Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for her question. I appreciate her ongoing interest in this issue and her concern for single parents. But I just make this point: the government has been very clear about this change. We are actually trying to do something about the cycle of disadvantage that children of single parents on welfare dependency experience. The evidence is that those children have fewer opportunities in life if their parent continues on welfare payment and does not get an opportunity to connect to work.

This is a serious attempt by Minister Macklin to try and improve the outcomes for both the women and children involved. It is the case, as the senator well knows, that there is a large cohort of people already on these conditions. To pretend that this has not happened before and that there are not people already on these conditions is, of course, not right. What this does is take one group who were grandfathered from the new arrangements and say,' That grandfathering is coming to an end and you will move onto the same conditions as the tens of thousands of other people already on those conditions.' So some of the drama about this, I think, is a little overstated. There is no doubt that this will impact on those people, but it is also the case that we have invested heavily in additional child care and in additional training and other opportunities to try and ensure these people reconnect with the workforce. What we were saying under the old conditions was that someone could stay on welfare until their child turned 16 without attempting to reconnect them with the workforce. Our experience and evidence is that is not a good thing for those people and it is not a good thing for their children. It will give results for both the parent and the child. (Time expired)