Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Social Security Amendment (Flexible Participation Requirements for Principal Carers) Bill 2010. I listened carefully to the member for Murray’s speech and I was not quite sure if she was going to vote in favour of this piece of legislation or against it. I understand she has some reservations, but I do not know if she is Arthur or Martha on this bill. It is all right to have reservations, but you have to make clear in your speech which side of the fence you are on. I am strongly in favour of this legislation.

I grew up in a working-class family in Ipswich. My dad was a cleaner at a meatworks and my mum was a shop assistant and there were significant periods of unemployment in my family’s life. I went to the Ipswich East State School for seven years and I saw in my local community, which was a really working-class community, real welfare dependency and intergenerational welfare dependency. I was the first person in my family to go to high school, let alone university, so I know the value of hard work and how important employment is. When my father was employed, we had food on the table and we could keep a roof over our heads. These things were personal issues for me, and they are personal issues for many Australians. This is not some sort of intellectual dissertation I am making; this is a speech about what I experienced in my personal life, and I would say there are many people on both sides of the chamber here who experienced similar periods of material deprivation in their lives. What we are doing here is going to make it easier for Australian families to be socially included and also to get back into the workforce. In this legislation there is a bit of compassion, humanity and flexibility, which are needed, and I commend it.

In my community, there is social disadvantage. The Ipswich community together with Logan have been designated as areas where the government is appointing or has appointed local employment coordinators. Samantha Wilson has done a terrific job in that regard. We have significant funding under the Jobs Fund for Worklinks, for new services in the Lockyer Valley. There are now Worklinks cafes in Ipswich, at Raceview and Brassall; and a cafe run by Busy Beat, which is a Gold Coast based jobs training organisation, is now located in Ipswich. There is an enormous amount of job training going on.

In my community, there is very high unemployment among young people. Traditionally, the Ipswich community has suffered tremendously as industries have declined. It has suffered from the decline of agriculture, which was so important and still makes up 11 per cent of the economy of Ipswich, and the decline of manufacturing, with the closure of the woollen mills and coalmines which used to employ thousands of workers, and the railway workshop which, in its heyday, employed about 3,000 workers. When these industries went, my local community suffered. So legislation like this is not some academic exercise; it really makes a difference to the lives of people in areas like Ipswich, West Moreton and the Lockyer Valley as well as in the Somerset region.

Giving a person a job is a way to redistribute wealth. I am not on some sort of ideological white horse that says that we have to socialise all industries. I believe in the market economy and I believe that giving someone a job creates wealth. I believe it creates stronger families and I believe it enhances family values. Family values are not the province of the political Left or the Right in this country; they are for all of us. Reducing welfare dependency improves the self-esteem of not only parents but also children. It gives children the chance and the opportunity to see that they can advance in their lives—materially, emotionally, psychologically and psychiatrically. Showing them that they can increase their earning capacity is very important. They can see the role model of their parents and then say, ‘I can live like that too.’ You too can become a physiotherapist, an engineer, a doctor or a lawyer. That is what this legislation is all about.

I also know from my experience as a family lawyer that many parents, women in particular, who have gone through situations of domestic violence and tremendous suffering at the hands of iniquitous partners—particularly male partners, the fathers of their children and step-parents—often end up with low earning capacities. They are in relationships where they are the victims of harassment and intimidation. This legislation shows them more flexibility and compassion as well.

18:29:47

I commend the member for Werriwa for his speech in which he outlined in detail important changes in this legislation. I will not go through the changes in detail as he did. The participation arrangements and requirements for about 17,000 families on income support will change. It is estimated that this will improve their capacity to skill and improve their job opportunities. It is estimated that about 100 additional parents will become eligible for extended home schooling, and there will be distance education participation exemptions for many who live in rural and regional areas.

I am a strong believer that parents have the right to choose where their children should be educated. We have some wonderful private schools in my electorate. St Edmund’s boys college in Ipswich is a fantastic school. WestMAC over there at Karrabin is a fantastic school. There are two grammar schools—Ipswich Grammar School and Ipswich Girls Grammar School. I personally have sent my children to Raesbury State Primary School and Bremer State High School because I am a product of that state school system and my wife is as well. Parents have a right to choose. But some parents, for religious or other reasons, choose to home school. As someone who is a Christian, I have no problems with that choice. I do have some concerns about some of the curriculum we see in that regard and some of the more fundamentalist approaches in that curriculum. But we live in a democracy and parents have that right to choose. We are making it easier for parents who choose to home school with the more flexible arrangements in this legislation. I think that is the right thing.

