Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor strongly supports improving the incentives for people to move from welfare to work. Labor believes that those who can work should work and should be encouraged to work, and that involves removing obstacles—disincentives—for people to move from welfare to work. The member for Hasluck has just said that the coalition introduced the concept of mutual obligation, but it was during the Hawke-Keating years—the member for Hasluck was not in the parliament at the time—that the concept of mutual obligation was introduced, most particularly in relation to unemployment benefits. Activity testing of unemployment benefits was introduced back in the 1980s. It was a controversial move, but it was the right thing to do. So the mantle of mutual obligation belongs to the Labor Party. Labor has always believed that it must be a two-way street—that you need to assist and encourage people to move from welfare to work rather than getting out a great big stick and whacking them on the head, which ultimately is not very effective and is certainly not consistent with a compassionate society.

The amendments before the parliament today in the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Other Measures) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 are minor and technical in nature and reflect the inadequate and poor drafting of previous legislation. Of course, where we can clean up poor drafting, we will endeavour to assist. For that reason, Labor does not oppose this legislation. But Labor did strongly oppose the legislation that was put through the parliament last year, and budget measures have been introduced since that time. I want to take the opportunity to comment on those budget measures and to provide an evaluation as to whether those budget measures have fundamentally changed the position that was contained in that legislation.

The Welfare to Work legislation introduced into the parliament and passed by the government last year is a disgrace; it is a brutal piece of public policy making. About five years before the passage of that legislation, the McClure report was brought down. That report analysed and described a number of ways in which the incentive to move from welfare to work could be improved. After five years of deliberation the government produced this legislation. If you wanted to design a piece of legislation heavily calculated to weaken the incentive to move from welfare to work and keep people on welfare, it would be the perfect legislation. You could not conceive a more damaging piece of legislation which so greatly weakens the incentive to move from welfare to work. Indeed, the legislation strongly encourages sole parents to move from welfare to welfare. Let me explain. The legislation obliges sole parents to move from sole parent pension to Newstart allowance when their youngest child turns eight. In so doing, sole parents lose $29 a week.

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