HANSARD EXTRACT
| Employment and
Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work
and Other Measures) Bill 2005; Family and Community Services
Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work) Bill 2005: Second
Reading |
| 30 November 2005 |
Mr HAYES
(Werriwa)
(12.39
p.m.)—Another
week, another extreme agenda introduced by a single-minded and
ideologically driven government which arrogantly knows it controls
both houses of this parliament. Last week legislation was passed
which will destroy the rights and conditions of Australian workers.
Last night counter-terrorism legislation was passed which will
reduce societal freedoms without appropriate checks and balances
being included. Now we have before us the
Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation
Amendment (Welfare to Work and Other Measures) Bill 2005
and the
Family and Community Services Legislation
Amendment (Welfare to Work) Bill 2005, which do nothing
more than transfer vulnerable Australians from one form of welfare
to a lower form of welfare.
I wish to make it quite clear from the outset that I would like
nothing more than for people in my electorate to be gainfully
employed. I dare say there would not be a member of this parliament
who would not want the same for all the constituents in their
respective electorates. So it is not a matter of whether we support
assisting people from welfare to work; it is the way that is
achieved. In a modern society, work is a cornerstone. There is no
argument with that. It is the foundation on which future opportunity
is built and it is central to economic inclusion and advancement.
However, these bills have nothing to do with providing welfare
recipients with a decent shot at finding real work. They have
nothing to do with advancing the employment prospects of the nearly
10,000 people receiving disability support pensions or parenting
payment single in my electorate of Werriwa. There is no mistake that
these bills are about creating the largest stick possible to whack
welfare recipients in an effort to force them into accepting a
job—any job—to get them off the government’s welfare books. Despite
the government’s obsession with using fear as a motivator, there has
not been a skerrick of evidence presented to indicate that moving
people from one welfare payment to a lower welfare payment will
assist them in finding a job.
The changes contained in these bills are expansive, and it takes
some time to really get your head around the full impact of what is
being presented. The interaction between payments, entitlements and
income tests and movement in the private income thresholds under
each payment can make it rather confusing for people to conclude
whether they will be better or worse off under these changes.
Fortunately, some light has been shed on this. The National Centre
for Social and Economic Modelling have examined the changes to try
to clear away some of the confusion and myth that this government
has tried to spin in relation to these bills. NATSEM examined the
payments and income tests for a sole parent whose youngest child is
aged six and who has no private income. They found that compared to
the current payment rates that person would end up receiving, on
average, $29 a week less under the parenting payment single. The
biggest impact stems from the rate of withdrawal from the Newstart
payments once this parent starts to take on a little work. NATSEM
report that once the threshold of $31 a week is reached someone
receiving Newstart will lose between 50c and 60c in the dollar of
private income above that threshold.
If we extend this situation to someone who is working around 15
hours a week and who is earning minimum wages—around $13 an hour—you
can see what sort of impact that will have. For each additional hour
they work they will be worse off. If, for instance, you are working
15 hours a week at $13 per hour, you would be earning $195 a week in
private income. For all that effort, the individual would get to
keep $81 while the
Howard government will get to take $114 through tax and through
reductions to Newstart, because of the adjustment in the threshold.
At the end of the day this person will be $91 a week worse off under
these changes than if they were moved into work under the current
arrangements. They would be $91 worse off—that is certainly not
something to be sneezed at, particularly if you are receiving those
payments.
These bills tinker at the margins when it comes to withdrawal rates
for Newstart recipients, because the government realises that,
despite its protestations to the contrary, people will be worse off
under the arrangements. Under the proposals put forward by the
government, there is an intention to increase the level at which the
payments are withdrawn—from 50c in the dollar, which I think cuts in
at a little over $50 a week, to the 60c withdrawal rate, which kicks
in at around $125 a week. I do not know that the more than 4½
thousand sole parents in the western suburbs of Werriwa will be
dancing in the streets when they hear about these so-called minor
changes or this tweaking at the margins. They still know—as a matter
of fact, anyone who can do rudimentary maths will know—that it is
highly likely they are going to be worse off. The government might
have set a cut-off date earlier in the year, but the vast majority
who have heard about these changes—and I suspect that is probably
not many, having regard for the fact that this legislation has not
been subject to the multimillion dollar advertising blitz the
federal government decided to use for the industrial relations
changes—will at least know that they are now in the government’s
sights.
In typical style, and I suppose it can only be classified as
downward envy—that seems to be the colour and drive of this
government’s policy—it has set about trying to solve a problem by
making things worse rather than better. Many of the people who are
going to be impacted by these changes are quite frankly not ready
for work. In most circumstances it is not a case of not wanting a
job; in many cases these people are simply not prepared for work.
That does not mean they are not prepared to work. By this I mean
that they are not equipped with the skills that are in demand with
employers or that the employers lack the services they need to
support someone entering the work force. It is simply not possible
to find a stable, reasonable paying job if you are not fulfilling
the labour demands that an employer has.
To that extent, these bills do not help but actually hinder people’s
chances of entering the work force. The people who these bills
target need to become job ready and in their ongoing search for
employment need to be assisted with adequate investment in training
and support services. I do not quite understand how the Minister for
Employment and Workplace Relations can expect that a group of people
who have been out of work for some time will all of a sudden be able
to enter the job market and be snapped up by waiting employers just
because the minister has decreed that that is what should occur.
That is not the way the world works. Meaningful welfare reform must
provide opportunities for unemployed people to gain skills that
employers demand, skills that will get them into a job and sustain
them in employment. This does not necessarily mean enrolling in
multiyear TAFE courses or obtaining trade qualifications. Sometimes
it might be as simple as acquiring computer skills or doing a
refresher course or an update program.
