2008-09, the year before waivers were introduced, there were 644 serious failures for refusing work. In 2013-14 1,626 such penalties applied. This increase can only be attributed to the removal of the deterrent effect of an eight-week penalty. If we bring back that penalty, fewer job seekers will be penalised. More job seekers will accept work, when offered, and go off-payment, which is in everyone's interest. All Australians should agree with that.

We need to fix the current system of job-seeker compliance, which is too slow and ineffective in responding to job seekers who are not making sufficient efforts to find work. Australians, Deputy Speaker Broadbent, and you know this very well, are fair minded people, but they reject the notion of bludging off the system, off a mate, off a system of mutual obligation—off the taxpayers of Australia. It is unacceptable that it takes months of inadequate job-search efforts before a job seeker faces any real financial or payment consequence. The bottom line is that we want to get as many Australians into work as possible, particularly young Australians.

Unemployment rates in Tasmania, and in my largely rural electorate of Lyons, are among the worst in the country. They are often the worst, particularly, among the young unemployed. This is bad for the economy but worse for the individual. Young Tasmanians need hope that they can look forward to much more than a life without a job. Aspiration. There are many in my state working hard to improve job prospects for our unemployed, from education-and-training facilities and parents—families are critical to the structure—to the Work for the Dole program, coordinators and other service providers. I had the privilege the other day of attending a wonderful Green Army project in my electorate. The attitude there of some of the young people involved will serve them well for the rest of their lives. They have, at last, hope again. They have hope in the future that this country can offer them.

This Social Security amendment will continue to build the framework around strengthening job-seeker opportunities. Australia's income-support system is there as a safety net for people who genuinely cannot find a job, not as an option for those who simply refuse to work.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015 I want to remark on what a passionate advocate the member for Lyons is for the community he represents and for Tasmania, more generally.

This bill will amend the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to support measures announced in the 2015-16 budget to further strengthen the Job Seeker Compliance Framework by providing stronger and more immediate consequences for job seekers who do not meet their mutual obligations. This bill will also simplify compliance provisions in the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to assist job seekers better understand their mutual obligations.

This government made a commitment to rein in spending and make more efficient use of taxpayer funds. That is what this bill is about. Australia does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. The budget has forecast that federal government tax revenue will be 22.3 per cent of GDP this financial year. This is well above the 10-year average of 21.7 per cent and just below the 20-year average of 22.5 per cent, equal to the 30-year average and above the 40-year post-Whitlam average of 22 per cent. In fact, the tax-to-GDP ratio is scheduled to increase to levels well above the historical average. The tax-to-GDP ratio is forecast to be 23.4 per cent in 2018-19, a substantial 1.4 percentage points above the long-term 40-year average.

We on this side of the House acknowledge that we cannot tax our way back into surplus. We cannot balance the budget by increasing taxes—we understand that doing this hurts small business and hits families hardest and puts the brakes on our economy. Whilst it is evident that we are going to have to implement changes to our tax system, to address a bracket creep and ensure Australia's global competitiveness, it is equally evident that we have a spending problem. Government is spending too much and not getting the return on its investment that the taxpayer deserves.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, in 2002-03 to 2012-13, government spending grew by 45.2 per cent or 3.8 per cent annually compared to GDP growth of some three per cent. Of total expenses of $398-odd billion estimated for 2013-14, over 34 per cent was spent on social security. Since 2002-03 social security and welfare has contributed 15 per cent to the total growth of spending. In May last year the government's National Commission of Audit recommended that social welfare entitlements be better targeted. This is essential to help reduce government spending. The commission warned that the long-term outlook is ominous due to an unsustainable increase in expenditure commitments. This is a warning we take seriously. Edmund Burke, in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, wrote that:

Society is indeed a contract. … It is a partnership … not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

This is a social contract we are obligated to adhere to, and we in the coalition government refuse to renege on that contract. Each and every dollar the government spends must be targeted and must have a tangible impact.

As I have outlined, Australia needs to rein in spending, not to increase taxes, which seems to be the automatic-pilot response of those opposite. It is absolutely critical that we address our spending and tighten accountability across the board. Whilst our comprehensive welfare system is an essential part of our commitment to unlocking the potential of each and every Australian, it is not some sacred cow. Whilst the vast majority of Australians do the right thing when it comes to utilising our social welfare programs, there is a minority who seek to exploit the compassion of the Australian spirit and do not meet their mutual obligations. Current provisions that allow penalties for serious failures to be waived essentially allow job seekers to refuse suitable work with impunity.

