Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I have had three questions put to me now: one from the member for Wakefield, one from the member for Petrie and one from the member for Griffith. I will address, first of all, the two issues that are interrelated, from the member for Wakefield and the member for Petrie. It is a shame the member for Wakefield did not bother to be around to listen to the answer to his question. That indicates the seriousness of it. But I know the member for Petrie is here, and his question relates to it. Both were in relation to data on our new compliance system, which was in the newspapers yesterday. First of all, let me clarify that the data in the newspapers yesterday actually showed not the numbers of people who were on welfare in a particular area but the numbers of people who had repeatedly and consistently missed appointments, missed job interviews or failed to accept jobs that were offered to them. The unfortunate reality is that they are concentrated in certain areas.

I always point out, and I point out again today, that when you look at all of the jobseekers in Australia you will see that two-thirds are hungry to find work, never miss a beat and never miss an appointment, but there is a cohort of about 100,000 people in Australia who consistently and repeatedly fail to turn up to their appointments, fail to turn up to job interviews and turn down jobs that are offered to them. To date, many of them have been able to get away with it with very few repercussions. We believe that about half of those people may have some issues going on in their lives that we may not know about. There may be a domestic violence issue, as the member for Griffith was referring to, there may be a homelessness issue, or there may be something else that we want to know about to be able to offer assistance. But with the other half of this group there is no indicator that there are issues going on and, frankly, we believe that these people are taking the taxpayer for a ride. They are deliberately avoiding the system and have been getting away with it.

In part, they have been getting away with it because the Labor Party introduced a system of waivers whereby you could repeatedly and consistently fail to do your mutual obligation requirements but, if you were about to receive a penalty, you could ring up Centrelink and commit to re-engaging—sometimes in just an online course. One person did an online interactive gaming course and therefore avoided any penalty. We have completely redesigned the compliance system, and this compliance system, which will be introduced into the parliament in the weeks ahead, is specifically designed to identify earlier in the piece those people who need our assistance so that we will be able to provide that assistance. But it is also going to crack down harder on those people who are deliberately flouting the system.

It will work very much like your drivers licence demerit system, where you will accumulate demerit points if you miss appointments. You can accumulate up to four demerit points and, when you have accumulated four points, you will be asked to come into Centrelink. We will have a very comprehensive interview with the person once they are on four demerit points. If, through that comprehensive interview, we find that there are things going on in the person's life then we will provide them with guidance on how to get assistance. But if there is not anything going on then that person is on notice. The next time they fail to turn up to a job interview, they will lose a week's payments; the time after that they will lose two weeks payments; and the time after that they will have their payments cancelled and will not be eligible for four weeks.

We think this system strikes the right balance between finding those who need assistance and identifying them earlier in the piece. It gives opportunities for everybody to have a number of failures before they have to be put on notice, if you like. But then, if they are consistently, repeatedly and without reasonable excuse missing those appointments, we are going to be serious about the repercussions. We are doing this because we know that the best form of welfare is a job and that you are not going to be able to find a job unless you are serious about the job search, unless you are serious about turning up to the job interviews and unless you take the jobs when they are available.

I know that there is the domestic violence issue, which the member for Griffith raised. If there is a domestic violence issue going on in someone's life then we want to know about it as well if that is why they are missing some of their appointments. Typically, they would be able to ring up and that would be a reasonable excuse in any case, but if they have not identified that then of course that would be considered as part of that detailed assessment by Centrelink. I am happy to provide a more detailed briefing to the member for Griffith separately to this meeting. (Time expired)

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

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