Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to give my support to the needy and vulnerable families in my electorate of Paterson. The Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Weekly Payments) Bill 2010 will allow these families to access support payments twice a fortnight instead of once. It will be the responsibility of the secretary of the department to speak with the Centrelink customers to decide who needs weekly payments of social security, the family tax benefit and the baby bonus. The measures introduced through this bill will help families manage their weekly budget and will provide more timely payments for those struggling most. In particular the bill targets those who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. It will reduce the amount of time people have to wait for the next support payment when they have a particular need. According to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were 3,500 recorded homeless people in New South Wales in 2006. In the Hunter there were more than 200, with 51 in Port Stephens alone. Some charities suggest this number is actually far greater and, to make matters worse, growing higher ever year.

As reported by ABC Newcastle on 4 March 2009:

An extra 7,600 people were made homeless in New South Wales last year, when interest rates and rents were at their height, but the State Government is expecting the figures to get worse.

The latest figures released by the state’s Housing Department show around 22,500 people sought temporary accommodation in 2007-2008—an average increase of 643 people a month compared to the previous year.

These numbers are simply devastating. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to be forced to spend a night on the street, with nowhere to turn to have a roof put over your head and no-one to help keep your family safe and warm. This is a scary reality for far too many people, and the Rudd Labor government needs to do more to help the needy in our community. Our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, promised to do more. In fact, in 2008 he promised to halve the homeless rate by 2020. But, as the figures I have mentioned show, homelessness so far has only increased. The Prime Minister has conceded this himself. Unless something changes—and changes soon—our number of homeless will only skyrocket further.

I say this because the cost of living, which our Prime Minister also promised to fix, has spiralled out of control. If families cannot afford to eat, cannot afford to drive and cannot afford child care while they go off to work then chances are they will be forced onto the street. Therefore, we absolutely cannot afford this continuum of broken promises from Prime Minister Rudd. Let us consider the rising cost of living in Australia with a look at grocery prices. The Rudd Labor government promised to put downward pressure on food costs but, after wasting more than $7 million on failed GROCERYchoice websites, bills have increased. The Daily Telegraph reported on 4 February this year:

GROCERY prices have soared with the cost of a standard basket of goods rising by about $10 in three months.

Figures released yesterday show families were slugged far more for meat, fruit and vegetables, beer and various other grocery items in the three months to Christmas, compared with the three months to September.

Prime Minister Rudd’s living costs broken promise No. 1: groceries.

Now let us move on to power. First Paterson families copped a 20 per cent rise in electricity bills in July 2009. Then the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal released its draft price report on 15 December. This report states that power bills will rise by up to 62 per cent by 2013. That is right—in just three years we could see prices increase by around $900 a year for the average household. According to IPART almost half of this price rise is to pay for the Rudd Labor government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, Prime Minister Rudd’s tax on everything, which will do absolutely nothing for the environment. It makes a mockery of his promise to make things cheaper. Prime Minister Rudd’s living costs broken promise No. 2: electricity

I will move on to fuel costs. In 2007 opposition leader Rudd said that the Howard government had:

… lost touch with working families under financial pressure, not just from interest rates, not just from rising rents, but grocery and petrol prices …

He suggested that he as Prime Minister would do something to fix this. But, after a failed and very costly Fuelwatch system, nothing has been delivered. As my constituent Jeff wrote online in January:

Today … I paid 132.9 cents for E10 at … Nelson Bay … Your ave Sydney price 120.9

I wrote to the Rudd Labor government’s minister, Dr Emerson, on behalf of Jeff last year, but to date he still has not replied. Meanwhile drivers in my electorate are still being forced to pay higher than average prices and a few petrol stations are being monitored by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. The Australian Institute of Petroleum website also shows how families in my electorate are paying higher prices for fuel. According to its figures for Forster, locals were paying 116c a litre in May last year, while now they are paying 128c per litre. That is a rise of more than 10c per litre. Meanwhile, to add further insult, Sydney figures show city drivers paid just 120c per litre on average last month. Paterson is less than two hours up the highway from Sydney, yet we pay 10c per litre more. Here we have Prime Minister Rudd’s living costs broken promise No. 3: petrol.

Finally, let us look at child care, where the Prime Minister has again been exposed as all talk and no action. A report in the Daily Telegraph on 23 January revealed how the Rudd Labor government changes to childcare standards will see parents slugged up to $40 extra per day or $200 a week. Seventy-nine per cent, or around four out of five, regional childcare centres have admitted that they will be forced to increase charges under the plan, yet nothing has been done to alleviate the problem. Child care is often relied upon by parents who go off to work and need a safe, trustworthy and secure place to leave their children. This service needs to be affordable for working mothers and fathers. Prime Minister Rudd’s living costs broken promise No. 4: child care.

I could go on to examples 5, 6, 7—the list is long. However, my point is already clear: Prime Minister Rudd needs to start delivering on his promise and take some real action to help families in Paterson and indeed across Australia afford basic costs. If he does not do so, more and more families in my electorate will be forced to seek help and could end up without a home. The Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Weekly Payments) Bill 2010 is a positive step towards helping those who are vulnerable. But we must see even more action to stop families struggling in the first place. We must have a multipronged approach to really tackle this problem and to make a change. Allow me to read an article from one of my local newspapers, the Maitland Mercury. On 19 February, an article by Emma Swain read:

Maitland’s Samaritans emergency relief centre is almost out of food and vouchers as an unprecedented number of residents face financial crisis.

The Samaritans’ 11 emergency relief centres have nearly exhausted all food, grocery and electricity vouchers with little sign of replenishment.

Typically February is a slower month for the Hunter-based charity giant, but this year is proving to be an exception with demand for vouchers constant since Christmas.

In December 2009, the Maitland relief centre in East Maitland, recorded its busiest month in 17 years.

‘I can’t remember a time where we have had nothing to offer those seeking assistance,’ Samaritans chief executive officer Cec Shevels said.

‘If the next six months continue with the same trends in emergency relief we will have a 40 per cent increase on last year.’

Samaritans have assisted 3011 individuals and families through emergency relief along with 4000 dependent children in the past three months.

About 30 per cent of these people had not sought Samaritans’ assistance in the past.

‘It’s the basic things that are pushing people to crisis point,” Mr Shevels said.

‘Those on a low income are pushed to the limit and rises in bills such as electricity and water along with skyrocketing rental payments, build up over a period of time to a point when something has to give. Often it is food on the table, so we always send people away with food from the pantry or vouchers to buy food items but with our allocation exhausted, we’ve got nothing left to give those in crisis.’

What Mr Shevels explains here is that a rising number of families are under pressure because of the added living costs under this Rudd Labor government. These people, who have never struggled before and who suddenly have to rely on government assistance, may need the more flexible support payments that this bill delivers.