The data indicates that job seekers are increasingly taking advantage of the waiver provisions in order to remain on income support rather than accepting a suitable job. In 2009-10, when the waiver provisions were introduced, 45 per cent of penalties for refusing a suitable job were waived and 55 per cent were served. In 2013-14, 78 per cent of penalties were waived and only 22 per cent were served. The availability of the waiver provision is also acting as an incentive for noncompliance. In 2008-09, the year before waivers were introduced, there were 644 serious failures for refusing to accept suitable work and in 2013-14 there were some 1,626 such penalties. It is simply unfair for those on income support to refuse adequate employment in order to maintain their free ride on income support. It is a situation that this government will not abide.

Existing protections such as the reasonable excuse provisions and safeguards for vulnerable job seekers will still apply, and the bill will not change the process used to make decisions as to what constitutes suitable work. A job seeker cannot be penalised for failing to accept a job that they are not capable of doing or for which their employer will not provide training or a job that does not meet the applicable statutory conditions, involves unreasonable commuting or would aggravate a pre-existing medical condition.

The Australian Treasury is not a bottomless pit; there are finite resources when it comes to government funding. For every dollar that is wrongfully taken, a dollar is lost from an area where it is most needed. This is especially true in the social welfare space. There is an old adage which exemplifies the approach the coalition government is taking to this bill: 'That which is freely given has no value.' The bill builds on previous efforts this government has made to ensure recipients of social welfare meet their mutual obligation requirements. Through this bill, this government is putting in place a real framework of accountability and real incentives for job seekers in Australia.

The package of changes in this bill will help to ensure that more effective and consistent compliance arrangements are in place for each stage of a job seeker's pathway back into work. It is important that we elucidate the particular measures in this bill that we are about to enact that will develop a better result for Australian taxpayers and for Australian job seekers. First, the bill simplifies the compliance framework. This government understands that often-complex bureaucratic processes make accessing assistance difficult. Further, this government is not so callous as to enact stricter compliance measures without simplifying the system. The purpose of the bill is not to stop people from accessing assistance but rather to ensure that they are compliant with the system. In order to assist job seekers to better understand their mutual obligation requirements, the bill simplifies the language surrounding failures: it renames all failures resulting in short-term financial penalties as 'no-show no-pay failures'. This change reinforces to job seekers that, across the board, when it comes to participation in the job seeker process—be it interview attendance or turning up to an appointment with a provider or any other organisation—failure to show up and participate will result in penalties. This government is of the mind that if you do not show up you should not expect income support.

The purpose of engaging people in the job seeker process is employment, because this government knows that the best form of welfare is a job. That is why this bill strengthens compliance to an employment pathway plan. When a job seeker fails to enter into an employment pathway plan, that job seeker's participation payment may not be payable until they comply with a further requirement to enter into an employment pathway plan. The employment pathway plan is an essential part of the job seeker's process. It is a process which guides an individual towards employment and off income support, which is the endgame of this process. In order to incentivise compliance, if the job seeker does not have a reasonable excuse for failing to enter into an employment pathway plan, a penalty amount would be able to be deducted from the job seeker's participation payment under provisions made in this bill.

Currently, no financial penalty is imposed for an initial refusal to enter into an employment pathway plan, despite it being a basic qualification requirement for job seekers to receive participation payments. It is ridiculous that, at a preliminary stage of the employment process—entering a plan—there is a complete lack of accountability. With this bill this government is rectifying that situation. This government has nothing but praise for the workers in our social services sector; they do a difficult job, and they do it well. That is why we have taken measures to ensure that, if a job seeker acts in an inappropriate manner during an appointment such that the purpose of the appointment is not achieved, that job seeker's participation payment may not be payable until they attend a new appointment. In addition, if the job seeker does not have a reasonable excuse for acting in an inappropriate manner during the appointment, a penalty amount would be able to be deducted from that job seeker's participation payment. In the coalition we believe in personal responsibility. We understand the importance of imposing consequences for behaving in an inappropriate manner. It is absolutely imperative that there are penalties for behaving inappropriately when engaging in the job seeker process. Failure to impose such penalties simply reinforces such behaviour. Effectively, failing to adequately penalise inappropriate behaviour whilst maintaining income support equates to rewarding such behaviour. That is a situation that had to be rectified, and I am pleased to say that it will be.