As of December 2009 there were approximately 506,000 principal carers on parenting payment, Newstart allowance and youth allowance. There were 182,272 parents with participation requirements. So this is not some small piece of legislation that will affect a few hundred Australians. This is important legislation which will impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australians and indeed their children. I strongly support the idea of mutual obligation. I think it is right that we require people to look at employment, to seek to participate, because what happens with a person without a job is that they suffer in terms of not just welfare dependency but also social isolation and often ostracism. What is the first question you ask a person? What do they do for a living. And what do they answer? ‘I am just a housewife; I am just looking after my kids.’ That is just wrong. It is just wrong but that is what happens to Australians. If they come from Victoria you might ask which AFL team they support, or which rugby league team they support if they are from Queensland. But this is a serious matter for people. It is a serious matter of self-esteem.

I am pleased that we are going to invest nearly $27 million over four years to improve participation arrangements for parents and carers. I am very pleased that we have kept the income arrangements and income payments at the same level. I am pleased that we have parents on income support whose youngest child has reached school age, six or over, but they are still required to undertake 30 hours of suitable activity. I think that is right. I think the Australian public expects that to happen. At times it is a gentle nudge, sometimes a bit of a push and sometimes a bit of a drag into the workforce because there are some people who sadly would like to sit back and not participate in our society.

Greater participation in the economy means greater participation in society. People who have jobs tend to get involved in P&Cs, sporting clubs, church organisations, social clubs. They tend to participate in community and that is what is important in terms of social inclusion. There is a flow-on effect. It is not just good for the economy, for economic development and productivity; it is also good for society because it builds community. I think that is really important. In my area we have some great people who are involved in this and we are dealing here with more flexible arrangements for women particularly who are tragically the main recipients of domestic violence. While I am here I want to commend the Ipswich Women’s Centre against Domestic Violence and Gabrielle Borggaard, who is the director there, for the wonderful work they do with the women of Ipswich and not just Ipswich but the rural areas outside—the Lockyer Valley and the Scenic Rim and Somerset regions, because they reach out to those areas.

I was pleased last week to be there and to light a candle when we recognised the women who have been the victims of domestic violence in our communities. Tragically, a number of women have been killed by their partners in the last year. I will not name the women here in parliament; it is not the right thing to do. This is horrible and when I was in private practice I saw it. I dealt with thousands of domestic violence cases through prosecuting and defending in the courts in Queensland—the Family Court, the Federal Magistrates Court and the state Magistrates Court. I saw it on numerous occasions and I lived it for decade after decade in my professional life. The work that Gabrielle Borggaard and others do is to be commended and lauded. I am pleased to be a White Ribbon ambassador. I think it is the right thing and that more men should stand up. I was pleased to be at D’Arcy Doyle Place in Ipswich where we lit candles. I was very happy to see the Mayoress, Janet Pisasale, as well as Rachel Nolan, the state member for Ipswich and the Minister for Transport.

While we are talking about this issue I also want to commend, because it is in the area of domestic violence, the former director of the Ipswich Women’s Centre Against Domestic Violence, Amy Stockwell. A number of years ago Amy took up the position as the person coordinating community development in the Somerset Regional Council. I have been pleased to meet with Amy and a number of those providers, like Lifeline, Austcare and other organisations, who are doing wonderful work with people. The work that these people do is not just about caring for people with mental health issues or people who are victims of domestic violence. They provide encouragement to bring people back into the workforce.

The legislation we have here modifies participation exemptions to make them more responsive to a family’s individual circumstances. I think that is a sensible way to go. The provisions in relation to foster care are really important. Foster carers are our unsung heroes and they simply need to have flexible arrangements. Many times children are put into foster care and grandparents, cousins, uncles or aunties who have a kinship role take on the responsibility for children who are the subject of domestic violence orders and who are mentioned on those orders. The children are also what we used to call many years ago ‘wards of the state’. They are subject to case plans or orders made in relation to their care and protection or their care and control. Caring for our kinship carers through this legislation by providing more flexibility is simply the just, humane and decent thing to do.

The third component, as the member for Werriwa mentioned, improves the circumstances for families. It means the cost in time and money of travelling, often from rural and regional areas, into a Centrelink office will be gone, because many people can be linked by web based channels and other sorts of facilities. That will improve the lives of people in regional and rural communities in townships scattered all around South-East Queensland and west of Brisbane, which I have the honour to represent.

This legislation is about compassion, flexibility and humanity. I have to say that not always did the coalition show that when they were in power. Many times they made changes with the best of intentions, but they did not always show the degree of compassion that they needed to. Certainly accepting the recommendations of the task force chaired by Patricia Faulkner was the right thing to do. I am pleased that the government has listened. Not always do governments of either persuasion listen to the experts and listen to recommendations. We have taken those recommendations on board, adapted the legislation on individual family circumstances and modified the existing participation exemptions to be responsive to those circumstances. Mr Deputy Speaker, this is important legislation that will affect people in South-East Queensland in your seat and mine and I commend the legislation to the House.

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