HANSARD EXTRACT
|
Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment
(Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services)
Bill 2006: Second Reading |
| 15 February 2007 |
Mr HAYES
(Werriwa) (12.23 p.m.)—The
main provisions of the
Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation
Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services)
Bill 2006 and the premise upon which it is based can only
be described as flawed. The Minister for Workforce Participation, in
her second reading speech in December last year, was more than
willing to gloss over many of the, quite frankly, mixed bag of
changes that will take place as a result of the passage of this
legislation. Once again, while presenting a picture of choice, the
Howard government is actually eroding opportunity. That is what
choice really means to this government: an erosion of opportunity.
Choice is presented as the Holy Grail and nirvana by members
opposite but, when you start examining the details and the various
changes and what they mean for individuals, you realise that the
introduction of the Howard government vision of choice generally
means that some people will end up with less. Labor’s concern over
the content of this bill and our genuine commitment to increasing
workforce participation are why we oppose this bill and have moved
the amendment that is before the House.
Moving people from welfare to work is a worthy objective which I,
for one, and no doubt every member of this House, support.
Employment provides people with the opportunity not only to build a
stronger financial and economic platform for themselves and their
families but also to strengthen their self-esteem and their social
networks as an individual. Communities also benefit when members are
gainfully employed and socially engaged. They are just matters of
commonsense. Labor is strongly committed to welfare reform but has a
deep concern about the approach being adopted by the Howard
government. Simply moving someone from one form of welfare to a
lower form of welfare in order to provide some twisted version of an
incentive to find employment is an approach wrapped in an ideology
governed by theoretical constructs that does not give recognition to
the difficulties people face in securing employment.
The Minister for Workforce Participation in her second reading
speech focused on the introduction of competition and the
contestability of the provision of vocational rehabilitation
services. Currently, someone in receipt of Newstart allowance or a
youth allowance who is required to engage in activities in return
for income support may be required to attend vocational
rehabilitation services. Presently, this service is provided by the
Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service. Under the amendments in this
bill those services will become contestable and consequently will be
able to be provided by private sector providers. It is important
that a change like this is done properly and that appropriate
safeguards are introduced into the system so that contestability
does not result in further disadvantage to those who are already
finding it difficult to find employment. For example, many private
rehabilitation service providers are not compliant with the
Disability Services Act, but under these provisions the Secretary of
the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations may allow some
services to be provided by providers who do not hold compliance
certificates. There is concern that there is no guarantee that
vocational rehabilitation services will be available, ready and
accessible to clients with a range of disabilities. This has the
potential to further marginalise people trying to access the
workforce who most need those services.
The minister was noticeably silent on the changes proposed to the
pensioner education supplement. Given that she failed to mention
this change in her second reading speech, I can only assume that
this rates among what she describes as ‘minor and technical
amendments’ and consequently she felt there was no need to provide
an explanation of the rationale for this, which actually amounts to
another broken promise. The pensioner education supplement is an
important allowance for pensioners who study or train in an approved
course. Under the government’s Welfare to Work changes, people who
move from the disability support pension to Newstart or to youth
allowance are supposed to retain the supplement until they complete
their course of study. The amendments in this bill are aimed at
nothing more than restricting access to the supplement and
consequently reducing the pool available for people to up-skill in
order to prepare for work. I regularly have people contact me in
absolute frustration at the fact that they cannot even get a little
bit of financial assistance to undertake training that they consider
so necessary to gain employment in the fields that they choose.
These are generally individuals who want to upgrade their skills and
get back into the workforce, but there is always another hurdle that
is put in front of them as they try to make themselves more
employable. They are often unable to afford the courses that they
need to undertake, because their income support payments will simply
not support such education. While the minister may consider this a
minor difficulty, it is yet another example of this government’s
unwillingness to invest in people and in skills development and
education so that individuals are equipped to meet the demands of
the modern-day employer.
We all know that if you do not have the skills you do not get the
job. All this government is doing with these arrangements is making
getting a job that much more difficult. Following the passage of
this bill I expect I will hear from more frustrated people seeking a
little financial support, but by that stage they will be effectively
locked out and marginalised from the labour market.
There is no doubt in my mind that the government’s approach of
getting people into the labour market and back into employment is
not working. As I commented earlier, this government’s approach is
driven by a theoretical construct of the labour market that does not
reflect reality. Common sense will tell you that, in order to get
people to act in a particular way, there needs to be an incentive.
Simply running around chanting ‘welfare to work’ and ‘mutual
obligation’ will not produce an increase in employment. Those who
are classed as hard to employ need more assistance than that
provided by cutting their payments in an effort to force them to
find employment to provide for their families. That is using the
incentive of starvation to force people into work. I think the
approach has to be a little more structured than that, certainly
when you consider that many of those trying to access the workforce
are single mothers, who need the infrastructure support of child
care for their children in the form of before and after school care.