This bill also takes steps to increase participation in the job seeker process. Under provisions in this bill, when a job seeker fails to participate in an activity such as training or Work for the Dole, the penalty amount will be able to be deducted from the instalment period in which this type of no-show no-pay failure is determined. This ensures there is appropriate compliance mechanisms when it comes to participation in the job seeker process, which is essential if employment is to be achieved. Crucially, this bill increases the impact of the penalty through more immediate penalties than under the current legislation, which requires that the penalty amount be deducted from a later fortnightly instalment period.

Further, this bill promotes engagement with job searching activities. When a job seeker fails to undertake adequate job searching efforts, a job seeker's payment may not be payable until the job seeker demonstrates adequate effort. Once adequate effort has been demonstrated, a job seeker would receive full back pay. Again, the immediacy of these penalties will have a significant deterrent value and will enhance compliance with mutual obligations. I suspect that it will also have a fairly specific deterrent effect. Currently, it can take at least 14 weeks of ongoing inadequate job search—that is, 14 weeks—before a job seeker's participation payment is impacted in any way. This is simply not good enough.

Whilst the bill takes significant steps to enhance participation with the process of job seeking, it also rectifies significant issues in employment acceptance. The current system simply does not enforce acceptance of employment offers, and it is at this point that many individuals are simply refusing to re-enter the workforce, which perpetuates unemployment and waste of taxpayer funds. Under provisions in this bill, when a job seeker refuses or fails to accept an offer of suitable employment, and has no reasonable excuse for such failure, a job seeker will no longer be able to seek to have the existing eight-week penalty period ended by agreeing to undertake additional activities. This change will affect those job seekers who have shown they can obtain suitable employment but are simply choosing not to work.

This bill delivers a better system of compliance for job seekers. It is part of this government's approach to rein in spending and making government more efficient. This government remains committed to lower taxes and smaller government, and that is why, when it comes to the social welfare space, we advocate effective and accountable processes that will ensure that welfare recipients meet their mutual obligations. This bill is entirely consistent with our values and with the undertakings we announced both prior to our election to office and in this year's budget.

I strongly commend this bill to the House, and I hope it has the support of this place.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today, I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015. This bill is a testament to the hard work of the member for Cowper, who invested a great deal of time as the Assistant Minister for Employment.

The changes that this bill introduces build on the successful no-show no-pay reforms agreed to by the parliament just last year. The coalition government has taken a responsible position in this bill, and taxpayers expect, I believe, that job seekers meet all of their mutual obligations. Unfortunately, legislation enacted under the previous government has facilitated a dodging of mutual obligation by a minority of job seekers. This bill seeks to address that legislative oversight by Labor and seeks to hold this disengaged minority to account for their mutual obligations as recipients of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. The current state of affairs is not sufficient, and those opposite so often blame the structures of our society and the inequality of outcome. Unlike the coalition, Labor does not believe in personal responsibility, and perhaps that is why the opposition leader can sleep at night.

This government takes a vastly different approach to personal responsibility. We believe in the agency of the individual. We believe in social mobility, and we believe in personal responsibility. This is not a radical position. In fact, it is completely in touch, I believe, with what most—the significant majority—of everyday Australians think and believe. Labor is not ideologically equipped to develop an effective and efficient job seeker compliance framework. The measures taken in this bill are fundamentally consistent with the coalition's longstanding belief in personal responsibility and the innate worth of the individual.

The ALP and the Greens are simply, in my opinion, unable to deliver positive outcomes in this very important public space. I do not doubt the intellectual faculties of the members opposite, but what I do doubt is that the ALP can deliver compliance frameworks that increase accountability for individuals whilst maintaining effective outcomes for job seekers. Hidden under all the spin delivered by those opposite is a fundamental belief that society is the problem—that the structures of society are the cause of the actions of our citizens. I categorically refute this belief. This perverse notion that the individual has no agency in their own affairs is primarily wrong and strikes at the heart of why the ALP and the Greens lack the capacity to deliver accountable and effective compliance measures across the social security space.

This bill seeks to provide better outcomes for all Australians. We, in the coalition, take our obligation to the taxpayer very, very seriously. We understand that our citizens work hard for the money we extract from them in taxes, and that is why we believe in lower, simpler and fairer taxation, something those opposite simply cannot maintain.

