Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The main provisions of the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 and the premise upon which it is based can only be described as flawed. The Minister for Workforce Participation, in her second reading speech in December last year, was more than willing to gloss over many of the, quite frankly, mixed bag of changes that will take place as a result of the passage of this legislation. Once again, while presenting a picture of choice, the Howard government is actually eroding opportunity. That is what choice really means to this government: an erosion of opportunity. Choice is presented as the Holy Grail and nirvana by members opposite but, when you start examining the details and the various changes and what they mean for individuals, you realise that the introduction of the Howard government vision of choice generally means that some people will end up with less. Labor’s concern over the content of this bill and our genuine commitment to increasing workforce participation are why we oppose this bill and have moved the amendment that is before the House.

Moving people from welfare to work is a worthy objective which I, for one, and no doubt every member of this House, support. Employment provides people with the opportunity not only to build a stronger financial and economic platform for themselves and their families but also to strengthen their self-esteem and their social networks as an individual. Communities also benefit when members are gainfully employed and socially engaged. They are just matters of commonsense. Labor is strongly committed to welfare reform but has a deep concern about the approach being adopted by the Howard government. Simply moving someone from one form of welfare to a lower form of welfare in order to provide some twisted version of an incentive to find employment is an approach wrapped in an ideology governed by theoretical constructs that does not give recognition to the difficulties people face in securing employment.

The Minister for Workforce Participation in her second reading speech focused on the introduction of competition and the contestability of the provision of vocational rehabilitation services. Currently, someone in receipt of Newstart allowance or a youth allowance who is required to engage in activities in return for income support may be required to attend vocational rehabilitation services. Presently, this service is provided by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service. Under the amendments in this bill those services will become contestable and consequently will be able to be provided by private sector providers. It is important that a change like this is done properly and that appropriate safeguards are introduced into the system so that contestability does not result in further disadvantage to those who are already finding it difficult to find employment. For example, many private rehabilitation service providers are not compliant with the Disability Services Act, but under these provisions the Secretary of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations may allow some services to be provided by providers who do not hold compliance certificates. There is concern that there is no guarantee that vocational rehabilitation services will be available, ready and accessible to clients with a range of disabilities. This has the potential to further marginalise people trying to access the workforce who most need those services.

The minister was noticeably silent on the changes proposed to the pensioner education supplement. Given that she failed to mention this change in her second reading speech, I can only assume that this rates among what she describes as ‘minor and technical amendments’ and consequently she felt there was no need to provide an explanation of the rationale for this, which actually amounts to another broken promise. The pensioner education supplement is an important allowance for pensioners who study or train in an approved course. Under the government’s Welfare to Work changes, people who move from the disability support pension to Newstart or to youth allowance are supposed to retain the supplement until they complete their course of study. The amendments in this bill are aimed at nothing more than restricting access to the supplement and consequently reducing the pool available for people to up-skill in order to prepare for work. I regularly have people contact me in absolute frustration at the fact that they cannot even get a little bit of financial assistance to undertake training that they consider so necessary to gain employment in the fields that they choose.

These are generally individuals who want to upgrade their skills and get back into the workforce, but there is always another hurdle that is put in front of them as they try to make themselves more employable. They are often unable to afford the courses that they need to undertake, because their income support payments will simply not support such education. While the minister may consider this a minor difficulty, it is yet another example of this government’s unwillingness to invest in people and in skills development and education so that individuals are equipped to meet the demands of the modern-day employer.

We all know that if you do not have the skills you do not get the job. All this government is doing with these arrangements is making getting a job that much more difficult. Following the passage of this bill I expect I will hear from more frustrated people seeking a little financial support, but by that stage they will be effectively locked out and marginalised from the labour market.

There is no doubt in my mind that the government’s approach of getting people into the labour market and back into employment is not working. As I commented earlier, this government’s approach is driven by a theoretical construct of the labour market that does not reflect reality. Common sense will tell you that, in order to get people to act in a particular way, there needs to be an incentive. Simply running around chanting ‘welfare to work’ and ‘mutual obligation’ will not produce an increase in employment. Those who are classed as hard to employ need more assistance than that provided by cutting their payments in an effort to force them to find employment to provide for their families. That is using the incentive of starvation to force people into work. I think the approach has to be a little more structured than that, certainly when you consider that many of those trying to access the workforce are single mothers, who need the infrastructure support of child care for their children in the form of before and after school care. These people need real assistance; they do not need to have their allowances cut and have that used as the stick to force them to work. That is what the government’s legislation does. Consider also those who have left school early and need assistance with training to get a job. Their readiness for employment will depend on what constructive assistance they can get to make them job ready and attractive to a contemporary employer.