Mr Shevels also demonstrates the amazing work done by volunteers and groups in the Paterson community. These people, who number in their thousands, give of their time to support our region’s most vulnerable, and I cannot thank them enough for their efforts. They are often the last resort for people who have nowhere else to turn, and they do a wonderful job in helping people financially, physically and emotionally.

Another example in my electorate is the Raymond Terrace Neighbourhood Centre. This centre is headed by Colleen Whittle and runs entirely on a not-for-profit basis. It offers a drop-in centre, financial assistance, counselling, advocacy and referral, as well as crisis accommodation. The centre allows people to get help in a caring environment without discrimination and has helped many people who would otherwise have ended up on our streets. Unfortunately, because there is such demand on welfare services at the moment, support services simply cannot cope.

As noted in the article from the Maitland Mercury, not-for-profit groups are running out of supplies, because there is such an overwhelming demand. Today, I would ask anyone who can spare a donation, even in these tough times, to give what they can to local charities. I have seen the spirit of giving from so many of my constituents firsthand, and I know what they are capable of.

Many people are doing it tough. Many people are relying on government assistance. Many people are out on the streets, despite the Prime Minister’s promise to cut homelessness. This is simply not good enough. In real terms, across the Paterson electorate, more than 20,000 people relied on the family tax benefit last year to run their homes and support their children. It is vital that they are looked after. On top of this, more than 1,400 baby bonus payments were made in the 2007-08 financial year so that parents could provide the essentials to their babies. Weekly payments would help many of these people manage their family budgets and stop them becoming homeless.

To date, there has been little action on homelessness from the Rudd Labor government. The Prime Minister announced the boost to the Personal Helpers and Mentors Program, an initiative first announced in 2006 by then Prime Minister John Howard. However, Prime Minister Rudd has committed just $10 million to this program. Compare this to the $250 million he recently gave commercial television station operators or the $200 million that he has wasted on the inflated and disastrous insulation rebates—not to mention the $50 million about to be spent to rectify it. It appears awfully inadequate, especially for those Australians who will sleep tonight on benches, in parks and on the street.

The Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Weekly Payments) Bill 2010 is a bill to help struggling families and to prevent at risk people becoming homeless. It gives more flexibility to the social security system and can help people balance their weekly budgets by reducing the time between payments. Trained professionals will decide who needs this flexibility and for how long.

However, the Rudd Labor government needs to do more to stop the rising cost of living which is forcing people out of their homes. Prime Minister Rudd promised to do so; he must deliver. I clearly remember his election commitment to apply ‘downward pressure on prices’. I also remember his promise that the buck would stop with him. Well, Prime Minister Rudd, it is time for this downward pressure to begin, because prices are only headed up and up. Finally, I would urge anyone who has the time to volunteer to help those vulnerable people in our community. More can be done to make sure everyone in our community has a place to call home, and the Rudd Labor government must make this a priority.

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

I speak in support of the Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Weekly Payments) Bill 2010. The background to this is the government’s strong commitment to reducing homelessness. Homelessness is a curse in our society. It is not a choice as the opposition leader infamously said recently; it is often the result of violence in the home, sexual abuse, alcohol and gambling addiction, personal circumstances, familial circumstances and employment circumstances. Young people who grow up in homes where they are afflicted by these problems are more likely to repeat the cycle of homelessness and trouble. That results in criminal activity and on many occasions it results in low educational attainment and achievement, lack of employment skills, lack of productivity in the workplace and a more harsh, brutal and unfair society.

One wonders what the Howard coalition government thought about homelessness in their nearly 12 years on the treasury bench. Perhaps they were going to address the issue in their 13th, 14th or 15th year of office. Certainly, when I listened to the member for Paterson, I heard nothing about the achievements of the Howard government and heard nothing about what a coalition government under the current Leader of the Opposition would do in relation to homelessness. There was much complaint, much whingeing, much carping and much aggravation but no solutions to the problems and little bipartisanship. It really is quite sad that recently in the Sydney Morning Herald the opposition leader, dealing with this issue of homelessness—and that is what this legislation before the House is about—had this to say in relation to the issue of homelessness:

But we just can’t stop people from being homeless if that’s their choice or if their situation is such that it is just impossible to look after them under certain circumstances so I would rephrase a commitment like that.

It is typical of those opposite, who think homelessness is a matter of choice. For them it is all a matter of choice. Sadly, homelessness is not the fault of so many people. Women and children find themselves in terrible situations. On any given night in this country there are about 105,000 people who are homeless—about 19 per cent in crisis accommodation, about 20 per cent in insecure accommodation, boarding houses and the like, about 45 per cent will be staying temporarily with friends or relatives, and about 16 per cent will be sleeping rough on the street.

Tragically, about 17 per cent of those people are Indigenous. Homelessness is worse amongst our Indigenous brothers and sisters. This is what the census says. This is what the facts say. And it did not all happen on 24 November 2007. It happened, so much, on the watch of the previous government. In fact, St Vincent de Paul stated in its report, Don’t dream: it’s over, that the number of families with children which were seeking assistance from homelessness services had increased by 30 per cent over the past five years. So let’s not kid ourselves by coming into this place and claiming that it is all the fault of the Rudd Labor government.

The background to this is that we made an election commitment to do something about homelessness. In January 2008 the Prime Minister and the Minister for Housing, the Hon. Tanya Plibersek, announced the development of a comprehensive long-term plan to tackle homelessness. A steering committee was appointed and in May 2008 a green paper on homelessness was released entitled Which way home? A new approach to homelessness. There was much public discussion, which was sought across all states during May and June 2008. More than 1,200 people attended 13 consultations and almost 600 written submissions were received. More than 300 people who were homeless expressed their views. As a result of that, further developments took place and the government announced a white paper called The road home: a national approach to reducing homelessness. That was released in December 2008.

Part of our strategy to address the issue of homelessness is to bring forward legislation like this. I will address some of the other issues about what the government is doing. I did not intend to make a very partisan speech, but the previous speaker has goaded and prodded me into doing so. The legislation that is before the House introduces weekly payments of social security periodic payments, family tax benefit and baby bonus for a certain class of persons. People have the option, having been identified by Centrelink as potentially vulnerable people, to receive their payments in a way which will help them manage their bills better. Sadly, some people who are homeless are not well educated, do not have the skills and capacity to manage their money as they ought and need help. That is what Centrelink is there to do: give them assistance to meet their needs in terms of food, rent and essential services.

Paying the money weekly is more likely to assist people than paying money on a fortnightly, monthly or three-monthly basis. The legislation before us assists those people who lack capacity and gives them the certainty of knowing that they will have money on a weekly basis. For many of these people it is the necessities of life that they need; they have little access to money for recreation or pleasure. They just need a helping hand to get through and extract themselves from their positions of vulnerability and distress. The total amount paid to social security and family assistance customers will be the same. It is about the delivery of assistance. So the legislation is a fair piece of legislation; it gives a helping hand to those in distress.