Part of our obligation to the Australian taxpayer is to get the most out of each and every dollar we collect. The taxpayers expect nothing less. This bill is utterly consistent with this undertaking. Whilst those opposite did nothing but write blank cheques, cheques they could not pay whilst they were in government, the coalition is committed to ensuring that our expenditure is responsible and delivers better outcomes for the taxpayer and in turn leads to the government providing a surplus for the people of Australia.

We are the party of the hand-up, not the handout, and that is why legislation such as this bill is crucial in delivering better outcomes for Australian workers and job seekers. This bill reflects the deeply held belief in the coalition that Australia's income support system is there as a safety net for people who genuinely cannot find a job. This safety net should be the last resort, not the first option. I repeat: the safety net that the taxpayers of this country provide should be the last resort, not the first option.

Whilst we on this side of the House fundamentally trust in individual enterprise and in smaller government, we also fundamentally believe in accountability. We believe in the responsibility of the individual to their obligations as recipients of the tax dollars of the working public. This bill ensures that the generous social welfare system that we have in place in this country receives due oversight and enacts measures that will preserve the integrity of our social security system.

The legislation that this bill is building on, the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Job Seeker Compliance Framework) Act 2014, saw attendance rates at reconnection appointments for job seekers increase from 65 per cent in 2013 to 90 per cent in June of this year. This is a really important point to note. Another important figure to note is that in 2009-10, when the waiver provision enacted under Labor was first introduced, only 45 per cent of penalties for refusing suitable jobs were waived. We are now faced with waiver rates of 78 per cent in the years of 2013-14.

It is evident that the status quo does not deliver sufficient deterrence to refusing to work. There are currently individuals exploiting the income support system provided to them by hardworking taxpayers, and this bill will hold that disengaged minority to account for their failure to adequately utilise the income support and job seeking program. In a fashion which is utterly consistent with our promises to the Australian people, we are committed to reinvigorating mutual obligation for job seekers in receipt of income support. Importantly, this legislation does not punish those who are doing the right thing by the Australian taxpayer; rather it targets the disengaged minority who choose not to engage with the workplace yet reap the dividend of the endeavour of their fellow citizens. This disengaged minority has for too long been unaccountable. We as legislators, elected by each of our regions across this country, have a duty to the taxpayer to ensure that we are spending their hard-earned money wisely and frugally.

Not only is there a strong economic demand for more accountability in the social welfare space; there is also a strong ethical case for a greater level of mutual obligation for job seekers in receipt of income support. Income support is an essential part of our social welfare system. It should be a hand-up to those who have fallen through the cracks. It is a mechanism which has delivered great outcomes for many Australians over many, many years. But it is not a blank cheque for a disengaged minority hell-bent on exploiting the system. Part of our civic obligation as citizens of Australia is that we contribute to the Commonwealth so that we all may advance together. Whilst it is true that we have an extensive social welfare system which acts as a safety net, it is not an infinite resource that we have at our disposal. In the same way as the government has an obligation to the taxpayer to spend their money wisely, so too do those job seekers on income support. No fair-minded Australian would have a different view to that.

This bill is not, as those opposite continue to suggest, an attack on the socially disadvantaged. No. It is in fact in defence of them. This bill defends the vast majority of Australians on income support. We on this side of the House have the backbone and the courage to make the right decision when it comes to welfare. We strongly believe that whilst we have rights we also, each of us, have responsibilities. We strongly believe that the disengaged minority, who should be proactively seeking employment, are in fact reneging on their responsibility as Australian citizens, and that is a situation that we, the coalition, will not abide. There is an obligation for the government to ensure accountability in the social welfare space. There is no question about that. This is a fundamental responsibility of government.

Let me just address some of the measures in the bill. There are some key measures in this bill that will enable government to deliver on our covenant with the Australian taxpayer. This bill will introduce financial penalties for failing to enter an employment pathway plan. This measure will aid in holding the disengaged minority to account for their actions. The coalition strongly believes in jobs and growth, and this measure will act as an incentive to engage with and utilise an employment pathway plan. The employment pathway plan is a mechanism which delivers better outcomes for job seekers and thus better chances of ultimate employment. This measure delivers accountability for the taxpayers.

