Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the fourth report of 2012 of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights on the consideration of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Fair Incentives To Work) Bill 2012, together with the minutes of proceedings of the committee and the transcript of evidence.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am really pleased to see the tabling of this report from our relatively new Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. This committee has been looking at the bill that moves single parents on single parent payment through to Newstart, which very significantly lowers the payment they will receive and could potentially make over $100 worth of difference to single parents. Not only does that bill drop single parents from the more generous single parent payment to Newstart, which is a drop of about $140 and makes at least a $60 difference in straight-away payments, although there is some make-up to single parents because of other allowances they can claim; it also drops them onto a lower income-free area and a different tapering rate. If they are already in employment, that means that they lose more or are able to gain less from when they are working. In other words, it can make a very significant difference to the income that they can live on. Far from encouraging people into work, it can discourage people to seek work, because they gain less benefit from being in part-time work.

There is also a fallacy out there that single parents are not working, but in fact 45 per cent of single parents on parenting payment single are working. I also note here the comments I made earlier in the chamber about the fact that different rates of indexation will also apply. They will subsequently be on the indexation that applies to Newstart; and, as I articulated today, that Newstart indexation of CPI does not meet the real cost of living for those struggling on low income.

I note the comments that are in this report. Their recommendation is:

The committee therefore recommends that the government should defer these measures until the outcome of that inquiry is known.

The inquiry they are talking about is the Newstart inquiry that is being carried out by the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations References Committee—the inquiry, in fact, that the Greens initiated by putting that referral into the Senate. That is looking at the adequacy of Newstart allowances and other measures such as employment services to support people who are struggling to survive on Newstart and other allowances.

This is virtually the same recommendation as was made by the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Legislative Committee, which in fact recommended that these measures be deferred until that inquiry is carried out. If it had not been for the marriage equality debate in this place, this bill would have been on the agenda for discussion; in other words, the government was ignoring the previous committee inquiry recommendations even though it is a government dominated committee inquiry. They recommended that those measures be deferred.

Now we have the Human Rights committee recommending that these measures be deferred.

I will take the Senate to some of the comments made by the committee. At the beginning of the report, the committee goes through what the bill does and how many people will be affected by it. Initially, 63,000 parenting payments recipients will be affected and, ultimately, all 147,000 grandfathered parenting payment recipients will be affected. That is a lot of people. The report talks about how it measures the effect of the bill, because the committee is looking at it in terms of its compatibility with human rights. The report then looks at the measure. In the executive summary, it says:

Regrettably the statement of compatibility that accompanied the bill did not include a sufficiently detailed analysis of the bill's compatibility with human rights.

It goes on to explain that the government provided some more information that has gone some way to address the lack of detail. It goes on to say:

… the committee notes that the provision of a more comprehensive statement at the introduction of the bill would have greatly assisted the committee in its scrutiny of this bill and would have improved the parliament's understanding of the precise impacts of these changes …

The report then talks about the objective of the bill. The government says its objective is to re-engage single parents in the workforce. So then committee looks at whether the bill achieves that objective. The report says:

However, the committee notes that it does not necessarily follow that the measures seeking equity are justified as it is not apparent to the committee that the government has considered any alternative options in this regard.

It goes on to say:

With regard to the question of whether there is a rational connection between the measures and the objective, the committee's examination of the available evidence indicates that this is not a matter that can be conclusively proven up front. The committee considers that on balance, the government has provided sufficient supporting evidence to suggest that the proposed measures may go some way in achieving the stated objectives.

However, the committee considers that the lack of decisive evidence highlights the need for appropriate monitoring mechanisms …

The report goes on to point out that those monitoring mechanisms are not there and that legislation may not be justified because of the severity of the effects of the measures on the individuals or groups. It says:

The committee notes that while individuals who are transitioned from Parenting Payment to Newstart will still have access to social security benefits, significant questions have been raised regarding the extent to which Newstart is adequate to provide a reasonable standard of living for jobseekers.

The committee considers that if Newstart combined with other benefits is not sufficient to provide an adequate standard of living for affected individuals, the measure to remove the grandfathered Parenting Payment provisions risk being incompatible with the obligation in article 9 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to ensure minimum essential levels of social security.

It goes on to say:

The committee is not yet convinced by the government's assertion that all affected individuals will maintain access to appropriate levels of social security support.

This is in this committee report. In other words, we do not know what impact this measure will have on 147,000 single parents—most of them women. We do not know yet if the government is compliant with article 9 of the international covenant. Surely, the government should be listening to this committee and to the previous committee when they say that the government needs to defer this bill, at the very least, until the inquiry into the adequacy of Newstart and other allowances is concluded.

Of course, the government should realise that this is not the appropriate way to treat 147,000 single parents and their children. This is the fundamentally important point here. We are condemning these people, largely women and their children, to living in poverty. We now know, thanks to poorer indexation, that Newstart is $140 less than the single parenting payment. So we are condemning 147,000 families to living in poverty. I do not see how that can be compatible with human rights.

I strongly request that the government pays very significant attention to this report and takes on board its recommendations, and at least takes that legislation off the Senate program until we have had the Newstart inquiry and had a better look at the other things that the committee recommends, such as more adequate monitoring. We need to know that people are not being subjected to poverty. We need to look at what the real impact of this legislation is on these families.

Bear in mind that these families are already working part-time. In fact, no parent wants their child to live in poverty. And no single parent that I have met has wanted to live in abject poverty. They have wanted to work part-time. A single parent, by necessity, needs to balance their work with their caring obligations. Parents do not stop caring and needing to provide care for their children once they turn eight. Why the magic number of eight? Those children still need a parent at home, particularly those children living in regional areas and other areas where child care is hard to come by. I hear the government saying, 'We're going to be providing free access to child care.' If you do not have child care in the area, you do not get access. If you are living in an area where most of the work is not nine to five—you are on a roster—you certainly cannot get child care after 5 pm. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. (Time expired)

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Question agreed to.