We believe we need to help not just those who are homeless but those who are vulnerable in our society or at risk of being vulnerable. Tragically, according to the figures, more than 12,000 children last night were homeless or at risk. We cannot allow this to happen. It is a national tragedy in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Tragically, the coalition did little to address the issue during its tenure as government. As a result of the white paper the Australian government, in partnership with the states and territories, has committed $1.2 billion to address homelessness over the next four years. This is a 55 per cent increase in funding—real money on the table. It is a demonstration of the commitment of the Rudd Labor government to helping those in distress, in disadvantage and in difficulty. It will enable new support services to be created for people who are homeless and it is about creating new houses as well.

When it comes to social housing—which is so critical and which the previous government had an appalling record on—money is being poured into my electorate, the federal electorate of Blair. I have had many discussions over the years with housing authorities in Queensland and you only have to hear the words of the Hon. Robert Schwarten, who was a long-term minister for housing in Queensland, to realise that the previous government, the Howard government, did little in the area of public housing. In fact, it was quite amenable to ripping the heart out of public housing in this country.

In my electorate alone, under the Social Housing Initiative, we are seeing close to $32 million put into the creation of new dwellings, and about $1.2 million put into repairs to and maintenance of existing dwellings. We have also seen—to assist our defence personnel—another 111 houses being built in the Ipswich area. This is real money. Allied with our initiative to address homelessness, on 3 February 2009 we released our Nation Building and Jobs Plan—and the above is the evidence in my electorate of the money we are putting into addressing homelessness. We are putting in $6.4 billion to build 20,000 new public and community housing dwellings across the country.

There are many great communitarians in my electorate who are at the coalface of dealing with people who are vulnerable, and I want to pay tribute to them. They will be dealing with the people who will be able to avail themselves of the benefits of weekly payments. I want to pay tribute to Pastor Fred Muys from the Rivers of Life Christian Church for his ministry through Harvest Rain Christian Care. That particular church is a small church with a shopfront in Brisbane Street in Ipswich. They deliver hundreds of food parcels every week. They run literacy classes to help people from non-English-speaking backgrounds to gain literacy and greater employment skills. They have created a great enterprise there on the grounds of the old Tivoli drive-in, and created many opportunities and training facilities for our young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Pastor Fred Muys and his great team of workers are to be commended. They will see the benefits in the lives of people who will be the recipients of weekly payments.

I want to pay tribute to my own church, Ipswich Baptist Church, for its 241 Ministries, located right across from the church’s old site. For a long time, that church ran community kitchens and also provided food parcels, and continues to do so. It gives counselling to people in central Ipswich who are suffering from homelessness, addiction and from other problems, of domestic and family violence. I want to pay tribute also to Ipswich Region Community Church, under the leadership of Pastor Mark Edwards, for that church’s assistance to and the partnership it has with Ipswich Baptist Church—putting on a psychologist to give psychological services and counselling to those people who attend at the 241 Ministries in Brisbane Street, Ipswich.

I want to thank Bianca Law from the Booval Community Service for the great work she does, in particular, and the community service for the great work they do, for those families in distress. I have been round with Bianca to visit families in Ipswich who have lost jobs and, as a result, are facing hardship. I have seen the despair, humiliation and not just the anger but the sadness in the eyes of men and women who have fallen into circumstances where they never thought they would go. Bianca and her team at Booval Community Service have done great work there.

I want to thank also David Martin, who has chaired for a long time ICYS, which is a youth community service in Ipswich that has been around almost forever. The service has done great work in dealing with people who have suffered from disadvantage, particularly young families. Hannah’s House, run by the Pentecostal churches in Ipswich, particularly the Assemblies of God, deals with young women who have been forced out of their homes as a result of violence, drunkenness or other parental misbehaviour. They are all suffering challenge also. All of these great services have done great work.

They will see the benefit of this legislation. I want to pay tribute to all these local people but also thank them for what they are doing. They work closely with Centrelink, with the 90 Centrelink community engagement officers that the Rudd government employed to deal with the issues of homelessness and the risk of homelessness. Those 90 Centrelink community engagement officers help people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, particularly by connecting them with mental health services, hostels, boarding houses, drug and alcohol rehabilitation services and emergency accommodation. We are committed to improving the delivery services for all Australians and to making sure that the reform in this legislation will target vulnerable Australians who find it difficult to budget.

Having no money in your wallet, in your household, in your coffers at the end of a fortnight is extraordinarily difficult. Thousands and thousands of Australians find themselves in that situation every night, every week and every fortnight. I support this legislation because it will help struggling families—women in particular, children in particular—to put a roof over their heads, to put food in their bellies and to put clothes on their backs. This is good legislation. It is part of the matrix and the fabric of what the Rudd government is doing to assist the vulnerable in our community. It is a good initiative, it is a Labor initiative and I commend the legislation to the House.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Weekly Payments) Bill 2010 enables weekly payments for certain members of a class of persons who receive a social security periodic payment, family tax benefit or the baby bonus. It is intended to target people who are assessed as being vulnerable, such as those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. This measure was foreshadowed in the homelessness white paper, The road home: a national approach to reducing homelessness, which was released in 2008. The amendments allow the secretary of the department to identify at-risk individuals, generally by discussion with them, who may benefit from weekly rather than fortnightly payments. The class of persons from whom the individuals might be drawn will be determined by a legislative instrument to be made by the minister.

I also note that a trial of this scheme with around 1,700 disadvantaged welfare recipients was conducted in 69 Centrelink customer service centres by the then Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and Centrelink from October 2005 to April 2006—a period of time in which I was one of the responsible ministers in the department’s concerned. It has been made abundantly clear in the bill that the government has no intention of weekly payments becoming a mainstream measure, reserving it for those who are regarded as highly disadvantaged and at risk of becoming homeless. The coalition support this bill and support action that will help people who are regrettably living on the streets move into more permanent accommodation. We believe that, in the process of taking people from homelessness to the home, we give people the tools to live and to move towards independence.

The Prime Minister’s pledge to halve homelessness by 2020 is unrealistic, especially when we have a government that is more focused on political outcomes than on real outcomes on homelessness. For example, the Prime Minister has recently announced additional funding for the Personal Helpers and Mentors Program which, on the government’s own projections, is the equivalent of only around $33 per homeless person per year. It is not even enough to buy a homeless person a roof over their head and a meal for one night, much less for a year.