This bill introduces financial penalties for failing to behave in an appropriate manner at an appointment—common sense and normal courtesy. We are the party of personal responsibility, and this measure holds the individual to account for their actions. This is targeted not at the majority of our income recipients, who overwhelmingly act in a responsible manner; rather it is an incentive for the disengaged minority to act in accordance with what Australians would call normal, responsible behaviour.

This measure delivers accountability for the individual. This bill delivers more immediate penalties in activities such as Work for the Dole or job interviews. The current arrangements do not facilitate or deliver immediate financial penalties. The lack of immediacy in penalties detracts from the incentive to work and, hence, substantially hampers the efforts of previous legislation. This provision increases more immediate penalties and thus ensures that penalties have the desired effect. Isn't that what legislation should be about—getting results and having the desired effect? Otherwise, it is simply a lot of words on pieces of paper. This provision substantially improves the effect of accountability mechanisms. This bill provides a more streamlined and simplified compliance framework. This bill seeks to make the system easier to navigate. This measure seeks to assist job seekers with understanding the often opaque social services space.

Through removing redundant provisions and through simplifying the language of penalties, job seeker compliance will be far easier to achieve. This is an important measure because it goes hand in hand with the more substantial accountability measures in the bill. This measure will ensure the system is easier to use and delivers the right outcomes for job seekers. It will ensure penalties are delivered to those who are disengaged with the job seeking process, but it will not interfere with those who are seeking it in the right way. A simpler and fairer system will benefit job seekers and taxpayers at the same time, while ensuring better rates of compliance through greater accountability.

This bill delivers on the coalition's undertaking with Australian taxpayers to reinvigorate mutual obligation for job seekers in receipt of income support. It is not an attack on our socially disadvantaged; rather, as I said before, it is a strong defence of them. It strengthens the integrity of our income support system. A more accountable system of income support will remove the unhelpful stigma associated with being a recipient of income support. At the end of the day, we all want more jobs for all Australians. Through preserving the integrity of the income support system, the government is taking steps toward a more sustainable, efficient and effective job seeker scheme. We remain committed to growth and jobs, and that is why this bill is so important. This bill delivers on our commitment to delivering responsible and fair government for all Australians.

We in the coalition strongly believe in giving each and every Australian a hand up, not a hand out, and this bill will deliver better outcomes for all Australians. It is of critical importance that each and every dollar spent in social security delivers greater opportunity. The system should facilitate employment, not promote disengagement with the workforce. This bill goes some way to bringing our job seeker framework back into balance and it is a bill that I firmly and proudly support. I commend the bill to the House.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise this afternoon to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015. I would like to say right from the outset that I am very proud to be part of the Australian government. I am very proud to be a citizen of Australia. I believe that, as well as anywhere in the world, we care for people who find themselves in difficulties and need assistance from others. At no time would I ever support a scheme where I felt that people who had fallen on hard times were going to be victimised or treated poorly. This legislation further enhances the ability for people to get out of the situation of being unemployed and into work. I believe that this bill offers opportunity rather than punishment.

As someone who represents an electorate that has a large number of people who rely on benefits from the government and has high levels of unemployment in some towns, I believe that these changes are necessary for several reasons. The first is that, in families with intergenerational unemployment and disconnect from the workforce, children do not understand where money comes from. They do not tie the fact that their parents and grandparents go to a job every day with having the resources to live their lives. One of the elders in Moree said to me that she believes many of the children do not understand that money does not just come out of an ATM. They do not know why the money is in the ATM; that is just where the family's money comes from. There is no concept as to how the money gets there.

This is part of a raft of things that we have done since we came to government to get people out of the rut of unemployment—with Work for the Dole and other programs, and the Green Army to a certain degree—and to encourage people to take the first step. More often than not, once that first step is made and people get back into the rhythm and system of having a reason to go to work and they experience the satisfaction that comes from a hard day's work, things progress.

In 2005, I was a mayor in a local government area in northern New South Wales. The Howard government at the time introduced Work for the Dole. They drove around our shire and arrived in a bus that had 'Work for the Dole' in big letters on the side. I feel a bit uncomfortable about that. That seems to be discriminatory. After they employed people for several weeks around our local community, doing work on community infrastructure—painting the CWA hall and the like—as a council we put on a lunch, a barbecue. At the barbecue I was chatting to these people who were part of Work for the Dole. I found something entirely opposite to what I expected. Rather than resentment of the fact that they were in a program called Work for the Dole, they were very pleased for the opportunity. They were saying to me, 'You have no idea what it is like—how demoralising it is—to wake up in the morning and not have a reason to leave the house.' The supervisor of this team told me that the original squad he started with did not look like the one he finished with, because as people became involved in these programs pretty soon local employers—retailers, farmers and others—would enquire as to who might be available for more permanent work. That is what we are talking about: getting these people an opportunity to go to work.

