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

Today we are continuing the debate on the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Other Measures) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006. This legislation contains amendments to the government’s Welfare to Work legislation, which was rammed through this parliament with indecent haste on 1 December last year. We in the opposition protested about this indecent haste, about the failure to consider the details of this piece of legislation and about the failure of the government to consider all the implications that flowed from the legislation. Unfortunately, the government did not listen to us; unfortunately, the government guillotined the legislation in the parliament; and, unfortunately, this has resulted in this legislation being flawed.

As we on this side of the parliament know, this government is driven by an ultraconservative, extreme agenda. So driven was this government that there are inconsistencies in the legislation, so today we are here to fix those inconsistencies. We are here to fix the fact that the government had a very lacklustre approach to this legislation and was driven purely and simply by the fact that it wanted to get this legislation through the parliament before Christmas. It did not seem to be concerned about the overall implications of the legislation or about whether it was properly drafted. If it had been, there would be no need for the parliament to be back here, less than six months later, amending legislation that takes effect on 1 July. So we are amending the legislation before it actually takes effect.

I think there is a bit of a problem with that, and it shows a government that does not have the right approach to developing legislation and to introducing legislation. Rather, it shows a government that does not follow the proper processes, a government that just says: ‘We’ve got the numbers in the House and we’ve got the numbers in the Senate. This is what we want; we’re going to ram it through and forget the debate.’

This bill, as I have already hinted, makes largely technical amendments to the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security Administration Act 1999 which are necessary because the first piece of legislation, the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Other Measures) Act 2005, was shoddily drafted. These are basically very technical and minor changes to the legislation. They extend eligibility for the pharmaceutical allowance to partnered parenting payment recipients who have been granted a temporary incapacity exemption from participation requirements. They provide for a seasonal workers preclusion period for students and new apprentices claiming youth allowance and they provide for continuing payments of the higher rate of youth or Newstart allowance and the continuing payments of the pensioner education supplement. I know that we alerted the government to the problems that are associated with that at the time the bill was rammed through the parliament. But they had such a blinkered vision that they were unable to even amend their legislation at that stage so that we had the proper legislation going through the parliament. Along with that, they provide for the pensioner employment supplement, the telephone allowance and other concessions to be paid to principal carers after the death of a child where that death could otherwise reduce the payments. The eligibility will be for a 14-week period.

I cannot come in here and debate this legislation without drawing the House’s attention to that flawed piece of legislation that actually passed through the parliament back in 2005. It was very ill-conceived legislation. It was legislation that, on the surface, the government touted as being to move people from welfare back into the workplace. In actual fact, I believe the original legislation was designed more to penalise those people who are in receipt of welfare payments and to cut the government expenditure in the area of welfare rather than to introduce a well-developed, well-thought-through piece of legislation that would actually assist people who were in receipt of the disability support pension—that is, to help people with disabilities to actually get back into the workforce. I believe that the government adopted an approach that was largely punitive. It did not look at all the implications and it really did not have a considered approach to the best way to get people with disabilities or, for that matter, single supporting parents to re-enter the workforce. Reducing a person’s income level is not the answer to getting a person a job. Rather, the answer to getting a person a job is to improve their skill levels and to improve the opportunities for them to access work. I am afraid I cannot see how this does that.

The previous Labor government introduced a program that I think worked very well in helping people with disabilities re-enter the workforce. That was through the disability reforms that were brought in in the early nineties. That legislation recognised that the best results were achieved when the person who had the disability felt that there was some degree of security in moving from the disability support pension into work. They needed to get support; there needed to be a whole-of-government approach to them entering the workforce. There was support for employers who were prepared to offer them work—not just financial support; there was ongoing support for the people who were prepared to take the risk. In place was a structure that made people feel comfortable about taking the risk of entering the workforce and made them feel that if it failed they actually had some options and could return to the disability support pension.

I will share with the House an example of how even though this legislation has not taken effect—it does not take effect until 1 July—the philosophy embodied within it is already impacting electorates like mine. A constituent of mine undertook employment. He was working around 20 hours a week towards the end of last year. He has a significant disability. During that period of time, he was earning over the amount of money that would entitle him to receive the disability support pension. He felt good about himself, he was studying at the same time and he felt that he was moving towards finally getting back into the workforce. Unfortunately for this constituent, after eight weeks everything fell over. But—and this is the really key factor—he is now unable to go back onto the disability support pension and we are going through the process with Centrelink of having his circumstances reviewed. He still has the 20 points that would make him eligible for the disability support pension, but the simple fact that he took the risk to actually go out there and find a job has worked against him. If this legislation is supposed to assist people with disabilities enter the workforce, I can tell the government that there is one constituent in my electorate who will never try to get a job again if he gets back onto the disability support pension, because the risk associated with it is so great.

Another constituent has quite significant disabilities and has well over the 20 points, but Centrelink has advised him that, whilst he is over the 20 points, they believe that he is capable of re-entering the workforce. He has a non-English-speaking background, cannot read and has a very significant disability that, I believe, would place him in danger of exacerbating his injury or, alternatively, place the people who work with him in danger of being injured. I ask the government: if he injures himself, how will they explain to this man’s family why that happened? If other workers that he works with are injured, how will the government explain why that happened? I believe that the government really need to look at their obligations under occupational health and safety and also at whether or not they are being negligent in forcing that man back into the workforce.

One of the hardest jobs I have had in my life is being a parent. I worked when my children were younger, but I had the support of a husband. He worked too, but you come home at night, you are exhausted and you have just about used every resource that you have. Your children need you to sit down with them, help them with their homework and give them quality time. If I were a supporting parent, I think I would find that very hard indeed. People who receive the parenting payment now are already among some of the poorest people in our community. They are the poorest financially and I would put to the House that they are amongst the poorest when it comes to emotional and physical reserves. What is the government going to do for them? They are going to make it harder. They are going to cut the money that they receive and put in place very punitive mutual obligation requirements.

Mutual obligation, as such, is to be supported, but mutual obligation goes not one way but both ways. I believe that the government has the obligation to provide real assistance to the people it is targeting, to help them get back into work. Cutting the amount of money people receive or, when they are actually paid for their work, disadvantaging them by comparison with other workers is not what I call real assistance. I call real assistance helping them to develop skills and helping them with adequate and affordable child care, rather than taking the approach that the government took in the original Welfare to Work legislation. The further down the track we go the more problems will emerge and the more we will see how the government has failed these people and failed to achieve its objective, which is to get people from welfare back into work.

This legislation does absolutely nothing to help those people on parenting payment to balance their work and family obligations. There are so many areas where this government has failed to recognise the problems that are facing the people this legislation affects. The government has not taken into account the changing face of work, such as the casualisation of the workforce, the fact that many jobs are now part time and the impact that these factors will have on people targeted by this legislation.

Whilst I support the legislation before us today, I have to say that the government fails to recognise the real issues facing people when they are looking to go back to work. Unless the government gives them the right sort of support, both within the workforce and on an individual basis, this legislation is doomed to cause a lot of harm and anxiety to people who really look to the government for support.

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