This is a token commitment which makes a mockery of any serious plans to halve homelessness by 2020. Even the Prime Minister and the Minister for Housing have now conceded that the rate of homelessness has risen since this pledge was made. Indeed, in a recent report in the Australian newspaper entitled ‘Kevin Rudd losing the fight on homeless’ a number of welfare agencies that are closely involved in addressing the issue of homeless people in a very practical and personal way on a daily basis indicated that, in their estimation, even though official statistics are yet to come out, homelessness has risen in Australia since the Prime Minister made this pledge. I know, from speaking to welfare organisations in my own electorate—to Doncare, for example—that this is an issue which is of great concern to them, as it is to similar organisations right throughout the country.

We believe that the Prime Minister must explain why we should take his promise any more seriously than his promise to fix hospitals or to put a computer on every secondary student’s desk or to turn back the illegal boat arrivals. There is a major problem and it is, as the Prime Minister said, a national obscenity. But it is wrong to promise dramatic improvements without the architecture to actually deliver those improvements. Remember Bob Hawke’s empty promise: ‘No child will live in poverty by 1990.’ It would be a tragedy for homeless people in Australia if that promise, full of the usual hyperbole that we get from the Prime Minister, cannot be achieved and indeed if the architecture is not in place to realistically have a chance of delivering upon that promise. As I said, early indications are that things have gotten worse, not better, since the promise was made.

The government’s failure to deal with the housing affordability crisis, which the Prime Minister described as the ‘ultimate barbecue stopper,’ places enormous pressure on all other areas of the housing market. Less affordable housing means more stress on private rentals, which means more stress on social housing, which, in turn, means more people on the streets who cannot get into the market whatsoever. This is at the base of the problem that we are dealing with. Homelessness, if you like, is at the end of the line. It is the problems further up the line in terms of housing affordability and availability across this country that have tragic consequences for those who are homeless around this nation.

As I said, the coalition does not oppose this measure. It believes it is a good measure that will assist many who are at risk of homelessness to better balance their budget. It is an important measure, but it needs to be supplemented with the necessary social support and other measures to ensure that what has been promised is indeed delivered to the Australian people.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In making my contribution to this debate on the Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Weekly Payments) Bill 2010 I am pleased to hear that the opposition will not oppose this measure. Although, in listening to the previous speaker, the member for Menzies, I am not 100 per cent convinced that, when it comes to the crunch, they will not oppose this measure just for the sake of opposition. We on this side of the House have become very familiar with the fact that the opposition, under Tony Abbott, will oppose absolutely every piece of legislation that comes before the House. It does not surprise me that speakers on the other side have tried to highlight negative aspects of homelessness and programs designed to address homelessness.

It is interesting that this legislation has been developed after a series of trials. I should state at the outset of my contribution that this bill makes weekly payments available to certain vulnerable customers of Centrelink or people who are homeless. The bill also makes a small number of technical corrections which are unrelated to the main part of the bill.

As I was saying, this legislation has been developed from previously conducted trials that showed that weekly payments were beneficial to a number of people who receive welfare and are struggling, for various reasons, to maintain a budget over the fortnightly period. One of those trials was in the town camps in Alice Springs. The trials were carried out from September 2001 to March 2003 as part of a broader trial of culturally sensitive banking and financial services in the town camp communities. These trials showed that there was some benefit in the weekly payments. At that time they were funded through FaCSIA, and the aim of them was to break the ‘feast and famine’ cycle. Siobhan McDonnell, a former visiting fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, studied the results of this trial, and she found that there was indeed some benefit to be obtained from providing weekly payments. There was also another trial that took place within the broader community. As with the town camp trial that I have already referred to, it was found that there were some benefits associated with weekly payments.

The trials sought to determine the costs and benefits of weekly payment arrangements both for the people who were taking part in the trial and for other stakeholders. They included Centrelink, social workers, support services that catered for the needs of disadvantaged welfare recipients, and Centrelink staff who had to deal with many of the people that were constantly requesting advances or urgent payments because they were unable to manage receiving their payments fortnightly. The results of these trials support the extension of the scheme.

Michael Raper from the National Welfare Rights Network, based on feedback provided to him by community groups, said that the weekly payment trial worked well for very vulnerable clients and that they had been able to turn their lives around, with improved health and personal outcomes, more stable accommodation and reduced costs for and demands on the health and legal services. So, when you look at it from the background of the trials that were conducted by the Howard government and that I suspect members on the other side of this House supported, you would have to wonder why we have had some of the contributions to the debate we have had today.

Weekly payments on their own will not be sufficient to turn around the lives of people who are suffering severe disadvantage. There will need to be programs that run in conjunction with the weekly payments scheme—programs that help people get their finances in order and help them with daily living skills and with problems that they may have in their lives at that particular time.

One of the major problems faced by people who are struggling with the fortnightly payments is homelessness, and we have heard homelessness mentioned this morning on a couple of occasions. The member for Blair stated—and it is common knowledge—that on any one night there are 105,000 people in Australia who are homeless. That is why the Rudd government is investing $1.2 billion in trying to turn around and address the issue of homelessness. In Shortland electorate there are homeless people, but quite often those homeless people are hidden because they move on a daily basis from home to home to home. You do not have many visual pictures of people sleeping on the streets, but you have many people who are unable to find accommodation. Under the Howard government money that was invested in social housing was ripped away from the states. One of the actions of the Rudd government that I am very proud of is that of massively increasing money to the states to build social housing.

In Shortland electorate there are 2,000 people on the eastern side of Lake Macquarie and in Wyong shire waiting for social housing. The person who has been on the waiting list the longest has been on it for 18 years—that is, 18 years waiting for social housing. I think that that is unconscionable; I do not think it is good enough. I do not think it is good enough that, on a daily basis, we have people in Shortland electorate sleeping in their cars; I do not think it is good enough that, on a daily basis, we have families moving from house to house to house; I do not think it is good enough that we have families who are forced to live in tents; and I do not think it is good enough that, for a very long period of time, the issue of homelessness was ignored and the previous government failed to act to address the need. It is little wonder when you hear the Leader of the Opposition make statements such as the one in Perth in mid-February when he said that you cannot stop homelessness, basically attributing it to the fault of the individual and implying that people choose to be homeless. That shows what a sheltered life the Leader of the Opposition has led. It shows that he has never really been faced with true adversity in his life. It is very easy to make those statements when you come from a very privileged background, when you have been offered the best of education—attended private schools and gone to university—and your life has flowed along smoothly. I have news for the Leader of the Opposition: anyone can become homeless, and we do need to have in place the proper support for people who are homeless.

I was also most disappointed when I read a report in the newspaper about a Liberal party forum, a get-together, here in Canberra, where everyone sat down and tossed around a few ideas. The Leader of the Opposition had some very strong thoughts on welfare and welfare payments. Basically, he felt that welfare payments to disadvantaged people were not something to be guaranteed universally—that every person who received a welfare payment should have to work for that welfare payment and that it was a privilege, not a right, to receive a welfare payment.