One of the things that really sticks in my neck is the idea that there are some jobs that are beneath a person's dignity. There is no work that is beneath anyone's dignity. Before I came here I spent most of my life undertaking manual labour in various forms. I understand that there is not a lot of dignity in crutching sheep or in digging post holes with a crowbar and shovel. But there is a tremendous amount of satisfaction at the end of the day in having achieved something like that.

Let me give you an example. Going back to Gwydir Shire, over a period of time about 10 years ago we started to see an increase in tourists coming to our town—people who were staying in our town and who were seeking out our caravan park. It was not because the tourist officer had gone to a conference, and it was not because of things the major had done. It was because the lady—I will call her Bev—who was in charge of the public facilities in the town took great pride in the work she did. The washrooms, the bathrooms and the caravan park were the cleanest anywhere in New South Wales. That led to an increase in visits to the town. She took great pride in the fact that she was doing this for her local community. I used to tell this story to year 10 students who were going out for work experience. Don't think the job of cleaning the public toilets in town is beneath your dignity, because there can be great rewards in doing that work and in helping others.

In the Parkes electorate we have an interesting situation at the moment. We have just started the grain harvest, and in some places it is a very promising one. At the moment there are young people from all over the world in my electorate driving harvesters, headers, chaser bins and working in the fields bringing in the crops. There are young people from Ireland, Germany, England and the United States all over. At the same time in the country towns around these paddocks we have young, able-bodied people sitting at home, disengaged and not working. If I do one thing in my time as a member of this place, it will be to change that situation. Those people who are disconnected from the workforce are perfectly capable and, given the right opportunities, the right encouragement and the right training I believe they can progress onwards and take up those roles that rightly should be theirs. I put out the challenge to employers in my electorate that if they want to have a functional, progressive and safe community they should make that extra effort and employ local people and encourage them into the workforce.

But the first step in this, sometimes, is actually breaking that cycle. Sometimes you have to be a hard, mean sort of person to achieve this. I do not step away from this legislation at all. If you are able-bodied and you can contribute, I do not believe that staying at home and not doing something to support your community and you country is acceptable. We see that these stronger measures will take away that opportunity. This is coupled with other things we as a government are doing to support young people. I am a great believer that we should be starting to encourage people to think about work, to prepare them with resumes, to help them with birth certificates, drivers licences, or whatever, at as young an age as possible.

One of the things I am immensely proud to be part of—and I think this parliament should also be proud of—is the part played by the Clontarf Foundation. Right across Australia we now have Clontarf Academies collocated in local schools. I will give you the example of the Clontarf Academy at Coonamble, in western New South Wales, where last year three of the young men from there obtained traineeships with a large road construction company in Sydney. Because of the mentoring and the assistance that was given through the people of Clontarf, these young people had the confidence to step up and take on these roles. After a period of training they are now permanent employees, earning very good money. Their families are very proud of them, as they should be.

I believe the federal government has a responsibility to make sure that we can get people engaged so they become valued members of the community. Some people naturally find themselves in periods of disadvantage, through no fault of their own. I still believe that as a country we need to care for those people. I have some advice for some of the bureaucracy and the network that deal with people who are making the step to come into the workforce after being disengaged. It is not easy and there should be compassion, understanding and some flexibility within the guidelines to acknowledge that work on a regular basis is indeed a foreign concept, as sad as it may seem, for some families. We need a carrot-and-stick approach, if you like—a combination of both—but able-bodied people not engaging in meaningful work should not be an option, and this legislation will help with that.

