Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the amendment moved by the member of Port Adelaide to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014, which is before the House. The fundamentals of this program are, after all, very much part of Labor's heritage, stretching back more than 20 years to a Keating government initiative introduced in 1992. The program, then called the Landcare and Environment Action Program, or LEAP, focused on providing work opportunities for young people and fostering good environmental outcomes. These are core Labor values, and we are proud to have supported this program through its various iterations under the governments of the last 20 years. While Labor continues to support the Green Army initiative in principle, the amendment moved by the member for Port Adelaide is absolutely needed to broaden debate on this bill to allow much wider discussion than one focused solely on social security entitlements. This debate needs to address a wide range of issues, including how participants are protected if injured, what training is or should be provided, what supports will be provided to assist people to actually make the transition into ongoing employment and what risks there are for displacement of existing workers. It is only prudent to do so.

Labor agrees that we need to do everything we can to get people into work. We know well the dignity that comes from having a job. Every individual who can work should be given that chance. But we know that can only happen with appropriate support and protection. Regretfully, the government, as expected by the people whom I represent in Newcastle, has not laid out the detail required for a proper analysis or discussion of this program. If we take a look at this program from the point of view of it being perhaps an environmental initiative, then we really need to look at this government's environmental record, because this government lacks all credibility when it comes to the environment. Its record in just six short months is truly astounding. From climate change to heritage icons, from conservation to shark culls, it is wreaking havoc across the whole portfolio. One is left wondering if this government is looking to send the Environment portfolio the same way as Science, and obliterate it from the government benches altogether.

Soon after coming to office, the Abbott government began rushing through a series of highly controversy environmental approvals. While rubber-stamping approvals that actually endangered our environment, the government also missed important opportunities to protect it, like with the disallowance of the endangered community listing of the River Murray from the Darling to the sea. The government also went against all reason and advice and sneakily had the world's largest marine reserve system reproclaimed to undo the management plans that give it effect. The management plans for the marine reserves were based on extensive scientific analysis and informed by serious community and industry consultation. Twenty years of hard work—work that started under the Keating Labor government and, indeed, continued under John Howard—is all now thrown out the window. Not satisfied with the effective abolition of Australia's marine reserve system, the Abbott government has also begun the process of handing over extensive environmental approval powers to the states, giving Campbell Newman control over the Great Barrier Reef and allowing Colin Barnett to reign over the Ningaloo Reef. Environmental sites of national significance are now being controlled by state based interests—an act that flies in the face of all common sense and good practice.

This government has also all but abandoned efforts to have Queensland's Cape York region added to the World Heritage List and has approved every request for development in the Great Barrier Reef catchment that has landed on the minister's desk. It has given these approvals despite UNESCO threatening to list the Great Barrier Reef as being in danger. But it does not end there. Sharks in Western Australia are on this government's hit list, too, with the minister approving an exemption to the WA government to allow drum lining off the coast despite the complete lack of evidence that it will have any effect in reducing shark attacks. It is not just members on this side of the House that are against the shark cull. The member for Bowman also publicly called for a hold on shark culling. When originally approving the initial cull, the environment minister used a mechanism designed for national security issues to do so. This is all despite the fact that more people die from bee stings each year in Australia than shark attacks. This Abbott government is systematically destroying our international reputation on the environment. In fact, that is how it won its first award. In November last year, the government won the Climate Action Network's international 'Colossal Fossil of the Year Award'. I read from the network's website an explanation of the awarding of the fossil:

The new Australian Government has won its first major international award – the Colossal Fossil. The delegation came here with legislation in its back pocket to repeal the carbon price, failed to take independent advice to increase its carbon pollution reduction target and has been blocking progress in the loss and damage negotiations. Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!

To wrap up their impressive environmental record, most recently the government has approached the World Heritage Committee to de-list 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, while the new Liberal Premier of Tasmania has promised to tear up the Tasmanian forest agreement. This is a devastating outcome for the Tasmanian economy as well as the environment, and this government's record on the environment is shameful by any reckoning. It is this government to which we will be entrusting our young people for the Green Army Program. The government has been entrusted with one of the greatest honours in public life: to protect and promote Australia's magnificent natural assets. Instead it is intent on destroying them, and the Prime Minister is not embarrassed for the whole world to know what he is doing.

But let us have a look at whether this program is in fact intended to be a form of labour employment program. We need to have a look at issues of protection for workers health and safety, workers comp and rehabilitation. We on this side of the House think that the bill in question today does not provide adequate protections for participants in the Green Army scheme, namely in the areas of workplace health and safety, workers compensation and rehabilitation. If the government were truly concerned about these matters, they would ensure that the participants are deemed employees and, as such, are covered by a range of Commonwealth laws, including the Fair Work Act, the Work Health and Safety Act and the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act.