Taking that a step further, you come to the conclusion that there will be a massive increase in the number of people that are homeless and that Australia will move away from what I have always been proud of as an Australian: the ideal that every Australian will be supported in their time of need and that as a nation we can afford to look after those people that are more disadvantaged than others. We do this, as I said, through social housing and through the strategies that have been put in place in relation to housing. We do it through ensuring that there are payments in place for people when they are disadvantaged.

The weekly payment scheme will be a scheme that will really benefit those people most disadvantaged in the community. It will enable the family tax benefit to be paid on a weekly basis and it will allow for the baby and social security periodic payments to be paid on a weekly basis. There is great interest in the community in relation to this particular piece of legislation. I received a phone call from the social work department at the Mater hospital in the Hunter asking about this information. They had identified that this would be a really good program to assist those people they were dealing with who have trouble handling their finances.

I strongly support this piece of legislation that we have before us today. I condemn the Leader of the Opposition for the statements he has made about homelessness. I would like him to read the white paper, The road home: a national approach to reducing homelessness. I would like him to open up his mind and to be a little bit more compassionate. I would like the members on the other side of this House to give real thought to the issues that surround the most disadvantaged people in our community. It is more than paying lip-service to disadvantage. It is more than standing up and attributing increases in homelessness to increases in prices, trying to play the blame game, trying to trivialise the issue, because that is what they are doing.

In the whole time they were in power the Howard government did nothing, absolutely nothing, to address homelessness. They did nothing whatsoever to improve the lives of those people that are most disadvantaged. Instead, they made it harder for people who were homeless to access their social security payments. They made it harder for people who were most disadvantaged to get their lives together, to get their lives back on track and to be able to access the services that were available in the community. It was under the Howard government that so many people were breached and a number of those people that were breached suffered severe financial hardship. Those people were often homeless and if they were not homeless the actions of the Howard government of the time led to them become homeless.

This is a very, very constructive piece of legislation. It will help the most disadvantaged people in our community. This, coupled with the right sort of support programs, will help people turn their lives around.

Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Weekly Payments) Bill 2010. This bill enables weekly payments to be made to a class of persons who receive social security periodic payments, family tax benefit or the baby bonus. It is aimed at those people who are assessed as being vulnerable, such as those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Historically, most welfare and family assistance payments have been made in Australia on a fortnightly cycle. This has been sufficient for most but not all recipients. In particular, some people suffering disadvantage due to homelessness, mental health issues, alcohol or substance abuse conditions are unable to organise a budget—not only over a fortnightly period but sometimes over any period at all. Many of these vulnerable people may spend their entire fortnightly payment in only a few days or, as circumstances have been related to me, in one day. The knock-on effect is that food and shelter may then be unaffordable for the remaining days of the fortnight, leading to health and accommodation problems for those affected and their families.

There have been trials of weekly payments for welfare recipients in the past which, by published accounts, have been quite successful. As the member for Shortland mentioned only a few minutes ago, the first of these trials were started back in 2001 in Alice Springs town camps. Although that trial ran through until 2003, it was not stand-alone; there was a broader package that went with it of assistance for people in those town camps, including culturally sensitive banking and financial services. That trial was funded by the then Department of Family and Community Services, and it was intended to address the problems associated with the feast and famine cycle that had accompanied fortnightly payments for some recipients. A report on the trial, titled Chasing the money story: an evaluation of the Tangentyere bank pilot project and its relevance to Indigenous communities in Central Australia, was undertaken by Siobhan McDonnell, a former visiting fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. This report was generally supportive of the use of weekly payments but also noted some problems with the implementation.

These problems included problems with Centrelink putting the weekly payment system in place and people choosing to leave the trial and revert to fortnightly payments, as weekly payments were sometimes insufficient to allow them to make purchases of large or highly priced items. However, the report found the weekly payments were helpful to some people, especially if additional services were provided as well and that they were worth making more widely available. In particular, though, the report found that if weekly payments were to be successful then they should be of a voluntary nature. A broader trial was then undertaken in 2005, again by the then Department of Family and Community Services. It ran through until 2006. This trial provided for the option of weekly payments to disadvantaged welfare recipients at 69 Centrelink customer service centres, with the majority of those being in South Australia and Western Australia. Around 1,700 recipients signed up for involvement in this larger trial, with most of them being paid a disability support pension and suffering from some form of mental illness. This trial also offered access to other support services to assist in stabilising clients’ circumstances so was not limited to weekly payments as a form of assistance.

The then President of the National Welfare Rights Network, Michael Raper, was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on 7 April 2006 as saying that as a result of the weekly payments trial:

… very vulnerable clients have been able to turn their lives around with improved health and personal outcomes, more stable accommodation and reduced costs in terms of demands on the health and legal systems.

Given the reported success of the trial, Michael Raper was ‘at a loss as to why it was being wound up’. As I understand it, the trial was only undertaken on a limited basis, mainly due to legislative restrictions at the time. Therefore, this bill before the House provides for vulnerable income support recipients to receive weekly payments through two part payments in respect of their 14-day instalment period, thus fixing up the legislative problems of the previous trial. The effect is to treat the two part payments as though they were a single payment being paid at the end of the fortnightly instalment period.

In December 2008, the Rudd government released the homelessness white paper titled The road home: a national approach to reducing homelessness. The intent of the white paper is to provide for a national plan of action on homelessness for the years leading up to 2020. Three strategies were identified in the report to tackle homelessness: a focus on early intervention in the provision of homelessness services; a need for increased responsiveness to and connectivity between homelessness services to achieve better outcomes in relation to sustainable housing whilst improving economic and social participation and reducing the level of homelessness; and moving homeless people quickly out of crisis accommodation and into stable housing along with the necessary support to ensure that homelessness does not become recurrent. Contained within the first strategy was a recommendation for the weekly payment of income support. Weekly payments for vulnerable people will be voluntary under this bill, and Centrelink will be able to flag likely claimants who may need this support.

Homelessness can happen to virtually anyone due to an unexpected change of circumstances. It happens right across society, and in many cases it does not matter which suburb you live in or your family circumstances. The census in 2006 revealed that 105,000 people were homeless on census night. A breakdown of the percentages showed 56 per cent were male; 21 per cent were between the ages of 12 and 18; 12 per cent were under the age of 12; 23 per cent were staying in boarding houses; 45 per cent were staying with friends and relatives; 16 per cent were sleeping rough; and 14 per cent were staying in accommodation provided by the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program. Of course, what the census did not include was the people who were not in the census, and I do not know how many people that is—probably no-one really does know the real figure. What I do know is that it is addition to that 105,000 that were actually recorded in the census. Nearly half of the 105,000 Australians who are homeless on a given night are under the age of 25, and more than 12,000 are children. As the white paper explained, homelessness can affect children, families and older people just as insidiously as single people who are in difficulty for whatever reason. Our Indigenous population is affected out of proportion to their numbers, and those with mental illness are often among the homeless, especially following the deinstitutionalisation of the mentally ill in the 1980s.