When I was considering this issue I was reminded of two people in my
electorate. Although they are not subject to these changes because
of the cut-in, their plights certainly typify those of many
unemployed who are keen to get themselves back into the work force
but cannot. One is a woman who came in to see me and indicated she
had applied for many jobs. She seemed to be quite skilled and from
her references I would have to conclude that in the past she would
have been regarded as a hard worker. The problem was that this woman
who came in to see me did not have any front teeth. Not that this is
an impediment to a job—it is certainly not something that you would
find to be a prohibition to employment—but, as this woman said to
me, ‘Chris, who’s going to give me a job when I look like this?’
That is a real-life experience. This woman was ready, willing and,
quite frankly, able to work but simply getting her teeth fixed was a
prerequisite to fronting up to an interview for an office job.
Newstart payments did not leave her enough money to go to the
dentist to have those teeth repaired.
Another fellow came in to see me. He was a local chap who had
injured his back a little while ago and for a couple of years had
not been able to work. These days he has been looking every day for
a job, going through the advertisements. He certainly wants to work,
because the Newstart allowance that he is receiving is barely enough
to live on. He wants to work, but the thing that is stopping him
from getting a job is his computer prowess. He is an accountant and
he desperately needs to upgrade his computer skills in modern
accounting practices and programs, but the Newstart job provider
will not pay for courses for him, so he simply cannot afford it. As
I say, these are not manufactured—they are real-life experiences.
These are two people who came into my office in the south-west of
Sydney. They do not need to be motivated with a big stick.
The government has set about crafting this legislation in such a way
that we can use it against the unemployed and disadvantaged.
Generally they want to work, but getting that first step into the
job market, it has to be said, is extremely tough. As the government
consistently reminds us, it is a competitive market—and if you do
not have the skills that are required then how does the minister
seriously expect that people are suddenly going to find employment?
Real welfare reform involves strong government support to equip
people with the suite of skills that they need to find work and to
keep work. It is not about simply taking a job to keep Centrelink
off your back.
The other thing that the government has failed to address in these
reforms is the support services—the networks and the help that are
required to give people the freedom to work. The fact is that sole
parents, if they are to work in any meaningful way, will need child
care. I note with interest that the government has tinkered at the
margins with the requirement to not go to work if the cost of child
care is prohibitive. The Prime Minister has promised that single
parents will not have to accept a job that results in low or
negative financial gain once the cost of child care is taken into
account, but this legislation does not deliver on that promise.
Rather than enshrining this principle in the legislation, this has
now been left to some unknown bureaucrat to decide how it will work.
They will judge whether the costs are prohibitive, and at this stage
there is no clear standard against which these costs will be judged.
If the government were really serious about this, it would act to
help all working parents by taking some real action to fix the
crisis in child-care places. As a representative of an electorate in
which both parents, by and large, are forced to work so they can
afford somewhere to live—and anyone who has an electorate in
south-western Sydney is in the same position as I am—I can assure
members opposite that it is not just people transitioning from
welfare to work who find the cost of child care prohibitive. In
fact, members opposite may have read the recent newspaper reports
demonstrating that in many cases working parents, in particular
working mothers, are going to work basically so they can afford
child care. I suppose to some extent that is if they are lucky
enough to be able to secure a child-care place. Government members
may not realise that this is a real problem for working parents.
These are real difficulties that working Australian parents combat
each day just so they can go and find work or go to work.
While able-bodied single parents are going to find a number of
difficulties, spare a thought for the disabled Australians who will
also be subject to the tougher Welfare to Work regime. Once again,
this group are not going to be supported or supplemented by any real
or proper level of assistance. This group of Australians are among
the hardest working when they are able to find suitable jobs, but
they need the right sort of help, quite frankly, to find the right,
and suitable, type of employment. They are not going to get that
sort of help from this government. What they are going to get is a
more extreme activity test and tougher penalties for breaching the
strict compliance regime.
It is the compliance regime that will probably be the greatest
sleeper in the brave new world of Welfare to Work. There is no doubt
that a reasonable and balanced compliance regime is necessary when
it comes to issues of public expenditure. Many members opposite will
probably regard an appropriate compliance regime as something that
should be avoided, particularly when we are spending on marginal
seats or in addition to the multimillion dollar advertising
campaigns on issues that take their fancy. But, when it comes to
cracking down on vulnerable Australians and their families,
government members are willing to institute a very tough and tight
compliance regime. If you, Mr Deputy Speaker, are one of these
persons on a disability support pension and you get breached, you
will get nothing.
The compliance regime in these bills has been labelled by the
minister as ‘fair but firm’, but in reality it is neither. The
compliance regime will see vulnerable Australians pushed over the
edge by stopping income support in all forms—taking the food from
the mouths of children and putting people behind in their rent. That
is a compliance regime modelled on some medieval torture chamber
rather than being something that represents a fair approach to
encourage people to keep up their end of the deal. It is yet another
example of the perverse and distorted incentives that this
government is implementing under its regime.
The impact of these bills does not simply stop with the receiving of
welfare. There are multiple rounds of impacts from these bills as
they interact with provisions of the government’s industrial
relations agenda. The government’s great concession when it comes to
this interaction is that people who are subject to the Welfare to
Work reforms will not be required to accept a job that has pay and
conditions below the minima established under the new Australian
fair pay and conditions standard. This flimsy safety net is not
going to help those people when they come to negotiate their near-on
compulsory AWA under the workplace relations legislation. People who
are subjected to these reforms—the welfare to work provisions at
least—are already in the weakest of all possible bargaining
positions and every employer knows it. What hope have they got to
negotiate a good deal for themselves when they have no bargaining
chips? But the impact does not stop there. The government’s
industrial relations reforms give the green light to commence the
race to the bottom when it comes to pay and conditions. (Time
expired)
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