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

I rise—for the third time today!—to speak on a bill.

In this instance I do very much want to make a contribution to the debate on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015. It is little over a year ago that we debated the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance Framework) Bill 2014. As I said at the time of that initial bill, rather than supporting people to find work what this is really about, once again, is keeping the compliance burden on people—demonising vulnerable people and increasing hardship. We see, yet again, the government taking an approach that seeks to demonise and vilify and, by the nature of the measures in this bill, attempt to blame those on income support and job seekers for not being able to find work. As if it is their fault that they cannot find work, when we know that the work simply is not there!

These measures are unacceptable to the Greens. We will not be supporting them. Unlike Labor, we will not seek to amend this bill, because it is not fixable! The measures in this bill will have unfair impacts on some of the most vulnerable members of our community. They will not help people to find work; they will, in fact, have a counterproductive impact on job seekers and make it even more difficult for people to find work. In fact they will plunge people into absolute poverty, with no means of support.

If you ask anybody on income support, it is already difficult enough to survive without having these extra burdens piled on them and without extra threats of being dumped off income support completely. In particular, many of the measures in this bill, if it gets the support of this chamber, will make job seekers even more subject to the whim of job service providers and now, in fact, to third-party providers. Unlike Labor, we will not be helping to facilitate, in any way with any of these measures, the government's punitive approach to job seekers. We will not be supporting this bill.

We are here again, having a go at job seekers. We in fact have a different Prime Minister this time but we have the same agenda. Here is Malcolm Turnbull pursuing the Abbott agenda that demonises job seekers. Let's not forget all those comments about people just sitting on the couch or their attempts to throw people off income support for six months at a time. This is the same agenda. The only reason that that did not get through is because this chamber held strong. The Greens, the crossbench and Labor said, 'No, we will not support those harsh measures.' And yet here we are again, with the Turnbull government pursuing policies that are counterproductive and will hurt some of the most vulnerable members in our community—attacking vulnerable people, singling them out for cruel and punitive measures. There is not one measure in this bill that is worthy of support.

There are in fact many things the government could be doing to help people on income support in our community. They could, for example, fix Centrelink. I talked for some time in the chamber last night about the problems we are seeing in this country with Centrelink and the Department of Human Services. The Senate has just passed a motion calling on the government to fix Centrelink.

People on income support struggle to get by. I have spoken on many occasions in this place about the need to increase Newstart by $50 a week. In fact I have been calling for that for a number of years. Each year, the situation for people on Newstart gets worse as they fall further and further behind the cost of living. This measure to increase Newstart is not only supported by the peak community bodies in this country but is also supported by the Business Council. They can see the sensible need for those sorts of increases. They also, I presume, look at the evidence that shows that people living in poverty find it even harder to find work. It is yet another barrier to work; hence my concern that these measures are counterproductive. Dropping people into poverty and even further entrenching poverty by dropping them completely off income support—clearly the government aims to drop as many people as possible onto nothing—will not achieve their supposed aim of trying to help job seekers into work.

Instead of helping the most vulnerable members of our community, this bill yet again takes a punitive approach which will hurt vulnerable people on income support even more. The first measure that I will talk about is the measure that suspends people on income support if they do not agree to enter into an unemployment pathway plan. I should also add that I did participate in the Senate inquiry. We had some very valuable evidence during the Senate inquiry into this bill. Some of that evidence was focused on all the measures, but it also talked about employment pathway plans and canvassed the various reasons why somebody may not in fact agree to their employment pathway plan. If they refuse to enter then their payment is suspended.

There are a number of reasons why people may not enter into an employment plan, and one of those is because a lot of service providers just cookie cutter them out. They are not addressed to a person's particular needs. 'We've done this for Fred, so we'll do it for James.' I come to this next example because it has also been used as an example for another measure in this bill. You have a service provider that has a training arm, and the service provider recommends in the employment pathway plan that the person goes for training—heavens above!—in that training organisation. What happens if that person is savvy enough to realise they are being sold a pig in a poke and says no? What happens if the service provider does not listen to the person about their employment pathway plan? Perhaps they have undertaken activities that they were suggested to undertake anyway and think that is a waste of time, preferring to do something else?

This puts too much power in the employment service provider's hands. It makes them the decision maker over that person's future. They have the capacity to drop them off income support. What do you do when faced with that? Maybe you sign up to a plan that is completely useless and that is just a fundraising process for the organisation that is referring that job seeker to the training organisation which happens to be part of their business. Once again, it is putting service providers in positions they should not be put in and also putting job seekers in positions that they should not be put in.

Job seekers deserve the right to consider a plan. They deserve the right to ask for amendments. They deserve more than simply being told to sign whatever they are given, which is what this is designed to do. They deserve to have input and to have a meaningful plan that meets their individual needs, because the evidence of what works shows that addressing somebody as an individual human being is part of how you help people find work. This particular measure will make it harder for job seekers.

