Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Hansard source

In speaking on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2011, it is worth going back three years to the heady days of Kevin 07 and the first months of the government and all of the things that Labor had promised that sounded so good at the time but which have turned out to be massive failures. These include the trades training centres, the productivity places program, the GP superclinics and, later, pink batts and school halls. You need to have a memory longer than a goldfish to remember why we are debating this. When Labor were elected they proceeded to dismantle the Job Network and they wound back the principle of mutual obligation that had underpinned the creation of more than two million jobs, more than one million of them full-time jobs.

I have a personal interest in this because, as opposition spokesperson on employment participation from 2007 to 2009, I remember what the Labor Party did. When they came into government, very early on the departmental secretary advised employment service providers to be lenient on job seekers regarding their mutual obligations. But then they came up with this concept of no show, no pay. The opposition warned at the time that this would be a failure—a massive failure—and that it would see a rise in long-term unemployment and do nothing to address welfare dependency. Today, we have the very sorry picture of Australia having one of the highest rates of jobless families in the world. We need to go back and remember why mutual obligation is important.

Work for the Dole is commonly understood as being one of the landmark programs of mutual obligation. Since it was introduced in 1997, more than 600,000 have participated in Work for the Dole. They have gained the discipline and dignity of performing useful work while developing life skills critical to obtaining and keeping a real job. The Labor Party promised to keep Work for the Dole at the 2007 election. But by their actions they have allowed it to decay and become a hollow shell of what it was. Since 2007, Work for the Dole participation has fallen by 60 per cent to less than 10,000. Under the coalition, Work for the Dole projects were designed to address at least one skill in demand. Work for the Dole helped by breaking the cycle of welfare dependency and encouraging a work ethic. It helped to get job seekers job ready. The evidence shows that the longer someone is out of the workforce the less likely it is that they will ever work again. Work for the Dole provides people with a job-like experience, giving them skills and getting them into a work routine. The coalition has always held very strongly that those in receipt of unemployment benefits must recognise that they have a subsequent responsibility to look for work and contribute back to the society that supports them. When Labor were elected, they proposed the introduction of a no-show, no-pay compliance system. Incredibly, this meant that, if a job seeker missed a job interview, if they did not turn up to a Work for the Dole activity or if they did not attend an appointment with their employment service provider, they were docked one day's pay, $44.93 as at 5 December 2008, when it was introduced.

It gives me no pleasure at all to say that the points the opposition made in late 2008 and early 2009 have been proven right. At the time in October 2008 when Labor introduced this failed system, I said:

In striking a balance between engagement and sanction, the government have got the balance wrong.

I also said:

Going into the future, we will see, sadly, increased numbers of long-term unemployed if the Labor government have their system for employment services passed by this parliament …

Since then we have seen that the numbers of long-term unemployed have skyrocketed, and they have skyrocketed particularly since the introduction of Job Services Australia in July 2009. At the moment, the percentage of long-term unemployed as a proportion of the total unemployed is over 20 per cent. That is the highest it has been in at least five years. We have also seen huge increases in the numbers of people who are classified as long-term unemployed. On the ABS figures, when Labor came to power there were less than 70,000 Australians who were long-term unemployed. There are now almost 120,000 on the ABS figures. But on the job seeker figures it is even worse than that. On the figures that I have, in March 2011 there were 179,041 job seekers listed as long-term unemployed.

Now, incredibly, Labor's no-show, no-pay system will not even last two years. It was already obvious that this was a massive failure within a year of them introducing it. Unbelievably, in the last 12 months there have been approximately two million job interviews, activities or provider appointments missed by job seekers with no excuses or with unsatisfactory excuses given. This is yet another example of a government which has lost its way and of a government which has been shown to be completely incompetent in addressing the challenges of unemployment and the challenges of welfare reform. The high rate of missed appointments over the last 12 months is clear evidence that the Labor government's watering down of mutual obligation in 2008 with their no-show, no-pay compliance model did not work.

I do not like, as a rule, to quote from myself, but in October 2008 I said:

The problem with weakening the compliance regime is that it will be much less effective in changing behaviour for the positive. It will become a toothless tiger.

And that is why we are here today. When you hear the government speakers, it is as if they are saying, 'We have to come in and be tough and get more compliance.' This is a classic example of trying to fix a problem that you have created. This was created by the Labor Party, by the government and by the incompetence of your ministers. We said that no show, no pay would not work because there was not enough disincentive. Clearly that is right. There have been more than two million missed interviews, missed appointments and missed attendances at things like Work for the Dole. This is yet another policy failure from the government. It is a policy failure of their own creation.

This bill seeks to correct the government's own failure by reinstating some tougher compliance measures for job seekers with activity test requirements, and this is a welcome restoration. But it is a totally unnecessary restoration. It is only necessary because the government in their wisdom decided that they would water down mutual obligation—and there are still some problems on that front. Work for the Dole, as I said, is a hollow shell of what it was. Of the new Job Services Australia structure that was announced with so much fanfare in 2008-09, much of it has not even survived this year's budget. It has not even gone for three years and already the government have realised that things like the Innovation Fund are not working, and they have been allowed to fall by the wayside.

The opposition welcomes a firm but fair system to ensure that those receiving income support who are capable of working recognise that welfare is a temporary safety net and not a lifestyle choice. On the specifics of the legislation, in the event of a job seeker failing to attend an appointment or a required activity like Work for the Dole without a reasonable excuse being given in advance, support payments for that job seeker will be suspended. The onus will then be on the job seeker to attend a rescheduled appointment, when their payment will be reinstated with back pay. If the job seeker fails to attend the rescheduled appointment, payment will be suspended indefinitely until they do attend an appointment, with no back pay payable. In addition, the reasonable-excuse provisions are also being tightened to ensure that even if there was a reasonable excuse it will not be accepted if they could have given advance notice for not attending.

In closing, I welcome the acknowledgement by the government that their no-show, no-pay compliance system has failed. The results are there for all to see: two million missed job interviews, appointments and activities and long-term unemployment now at 179,000, compared with 69,900 when Labor came to power. I think it is regrettable that these have been two wasted years for people who are on welfare, for people who are long-term unemployed, but I do welcome the acknowledgement by the government that their system has failed. We are now moving on to Job Services Australia mark 2, and I welcome the changes proposed today to restore tougher compliance measures for job seekers.

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