Given the bill provides alarming exemptions from those acts, it is imperative that the consequences of such exemptions be considered in detail—detail that is yet to be presented. This government makes a point that people are to be paid a comparable training wage. If that is the case then why are participants not treated as workers? Like everything, Australians are right to be suspicious of the motives of this government. The government has made clear that health and safety and looking after those who need help to get back on their feet are not priorities.

The government is also seeking to deceive the Australian public into believing that this is an environmental program, because they do not have a coherent environmental policy. But make no mistake: this is an employment program and, as such, participants should be treated as employees. We acknowledge that the Green Army participants will be paid at the equivalent of a training wage, which while not overly generous will be more than the income support payments that many of them would likely be on. These payments will also be similar to the training wages received by thousands of other young Australians who are in vocational training and education. But, unlike trainees or apprentices, participants in the Green Army are under the supervision of the Commonwealth. Denying them the status of Commonwealth employee leaves them in a no-man's land in terms of employer-employee relationships, which afford a range of workplace rights.

A further concern of Labor is the concept of additionality or the potential to displace existing workers from other agencies and organisations. The government must assure those hardworking Australians in local government and other organisations and authorities that their employees will not be displaced and they will not rely upon Green Army participants to do their work. This is a very real concern. I have noticed in our own community the shedding of jobs in local government and the influx of volunteers doing a whole range of local government work. That is something that we need to be particularly mindful of. Volunteers are to be congratulated for the outstanding work they do in communities, but this should not be at the expense of displacing people in paid work. There is simply no justification for a program like the Green Army that can provide employment pathways if the participants then go on to displace existing workers. The pathways provided need to be new jobs, not supplementing good jobs that already exist. This potential displacement needs to be addressed by the government in its design of the program. We currently have no detail to give us confidence that this will not occur.

This amendment to the social security legislation as proposed by the government omits much of the detail related to workers rights, benefits and protection. The associated statement of requirements is equally thin on detail. Unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment, causes great hardship to individuals, their families and their communities. Entrenched unemployment also undermines the economic strength of Australia. Labor believes in helping people to get a job through the right training, work experience, incentives and, most importantly, the appropriate level of support. I must digress slightly and emphasise that this is another reason why Labor is such a strong supporter of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Access to formally recognised training delivered by a registered training organisation under the Australian Qualifications Framework is noted in the statement of requirements as an optional component of the program to be negotiated with each participant. That is right: optional registered training. This gives no confidence that participants will actually gain access to training.

The government is seriously short on detail when it comes to the training components of the Green Army Program. In which vocations and skill sets will training be provided to participants? Are these areas that have been identified by the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency as areas of emerging future skill needs? If they have not been identified as areas of emerging or future need, why have these been selected as priority areas of the government?

Labor supports providing training to young people but believes that this training should be aimed at providing them with marketable skills that are in demand by employers. In May 2011, AWPA identified a number of areas of emerging future skill needs in the green and energy efficiency skills sector in their report Energy efficiency in commercial and residential buildings: jobs and skills implications. AWPA identified that energy efficiency initiatives call for jobs and skills in auditing and reporting, installation and maintenance of energy efficient appliances to meet revised building standards, assessment of new and existing buildings against rating systems, monitoring data output from energy management systems, tuning buildings for peak performance, marketing new and existing buildings in both commercial and residential sectors and drawing up green leases. In the green and energy efficiency skills sector, we have the opportunity to ensure that Australians have the skills to contribute to our response to the challenges of environmental sustainability. The government has a real opportunity to provide our young people with jobs for the future in this area and to provide a pathway from training to employment in this emerging industry. The training provided to young people needs to be accredited, it needs to have quality assurance, it needs to be meaningful and not just tick-a-box training. There is no work experience better than paid employment in a real workplace with serious support mechanisms to ensure all young people get to reach their full potential.

Labor believes that environmental based work and training programs can be an effective pathway to work for many job seekers, as well as providing environmental benefits. Workplace training programs have the potential, if well designed and implemented, to achieve these twin goals. If we do not address youth unemployment, there will be massive future costs—not just in terms of welfare and social support, but also in terms of an individual's lost opportunity.

Just last month I raised in this place the concerning youth unemployment issues faced in my electorate of Newcastle and more broadly across the country. Proper, needs-based school funding, university and training opportunities are all issues that this government is not taking seriously.

Real employment is one of the cornerstones of sustainable communities and economic development. Labor agrees that we need to do everything we can to get people into work. Every individual who can work should be given that chance, but that can happen only with appropriate support. The government needs to entrust the Australian people with details of its Green Army program. We deserve nothing less.

See this speech in context