This bill also has measures about inappropriate behaviour and the penalties that will apply there. I will note at the outset of my comments in this area that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights noted that this measure would limit human rights and that the statement of compatibility does not sufficiently justify the limitation for the purposes of international human rights law. This change fundamentally shifts the dynamic between the job seekers and those who are supposed to be helping them. It gives the powers to others in this situation, without appropriate safeguards. There is not enough protection for the job seekers. It reflects the mindset of a government that believes that anybody who is down on their luck should just be told what to do and suck it up. This will not help job seekers and it puts them at the mercy of the service providers.

What is the determination of 'inappropriate behaviour' that may be applied? It is a fundamental concern. The National Welfare Rights Network made a very valuable submission to this inquiry and presented valuable evidence. In their submission, they pointed out a case example, of a particular customer's complaint:

John had been seeing an employment services provider for two years with no problems but had to change providers when he was forced to find new rental accommodation after the house he was in was sold.

When John began to see a new service provider, he was frustrated by the service he received. He felt that his caseworker was forcing him to do a course that would not improve his work prospects and that some sort of work placement, or another course which builds on his existing skills would be more appropriate. He was concerned that the only reason he was being sent to the course was—

this refers back to the other point I was making—

because the course is run by the same company as the provider. When he raised his concerns with the caseworker, she became defensive and hostile. John then became upset as well and began to raise his voice. He asked to see the manager but was told that the manager was in a meeting. John told her she was incompetent and unprofessional. She replied that he had behaved inappropriately and she was making a recommendation to Centrelink that his payment be suspended and a financial penalty applied for inappropriate behaviour at an appointment.

That is just one example of what could go wrong. There is another example provided in the papers as well, and the National Welfare Rights Network make points about the potential impact of this particular measure. It is an inappropriate measure that should be rejected and not supported. We oppose it because this measure is cruel and unnecessary. It limits the discretion available and is not supported by the Welfare Rights Network and others that that made submissions to the inquiry.

One of the measures that I understand that the Labor Party is supporting is to suspend payments immediately when job seekers do not attend any appointment. This will extend the existing penalty to third-party-type appointments. Currently, where a job seeker misses their appointment with an employment service provider, their payment is suspended until they attend another appointment. They do not receive back pay. This bill will extend that penalty to other types of appointments. We understand this might include appointments with career advisers, training providers or for medical or psychological assessments. This is a much broader penalty and it applies more widely. It is another example of this government making things harder for those on income support and for job seekers.

I cannot understand why the Labor Party is supporting this. During the committee inquiry, very strong concerns were raised about this particular measure, about just who those different third-party providers and entities would be and about the fact that it was giving far too much control over the job seeker to parties that are not strongly connected to the system. At least Job Services providers have, or should have, a very intimate knowledge of how this process works. Third parties may not. We also were provided with examples of where wrong appointment times were made by third parties, where people were not given adequate notice. There are a range of issues that come into play when you start extending these sorts of penalties to third parties.

The Australian Council of Social Service, in their submission, noted that the last review was in 2009, for compliance reforms that were introduced by the Labor government. Since that review, the Liberal government has made major changes to the compliance framework, and they are in the process of being implemented. The impact of these changes is still to be determined and yet we are going ahead—or the government is going ahead—to make a whole series of other amendments that may have very significant consequences. We are particularly concerned about extending to third parties the measures that suspend people's payments.

We are also concerned about job seekers who reject a suitable job offer on an eight-week penalty. We believe that this may have unintended consequences. Senator Cameron referred to a particular example that I would have referred to, which was in a submission and was brought up during the Senate inquiry. What the government is not taking into account is the impact that this has on job seekers who are genuinely looking for work. In our inquiry into this bill, job seekers presented evidence that showed that these measures will have a counterproductive impact on workers. It is not only the examples I have raised here. The measures will also have an impact particularly on older workers—and the example that Senator Cameron explained was about the impact on older workers—on CALD community workers, on more vulnerable community members and on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander job seekers.

We know, from a lot of information that has become available during estimates, that many of these measures have a disproportionate impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members. It is even harder to find work in regional areas. I know that there is another bill that is going to come before this place very shortly on CDEP, so I will not comment on that particular issue. But, of course, most Aboriginal job seekers actually live in the metropolitan area. This could potentially have significant impacts for Aboriginal job seekers.

This bill fundamentally shifts power even further into the hands of job service providers and now into the hands of third parties. It takes away even more rights from job seekers to actually have a say over the programs that impact on them and to have a say over how they interact with job service providers. Now they will just have to sit and take it because they know that if they say anything it will be counted as inappropriate behaviour. If they try and bring up why they, in fact, may have rejected job offer, will they be believed? Unlikely. Will they be able to have an effective input into their employment pathway plan? No. Because they know that if they continue to reject it, they will get suspended. So, of course, they will be forced to accept something that they do not even have any say in or ownership of.

It is important that job seekers have ownership over their employment pathway plan—or whatever we are going to be calling it into the future, whether we keep using 'employment plan' or 'employment pathway plan'. To encourage and be more supportive of job seekers so that they have ownership over the decision making is really important, but these measures discourage it. These measures discourage people who actually engage in that, because what is the point? They will get suspended if they make any comments. None of these measures are worthy of support. We will not be supporting this bill or any of the measures in any way. I urge the government to look again at their approach to how they treat people who are trying to find work because, overwhelmingly, they want work.