The Rudd Labor government has already demonstrated commitment about how serious it is in dealing with the issue of homelessness with measures that provide an extra $1.1 billion to boost services for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and by increasing spending on homeless services by 55 per cent. There are measures such as an additional 80,000 social and affordable homes to the national housing stock, with 30,000 through the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan and another 50,000 through the National Rental Affordability Scheme. Also, there is the investment of around $80 million in emergency relief and financial counselling services.

In recent weeks we have seen the announcement of funding for both emergency relief and financial counselling in my electorate of Deakin, and I am happy to commend the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, for taking these vital measures to address these problems not only in Deakin but right across the country. Deakin covers the eastern suburbs in Melbourne, and some people have the perception that all is fine in what look like nice settled, stable suburbs. But I can certainly tell the House that we have a high incidence of homelessness in those suburbs.

Sometimes it is hidden away, but you do not have to go very far to find evidence of it. You can go down to any of the local welfare services and they can tell you how many people on a daily basis they are dealing with and, even worse, how many people they have to turn away because they do not have the accommodation: it is not there. The Rudd Labor government is funding 41 specialist homelessness projects across our housing programs to provide more than 1,680 new units of accommodation.

Centrelink also provides specialist support for homeless people; income support for those who are vulnerable, disadvantaged and socially excluded; and an indicator in its systems to identify homeless clients or clients who are at risk of homelessness. There is also the network of community engagement officers to work with NGOs like drug and alcohol rehab services, mental health services, hostels, boarding houses, refuges and drop-in centres. Centrelink also provides counselling, access to Centrepay and other support programs, and referral to community services if required. I have two Centrelink offices that service my electorate. They are both staffed with wonderful people who really go out of their way to assist those who come in their doors. Sometimes I wonder how they manage to do it all in one day; they really do get through a lot of work. They do a great job out there, but local issues mean that they are often overwhelmed as well. It is a big issue that goes right across the country.

I also note that the provision of weekly payments has been welcomed by Clare Martin, CEO of ACOSS, who said:

ACOSS welcomes this move by the Government which will help severely disadvantaged people access their payments on a weekly, rather than fortnightly, basis …

…            …            …

Homeless people in particular can struggle to maintain a budget and often operate on a day-to-day basis rather than in fortnightly cycles. Giving people a choice to receive payments weekly will empower them to take control of their finances, minimise hardship and prevent people from slipping into homelessness.

This proposal has also received support from Homelessness Australia, the national peak body working to prevent and respond to homelessness in Australia.

The changes implemented in this bill are small for most of us, but they are very necessary and worthwhile measures that seek to reduce homelessness, and for those who are in that position these changes are not small; I suspect they will be rather large. As the white paper states:

Investing in services to prevent and reduce homelessness delivers benefits not only to those vulnerable to homelessness but also to the entire community.

I commend this bill to the House.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In supporting the Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Weekly Payments) Bill 2010, I note the good work being done by an agency in my electorate called Goori House, headed up by John Close and supported ably by David and Bill. I also note the hostel and rehabilitation services that they offer to homeless people in my electorate and, in fact, the whole greater Brisbane area. Many of those homeless people are struggling with the demons of drugs and alcohol and are trying to find their way back by learning new skills in a residential setting that is now, I am pleased to say, back in vogue after a number of years when we believed that residential rehabilitation from drugs and alcohol was not cost effective. I am glad to see that over the last five years that has changed and that the benefits of centres like Goori are now recognised. Yesterday they opened the men’s shed, which is an important opportunity for young men to earn certificates I and II in basic trades—great steps back into self-worth and the belief that they can contribute again in society, leaving behind the years lost to drugs and alcohol. I also congratulate their partners: the Redland City Council, Miller Communications, Finlandia Village, Faith Lutheran College and Bendigo Bank.

On another notion of the important investments that have been made in public housing, I note while the minister is here that we have seen, in the search for shovel-ready programs and the commendable effort to see public housing built on occasion in places like Narangba and Mary Street, Birkdale, a rushing of the process. We can understand that there is some haste required, but environmental concerns and communication with the local communities have been lost in the effort to build these public housing facilities quickly. The request to state governments, I acknowledge, was to find shovel-ready locations that did not have to go through the full council approval process, and in many cases developers raised their hand and said, ‘Please take this block of land.’

I want to tell the Mary Street story very briefly as it applies to addressing homelessness in my community. What happened was that, because it was deemed code-assessable, a very crude division was done. The 2-6 Mary Street block was 4,000 square metres. It was divided by 200 square metres per dwelling, allowing 20 units. Only 12 car parking spots were included in the development. That is of great concern in a fairly small street where there is a childcare centre on one side and a school on the other. People were desperately concerned about the impact the traffic would have, the access for emergency vehicles and the significant koala overlay on the block being ignored. I am glad to say that the Queensland government has moved to freeze this development until further consideration occurs.

I want to acknowledge in particular Margaret and James Hardy, Karen and Simon Clark, Maree and Neil Hickson, and Willa Venz, who worked very hard to mobilise the community, which knew nothing about this development until very early in February—and that in itself is a breakdown of communication which we should not tolerate from any level of government. When the state Labor member was informed, there was a very quick series of community meetings, and another one is planned for this Saturday. It looks like the community has succeeded in having the koala overlay considered. At the present time, with only 12 car parks proposed for 20 units, anyone could look at those plans and see that there will be traffic chaos, as would be the case with any 20-unit development. The notion that people who live in public housing do not own motor vehicles I think is a thing of the past. This is outer metropolitan urban living, and virtually everyone owns a car in this day and age.

I would like to see those vehicle-to-dwelling ratios adhered to. Even if it is a state government spending federal government stimulus money, that does not allow them to steamroll a local council. I would like to have those laws protected in particular cases. The corridors of koala vegetation overlays in the very delicate ecologies of outer metropolitan Brisbane, where our koalas travel from, say, Thorneside to Birkdale and through to Belmont, need to be very carefully protected. We can do environmentally sensitive development if we think about it. It takes a little bit more time; it takes a bit more care from the state offices. But we can solve this homelessness problem with more public housing, which is welcomed in my electorate, without necessarily destroying valuable koala feeding trees and their root systems. Certainly it is as simple as can be. Moving a retaining wall, altering the foundations and moving car parks into locations where they will not harm trees would be a very noble objective and we would still have a happy community welcoming public housing instead of what has happened in this case, which has been the reverse.

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to add my support to the Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Weekly Payments) Bill 2010. This bill of course implements another key reform set out in the Australian government’s white paper The road home: a national approach to reducing homelessness, which was released in December 2008 by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Minister for Housing, Tanya Plibersek. As the minister is in the chamber today, can I acknowledge the wonderful work that she is doing in relation to housing and homelessness. It is a very important issue not just for my electorate but across Australia. I will get to my electorate in more detail shortly.