These people need real assistance; they do not need to have their
allowances cut and have that used as the stick to force them to
work. That is what the government’s legislation does. Consider also
those who have left school early and need assistance with training
to get a job. Their readiness for employment will depend on what
constructive assistance they can get to make them job ready and
attractive to a contemporary employer.
In January this year, the Productivity Commission released a report
which highlighted the changing nature of the Australian labour
market and the importance of education in lifting male workforce
participation rates. The Productivity Commission reported that there
had been a fourfold increase in the rate of male disengagement from
the labour force. It is clear from the evidence that men who are not
working or who are looking for work typically lack work skills that
are relevant in the new economy or they have a disability. This begs
the question: how can the government believe that lowering welfare
payments, reducing access to the pensioner education supplement and
opening up vocational rehabilitation to non-compliant private
providers without adequate protection access for the disabled is
going to help people back into work when all the evidence points to
the importance of providing skills? The answer, of course, is that
what the government is doing is not going to help them back into the
workforce; it is simply going to ensure that people are moved from
one form of welfare onto a lower form of welfare.
Labor believes in all Australians reaching their potential, because
that is what is good for the individual, good for the economy and
good for the community. That is why we need a suite of policies that
will properly help people to gain the skills necessary to enter the
workforce. Furthermore, Australia’s ageing population is one of the
greatest economic problems we face, and it is going to be more
important than ever that we get as many people working as possible.
With an ageing population, it is important for people to not only
access skills but be reskilled to be able to participate in the
modern-day workforce. Therefore, this is not a matter of simply
saying that the only way to assist people is to use an economic
stick to hit them over the head with, when they are unable to
compete in the workforce because of their lack of developed skills.
That is the issue we need to address.
When considering the impact of Welfare to Work changes and debating
the merits of various policies to increase workforce participation,
it is necessary to examine the labour force statistics. It is not
possible to examine labour force statistics without commenting on
the government’s interpretation of those statistics and the myths
that it is trying to perpetuate as a consequence. While job creation
is more than welcome, this government is making an effort to
perpetrate the biggest con job of them all—the biggest con job that
it has tried in the 10 years of its office.
Many have commented that the unemployment figures mask the reality
of many individual and community based issues that we as local
members experience. That is true. I do not have a problem with the
technical definitions of employment and unemployment or with the
methodology used to determine the labour force statistics; I do have
a problem with the government using these statistics to conclude
that
Australia
has already reached full employment. To conclude that Australia has
reached full employment on the basis that the national unemployment
rate has dropped below five percent is clearly misleading.
Bear in mind that the statistics consider people to be employed if
they work as little as one paid hour per week. On that logic, if
everybody between the ages of 15 and 65 participating in the labour
force worked for only one hour per week then we would have a zero
rate of unemployment. That is clearly ridiculous, but it is the
statistic that this government relies upon to say that we have
reached full employment. It is notional and, through its generality,
it masks the impact that it has throughout various sectors of the
community. It is not a real statistic to be looked at if one paid
hour per week justifies someone not being considered unemployed. If
people take comfort in those figures, they are living in cuckoo
land. If the whole nation were working one paid hour per week, we
would have a zero rate of unemployment. For all sorts of reasons,
not everyone can be employed at any one point in time—and we know
that.
As I mentioned earlier, the government is attempting to pull the
wool over our eyes when it comes to unemployment. Currently we have
the Treasurer, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
and others continuing to tell us that the unemployment rate is a
product of the introduction of Work Choices. That is a ridiculous
suggestion. The current rate of unemployment is not as a result of
Work Choices; it stems from the resources boom, and members opposite
quite clearly know that. We heard that yesterday in question time
when the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations indicated
that the government does not create jobs; businesses do. If the
government really believes that, why is it trying to walk on both
sides of the street and attempting to attribute employment growth to
Work Choices? The government has been doing that day in, day out
with every dorothy dixer that is thrown up to the minister by
members opposite. It is attributing any adjustment to unemployment
solely to the introduction of Work Choices, and yet yesterday the
same minister admitted that the government does not create jobs;
businesses do. This is just another example of this government
taking credit for all the good news but trying to blame
someone—indeed anyone—for the bad news.
The other myth that this government is attempting to perpetrate is
that, because the unemployment rate is low, everything is rosy for
those who work and for those looking for work. A national
unemployment rate of less than five per cent means that there are
plenty of opportunities. When I look around various electorates, and
at mine in particular, and look at skills that are being sourced by
employers, I know that there are very strong pockets of
disadvantage. I am sure the seat of Werriwa is not alone in this,
and I am sure it is not only members on this side of the House who
have that experience. Significantly higher levels of unemployment
are masked when considering the national aggregate and averages, and
that is without looking at levels of youth unemployment. We need to
address these communities within our various electorates to come up
with a real solution.
I cannot support the government’s position in this legislation. It
is simply seeking to move people from one form of welfare to a lower
form of welfare. It is based on a philosophy of using the stick over
the back of the head, and quite frankly it is not doing anything to
look at the skills necessary for people to adjust— (Time expired)
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