In January this year, the Productivity Commission released a report which highlighted the changing nature of the Australian labour market and the importance of education in lifting male workforce participation rates. The Productivity Commission reported that there had been a fourfold increase in the rate of male disengagement from the labour force. It is clear from the evidence that men who are not working or who are looking for work typically lack work skills that are relevant in the new economy or they have a disability. This begs the question: how can the government believe that lowering welfare payments, reducing access to the pensioner education supplement and opening up vocational rehabilitation to non-compliant private providers without adequate protection access for the disabled is going to help people back into work when all the evidence points to the importance of providing skills? The answer, of course, is that what the government is doing is not going to help them back into the workforce; it is simply going to ensure that people are moved from one form of welfare onto a lower form of welfare.

Labor believes in all Australians reaching their potential, because that is what is good for the individual, good for the economy and good for the community. That is why we need a suite of policies that will properly help people to gain the skills necessary to enter the workforce. Furthermore, Australia’s ageing population is one of the greatest economic problems we face, and it is going to be more important than ever that we get as many people working as possible. With an ageing population, it is important for people to not only access skills but be reskilled to be able to participate in the modern-day workforce. Therefore, this is not a matter of simply saying that the only way to assist people is to use an economic stick to hit them over the head with, when they are unable to compete in the workforce because of their lack of developed skills. That is the issue we need to address.

When considering the impact of Welfare to Work changes and debating the merits of various policies to increase workforce participation, it is necessary to examine the labour force statistics. It is not possible to examine labour force statistics without commenting on the government’s interpretation of those statistics and the myths that it is trying to perpetuate as a consequence. While job creation is more than welcome, this government is making an effort to perpetrate the biggest con job of them all—the biggest con job that it has tried in the 10 years of its office.

Many have commented that the unemployment figures mask the reality of many individual and community based issues that we as local members experience. That is true. I do not have a problem with the technical definitions of employment and unemployment or with the methodology used to determine the labour force statistics; I do have a problem with the government using these statistics to conclude that Australia has already reached full employment. To conclude that Australia has reached full employment on the basis that the national unemployment rate has dropped below five percent is clearly misleading.

Bear in mind that the statistics consider people to be employed if they work as little as one paid hour per week. On that logic, if everybody between the ages of 15 and 65 participating in the labour force worked for only one hour per week then we would have a zero rate of unemployment. That is clearly ridiculous, but it is the statistic that this government relies upon to say that we have reached full employment. It is notional and, through its generality, it masks the impact that it has throughout various sectors of the community. It is not a real statistic to be looked at if one paid hour per week justifies someone not being considered unemployed. If people take comfort in those figures, they are living in cuckoo land. If the whole nation were working one paid hour per week, we would have a zero rate of unemployment. For all sorts of reasons, not everyone can be employed at any one point in time—and we know that.

As I mentioned earlier, the government is attempting to pull the wool over our eyes when it comes to unemployment. Currently we have the Treasurer, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and others continuing to tell us that the unemployment rate is a product of the introduction of Work Choices. That is a ridiculous suggestion. The current rate of unemployment is not as a result of Work Choices; it stems from the resources boom, and members opposite quite clearly know that. We heard that yesterday in question time when the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations indicated that the government does not create jobs; businesses do. If the government really believes that, why is it trying to walk on both sides of the street and attempting to attribute employment growth to Work Choices? The government has been doing that day in, day out with every dorothy dixer that is thrown up to the minister by members opposite. It is attributing any adjustment to unemployment solely to the introduction of Work Choices, and yet yesterday the same minister admitted that the government does not create jobs; businesses do. This is just another example of this government taking credit for all the good news but trying to blame someone—indeed anyone—for the bad news.

The other myth that this government is attempting to perpetrate is that, because the unemployment rate is low, everything is rosy for those who work and for those looking for work. A national unemployment rate of less than five per cent means that there are plenty of opportunities. When I look around various electorates, and at mine in particular, and look at skills that are being sourced by employers, I know that there are very strong pockets of disadvantage. I am sure the seat of Werriwa is not alone in this, and I am sure it is not only members on this side of the House who have that experience. Significantly higher levels of unemployment are masked when considering the national aggregate and averages, and that is without looking at levels of youth unemployment. We need to address these communities within our various electorates to come up with a real solution.

I cannot support the government’s position in this legislation. It is simply seeking to move people from one form of welfare to a lower form of welfare. It is based on a philosophy of using the stick over the back of the head, and quite frankly it is not doing anything to look at the skills necessary for people to adjust— (Time expired)

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