I support this legislation. I am very hopeful and, indeed, I am starting to see a real change in the communities in my electorate, particularly with the younger people as they seek to be engaged. Young lads from Moree high school are doing traineeships with GrainCorp, working through the wheat harvest, one day a week instead of school and over the weekends and holidays, with a real future in front of them. We are seeing that right around western New South Wales. I support this bill and I hope these strengthening measures will have the desired result to get people back up and working.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015 will create a simpler and more effective compliance framework to ensure that job seekers are meeting their mutual obligation requirements at every point throughout the job-seeking process. The bill builds on the successful reforms we made last year, which improved attendance at re-engagement appointments with employment service providers from 65 per cent attendance in the 2013-14 year to over 90 per cent in 2015. Those reforms have resulted in a reduction in the average time a job seeker's payment is suspended before they re-engage with their provider. Between September 2014 and March 2015, the average payment suspension duration fell from 5.2 to 3.1 business days. These outcomes are good news for everyone. More job seekers are doing the right thing and taking advantage of the help on offer and receiving their income support as intended. Providers are spending less time reporting noncompliance and more time actually helping job seekers with practical tasks like looking for work.

This is why the government is seeking to apply the same principles that underpinned those reforms to other mutual obligation requirements. Immediate payment suspension with no back payment for those with no reasonable excuse for their noncompliance will be extended to job seekers who miss appointments with specialist providers or who refuse to enter a job plan. This should see faster re-engagement, as it has for provider appointments. It should also ultimately result in fewer failures in the first place because of the more immediate and stronger deterrent effects. The current safeguards in the system will ensure that no-one is penalised for failing to attend an appointment if they give prior notice of a reasonable excuse; nor will anyone be penalised for refusing to enter a job plan if they have a genuine excuse for their failure to comply or it has unreasonable terms in it. The bill provides that, if a job seeker acts in an inappropriate manner during an appointment, their income support payment may not be payable until they attend a new appointment and participate appropriately. If they do not have a reasonable excuse, a penalty amount would be able to be deducted from their payment. Again, these changes utilise the successful no-show no-pay principles introduced last year and would bring the treatment of inappropriate behaviour at an appointment in line with existing treatment of inappropriate behaviour at an activity. This bill will also allow penalties applied for not attending activities without a reasonable excuse to be deducted from a job seeker's next fortnightly payment instead of the one after. Again, this change is based on the principle that a more immediate link between a non-compliant action and its financial consequences will be more effective in ensuring compliance in the first place. It is also a change the then Labor government made for other short-term penalty types in 2011.

I think everyone would agree that looking for work is the most important part of a job seeker's mutual obligation requirements. It gives job seekers the best chance of getting off income support. For this reason, we need to fix the current system, which is too slow and ineffective in responding to job seekers who are not making sufficient efforts to find work. It is unacceptable that it takes months of inadequate job search efforts before a job seeker faces a real payment consequence. This bill will allow us to take a very simple approach. If you are a job seeker and you make insufficient or inadequate job search efforts without good reason, you will have your payment immediately suspended. Meeting the requirements you have missed will result in immediate and full back payment. This means you will not incur a lasting penalty, but how long your payment is held up is up to you.

Australia's income support system is there as a safety net for people who genuinely cannot find a job, not as an option for those who simply refuse to work. Under current compliance arrangements, an eight-week non-payment penalty can be applied to job seekers who refuse work without good reason. Unfortunately, amendments introduced by the previous government mean that job seekers can have this penalty completely waived just by agreeing to undertake some extra activity. It is clear that these penalties no longer provide an adequate deterrent to refusing work, because job seekers know they are able to return to payment with virtually no consequence. This bill will remove the waiver so that all job seekers who refuse an offer of suitable work without an acceptable reason will serve an eight-week non-payment period. This change will ensure that job seekers face immediate and real consequences for turning down offers of work.

Finally, I would like to reiterate that this bill will retain all the current safeguards that are designed to ensure that vulnerable job seekers do not incur any financial penalties inappropriately. Job seekers with identified vulnerabilities will continue to be flagged on the IT systems used by the Department of Human Services and employment service providers. Penalties will not impact those whose failure to meet a requirement is beyond their control—for instance, where they were taken ill or had an unexpected caring commitment—and, where reasonable, they gave prior notice of this. Employment service providers will still have the discretion not to report a failure to the Department of Human Services. All decisions involving financial penalties will continue to be made by the Department of Human Services and there will be no change to appeal rights.

We have listened to Labor's points in the debate and I note that this bill has been referred to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee. I acknowledge the amendments proposed by the member for Franklin. The government will give them detailed consideration in the Senate.

Question agreed to, Mr Wilkie dissenting.

Bill read a second time.