The white paper outlined a plan for reducing homelessness in Australia by 2020 with specific goals to halve overall homelessness and provide accommodation to all rough sleepers who seek it. There are currently 105,000 homeless people in Australia, of whom around 16,000 sleep rough. The white paper provided a huge injection of funds, an additional $1.2 billion over four years, a 55 per cent increase in investment in homelessness and a substantial downpayment on a 12-year reform agenda. It included a commitment of $800 million over the next four years for new support services for homeless people and $400 million over the next two financial years for social housing to house the homeless. This injection of funds is part of the $15.1 billion package agreed by the Council of Australian Governments to stimulate the economy and generate up to 133,000 jobs over coming years. In response to the overwhelming feedback from consultations on the green paper, the white paper focused on three core strategies: turning off the tap, better prevention of homelessness and improving and expanding services to help more homeless people, breaking the cycle of homelessness by providing long-term housing and support.

Through the new funding provided by the Rudd Labor government and through reforms made by this government, we aim to help up to 9,000 more young people to remain connected with their families, help up to 2,250 more families at risk of homelessness to stay housed, provide day-to-day support to an extra 1,000 adults with mental illness, build up to 2,700 additional public and community houses for low-income households that are at risk of homelessness, fund a network of 90 community engagement officers within Centrelink to support people at risk of homelessness, build up to 4,200 new houses and upgrade up to 4,800 existing houses in remote Indigenous communities and allocate aged care places and capital funds for at least one new specialist facility for older homeless people every year for the next four years.

Centrelink has a critical role to play in reducing and preventing homelessness. We know that Centrelink provides income support payments to 6½ million people, many of whom are disadvantaged, vulnerable and socially excluded. As a key first-to-know agency, Centrelink is well placed to identify people who are at risk of homelessness and assist them with stabilising their housing situation. Centrelink has already introduced an indicator in its systems to identify clients who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. This indicator will let Centrelink staff know that the client needs active follow-up from a Centrelink social worker to make sure that they are receiving the support that they need to stay housed. The indicator allows Centrelink to improve and tailor its services to the people who are most vulnerable to homelessness.

In October last year, Centrelink also began to establish its network of Centrelink community engagement officers. This program now has 90 specialist staff located across all capital cities and many regional centres. They support some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

This bill provides another reform to be implemented by Centrelink under the Australian government’s white paper on homelessness. As part of the Australian government’s efforts to prevent homelessness, we are introducing weekly payments of income support payments for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We know that some Australians have difficulty budgeting and spend their fortnightly welfare payments too quickly. This can mean that they are left with no money to pay rent, buy food or pay for essential services. Vulnerable customers who are being supported by Centrelink staff will be able to choose to receive their income support payments weekly instead of fortnightly. While the payment amount will stay the same, weekly payments will allow the most disadvantaged welfare payment customers to budget more easily. It will also give these vulnerable Australians an opportunity to stabilise and improve their circumstances.

Another important aspect of this measure is its extension to recipients of the family tax benefit. I commend the component of the bill that allows families on income support that also receive the family tax benefit to receive their family tax benefit weekly as well. The family tax benefit is critical to helping many low-income families in my electorate and around the country in making ends meet and enabling the family tax benefit payments to be received weekly along with income support payments is yet another example of this government’s commitment to a responsive and flexible family support system.

In my electorate, more than 13,000 families receive family tax benefit A and more than 10,400 receive family tax benefit B, with many of these families receiving both. I am certainly proud to support the bill as yet another example of the Rudd government delivering on its promises to tackle homelessness and support families and individuals that are under financial pressure. I certainly know that many vulnerable people in Petrie will benefit from this bill. I heard the member for Bowman speaking about some of the local organisations in his electorate. I have many wonderful community organisations in my electorate that do amazing work. The minister and the Prime Minister have spoken at length about the organisations that they have visited around this country to discuss what this government’s future policies should be in addressing homelessness. There are organisations such as the Orana Youth Shelter and Chameleon House, which are the only two youth shelters in my electorate. They do wonderful work in supporting our young people. But they have to send away far too many young people on a daily basis.

There is the Redcliffe Community Association and the Redcliffe Area Youth Service, which do wonderful work in supporting our young people and also many women with children who have been subject to domestic violence who find themselves homeless. They also help those people suffering mental illness who, as a consequence of their medical condition, find themselves homeless. These groups deal with these situations and these real people every day. There is the North Moreton Public Tenants Association, the Deception Bay Neighbourhood Centre, Near North Housing, the Deception Bay Child and Family Alliance, Boys Town Deception Bay, the Deception Bay Community Youth programs and the Youth Advisory Group. These are all groups, among many others, who do wonderful work locally. But we need to do more, and as a government we need to support these community organisations.

I heard one of the members, the member for Deakin, saying earlier that anyone could find themselves homeless. In fact, I remember having a conversation with a woman back in 2007, when I was a candidate. This woman explained to me how she was a stay-at-home mum with two young children. Her husband was a middle-income worker. They never considered themselves to be struggling. He was a middle-income earner; she was at home raising the kids. They were in rental property. They thought they were doing well until one day they were given notice that the property owner wanted them to vacate because he wanted to renovate and put the property on the market. The woman and her family found themselves in a very difficult position, trying to get into another rental property that was affordable for them. In fact they ended up moving into a local caravan park with their family. The even thought that this was acceptable, except that the caravan park notified them that they were closing down. And suddenly this family, who never saw themselves as struggling and never thought they could ever become homeless, found themselves in a situation where they were about to be living out of their car. Friends stepped in and helped them and eventually they got back into another rental property.

That is an example of how easy it is to become homeless. We always think that it is people who come from difficult relationships, who have some health issues or who are long-term unemployed who end up homeless. But anyone can end up homeless. I know that the white paper identified that of the 105,000 homeless up to 23 per cent fall into the category of older people and that children form up to 22 per cent according to the census data in 2006. Families made up up to 11 per cent and rough sleepers made up 16 per cent of the homeless.

I know there are many young people in my electorate who are sleeping rough, sleeping on friends’ couches or moving around every night. I have had men who manage boarding houses in my area say to me: ‘Yvette, we don’t know what to do; these women turn up on our doorstep with young children. This is not an appropriate place for them to stay. We’re concerned about their safety. This isn’t a good environment for the children. We can’t take them in but what else can we do?’ There are many of us working on how we can change this situation locally.

Redcliffe Area Youth Space in their last annual report looked at the predominant issues that they encountered as a youth service. In 2007-08 homelessness was a predominant issue in 62 per cent of cases, up seven per cent. In 2008-09 the homelessness was a predominant issue in 75 per cent of cases. That was up 13 per cent from the previous year. So this problem is growing. Interestingly, mental health was a predominant issue in 90 per cent of cases. So there is a link there, and it is a link that we cannot ignore—nor is the government ignoring it.

I am very pleased that the government has said that in our health reforms and future announcements we will be very much focusing on mental health, because that is an important area. I am pleased that the government is dealing with homelessness through its previous announcements and through this bill and that through the stimulus package and nation building there is extra social housing. In terms of refurbishments, repairs and maintenance, in my area alone 374 social housing units are being repaired. I know that those repairs included providing safer bathrooms for elderly people, support baths, wider doorways and fans to keep them cooler. The fact is that our summers are getting hotter, especially in Brisbane and Queensland, and with safety as a major priority, heat stress is a major problem for elderly people.

I was pleased, when I was talking to the Queensland government’s QBuild operators, to learn that they had put in a large number of ceiling fans into the one- and two-bedroom units that elderly people are living in, in social housing throughout the electorate. We are also building another 43 social housing units and I know that the Urban Land Development Authority and the Brisbane Housing Company are building new rental affordability properties in Fitzgibbon. That is another fantastic announcement.

While we are doing all this wonderful work, unfortunately, there is a lot of obstruction from the opposition. I would hate to see more obstruction in any areas that deal with the homelessness issue. In just the past year 41 bills have been obstructed in the Senate. That is four times the average number of bills that have been obstructed by any opposition over the last 30 years. While we are trying to be fiscally responsible and to make sure that taxpayer dollars are going into those really important areas that we need them to go into, such as health and homelessness, we have the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, now wanting to increase costs for households by introducing a great big new tax through a paid parental leave scheme. He does not want to fund it in a responsible way; he wants to tax big business to ensure that those costs will then flow on to households, and women particularly will feel the pressures of those increasing costs to their home. There is no point in giving paid parental leave when every time parents go to the supermarket it is going to cost them more to get food, to get essential services and to clothe their children. These costs will flow. We know these costs will flow, and it is at the very least disappointing. It fails the Australian community in putting forward these proposals. But it is my pleasure to be part of the Rudd Labor government, which is actually not just fiscally responsible but is looking after those important areas of our community such as homelessness, and I am very pleased to commend this bill to the House.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Weekly Payments) Bill 2010 implements a key reform of the Australian government’s white paper, The road home: a national approach to reducing homelessness, which was released in December 2008. To support the government’s goal to halve homelessness and to offer accommodation to all rough sleepers who seek it by 2020, state and territory governments and the Commonwealth together have committed more than $1.1 billion to increase services for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. On top of this, a further 80,000 social and affordable homes will be added to Australian housing stock by 2012 through the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan and through our National Rental Affordability Scheme, as well as the measures for remote Indigenous housing.

The white paper on homelessness committed all governments to work hard to prevent homelessness, to give people the support they need to remain in their homes and to link our new housing initiatives with the intensive specialist support that is needed to break the cycle of homelessness. We know that there is a critical need for housing and we have acted to boost its supply, but resolving homelessness is not just about providing a roof and four walls. There are a number of other challenges that people need to overcome to find housing and to stay housed. The government’s white paper highlights the need to address these challenges.

Centrelink, as the critical first-to-know agency, plays a crucial part in addressing these challenges, and I really want to congratulate the management and staff of Centrelink for the thought and effort that they have put into addressing this issue of homelessness. Centrelink’s role in identifying people who are at risk of homelessness is critical to reducing and preventing homelessness as well as helping people stabilise their housing situation, and Centrelink has been both willing and able to change the way that it has traditionally worked to better support people who are vulnerable to homelessness.

Centrelink is responsible for providing 6½ million customers, many of whom are disadvantaged and vulnerable, with income support payments. Centrelink has introduced procedures to identify customers who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and who may require extra assistance from a Centrelink social worker to get the support they need to stay housed. Enhancing Centrelink’s ability to identify people at risk of homelessness will enable the Australian government to improve and tailor our service to those people who are most vulnerable to homelessness, and it will prevent people from becoming homeless.

Centrelink, in October 2009, established its Centrelink community engagement officers across Australia. These officers are working with non-government organisations such as drug and alcohol rehabilitation services, mental health services, hostels, boarding houses, refuges and drop-in centres to provide some of the most vulnerable people in our community with better access to income support and other services available through Centrelink. I cannot stress enough how important this role is. We know that there are a number of people who are homeless who have no income because they are illiterate or, for mental health reasons, they are unable to cope with filling in their Centrelink forms or going into a Centrelink office. Getting these people the income that they are entitled to under our social security system is the first and most critical step to finding and maintaining a roof over their head. With no money coming in, there is absolutely no way that you can keep a roof over your head.

This bill delivers another critical Centrelink reform. As part of the Australian government’s strategy to prevent homelessness, this bill introduces weekly payments for the first time for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We know that some Australians can find themselves in financial difficulty as they have problems budgeting and spend their fortnightly welfare payments too quickly. In some cases, we know that vulnerable people—again, often people who suffer with a mental illness—can be imposed upon by people they see as friends to hand over their fortnightly payment. This can result in their having no money to pay for all of the essentials—obviously, rent, food and other necessities. These vulnerable customers will be able to choose to receive their income support payments weekly instead of fortnightly. It is important to emphasise that this is a voluntary measure but one that has been enthusiastically accepted by many people during the trial period and, indeed, by welfare organisations who support the most vulnerable Australians.

Although the total amount of a person’s welfare payment will stay the same, making payments weekly will allow the most disadvantaged welfare payment customers to budget more easily. It will also give these vulnerable Australians an opportunity to stabilise and improve their circumstances. Currently, for people receiving social security payments, the social security law is unclear about whether the secretary has the discretion to determine that more than one payment can be made in respect of an instalment period. This bill clarifies that, for individuals in a declared class, a social security payment may be made on a weekly basis in respect of a 14-day instalment period. Accordingly, weekly payments will be made available to customers on commencement of a legislative instrument defining ‘vulnerable customer’.

The bill also makes changes to the family assistance law. Vulnerable customers who receive family tax benefit in addition to income support will be given the opportunity to receive their income support payment weekly. At present, the government’s intention is to limit weekly payments to income support payments while retaining family assistance payments on a fortnightly basis. However, this bill amends the family assistance law and introduces the capacity to make weekly payments for family tax benefit and baby bonus, allowing the government to respond to changing circumstances as necessary.

These changes are intended to assist Australia’s most vulnerable people, who are experiencing financial hardship, and consequently to prevent these people from becoming homeless. It is an important measure. Once again, I want to congratulate the management and staff of Centrelink, who, although they are a very large organisation, focused very efficiently and nimbly on the part they can play in reducing the vulnerability of people to homelessness and to helping homeless Australians stabilise their lives, get a roof over their heads and move on to more regular and rewarding lives.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.