Remote Engagement Program Bill
Vulnerable Australians deserve support and vulnerable Australians deserve programs that actually work to ensure they have the opportunities that most of us in this place have enjoyed for our entire lives. Unfortunately, I believe that the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Remote Engagement Program) Bill 2021 shows that the Morrison government doesn't truly understand how to provide the sorts of social services that are needed in the sorts of communities that we're talking about in this bill.
What we've seen with the Community Development Program as it has operated for many years is that it has experienced many problems and actually lacks the ability to get people into long-term work. Surely, if we're going to put the test on any of these pieces of legislation then this has to be the ultimate goal: does it get people into long-term work? We've seen significant failures in the Community Development Program, highlighted to the government when the Senate inquiry which was launched into it five years ago noted that the government had failed to listen to what communities and stakeholders had said and had failed to work with them in developing the sorts of programs that communities actually wanted.
Unfortunately, having read through this bill, the explanatory memorandum and everything else, there's still no path for long-term, quality and lasting jobs for the people who participate in these programs. This legislation is a missed opportunity. We need fundamental reform of the CDP; we need fundamental reform that listens to the concerns that have been raised with the government and with agencies for years and years and years now. That this is all we have to show for those concerns is deeply disappointing.
We talk about co-design, and the bill has a lot of language about co-design in it. But I've looked at the people who have been involved in the co-design and what they're actually saying about the bill. Surely, if someone believes in co-design they start with that co-design when they actually write the legislation in the first place rather than kicking it off down the road as a piece of work to be done later. Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory stated:
Remote Aboriginal communities need more jobs so that more people can secure work and the benefits work brings. … This Bill does not address this challenge. Instead it allows people to work in jobs that would normally be paid while remaining on income support.
That's what they said. This is a program that leaves people on income support while they're doing work that would otherwise be paid as a job. It doesn't have jobs and it doesn't have a pathway. I heard a number of members opposite roll out the classic line 'the best form of welfare is a job'. Well, that's a great little grab quote but, unfortunately, the best form of job-creating legislation is legislation that actually gives people jobs, and this does not do that.
Labor has committed very firmly to scrapping the CDP and replacing it with a new program, a program which gives people real jobs with proper wages. That's how you give people fundamental dignity, and that's how you deliver on truly transformative change in the sorts of communities that we are trying to help. That's also how you get real buy-in for co-design. If you're serious about co-design, then you are serious about making sure that you have a pathway to a job at the end. Co-design is essential for success, is part of a strong policy process and is part of an ongoing policy process that should have started in the drafting of this legislation rather than being left to legislative instruments down the track.
We can't ignore that the problems that this bill seeks to address have been problems that have been known to people in this place for a number of years. The Australia Institute report, titled Remote control:The Community Development Program, remote Australia's Work for the Dolescheme, highlights in detail the problems that have been in this scheme for years. This was a report that was released in 2018. They note that the regions where this program is operating have unemployment rates of up to 51 per cent. That is, where the program is supposedly successful, we're seeing unemployment of up to 51 per cent. They noted the huge concerns with human rights as the CDP pays below minimum wage. In 2018 they noted that the payment for work on this program was $11.20 per hour, well below the minimum wage. On top of that, despite working for below minimum wage pay, a person who is part of the CDP is more than 25 times more likely to receive a penalty than a participant in the urban Australia jobactive program which operates in my electorate. People on these programs were 55 times more likely to receive a serious penalty, and these penalties aren't just a written warning. It's not just something that goes on a record; it's a financial penalty where people then find they don't have enough money to pay for their kids' food, that they don't have enough money to pay for the very essentials that they've been going to work in this program to deliver. It actually demotivates people. It disconnects people's association with work, because they are in a penalty based regime where the only incentives are penalties—there is not a job at the end of the program.
The analysis by the Australia Institute looked at what actually happened, the results of the program. Their analysis showed that less than one in five participants were supported into a proper permanent job and less than one in 10 participants remained in that job for more than six months. On average, a participant would have to spend 9.5 years in the scheme before achieving the 13-week employment outcome or 12.7 years in the scheme for achieving a 26-week employment outcome.
Further, like many things, including Indue cards and other pieces this government is obsessed with, this program is incredibly expensive. Analysis shows that for every dollar that a recipient receives in income support approximately 70 cents is spent administering the scheme. So, for every dollar that you push out the door, it's costing you 70 cents. I don't know how that, in any way, is a good spend of taxpayers' money. I don't understand how that is possibly a fair way to use taxpayers' money or if it's the most effect of use if you are trying to create jobs in regional Australia. To put that in terms of what it's actually cost taxpayers, the 2,682 part- and full-time jobs with 26-week employment outcomes cost $360 million per year to operate. That amount could directly employ 19,700 people for 26 weeks full-time.
Like many in this place I regularly travel to regional centres. Because of border arrangements, that has been focused very much on regional Western Australia for this year. You see the importance of jobs. You see the importance of investing in our regional centres. Recently I was in Kalgoorlie, where I met with Training Alliance Group. They are a Job Network provider. They help people into work They have a facility on the main street of Kalgoorlie where I met with a bunch of young students and talked to them about what they wanted to get, what their hopes were. It was great to sit and speak with them about how excited they were about the sorts of jobs they might be able to do in the future. They were also learning some pretty high tech skills. The member for O'Connor may have also been there and played the same Street Fighter II console that I did that had actually been built by the students—building a video-game arcade thing, learning some tech skills, as a way to re-engage students who had otherwise become disengaged with school, back into work.
But, wherever you go across Western Australia, you are confronted by the fact that there are not enough skilled workers. The skills crisis in this country is getting worse, not better. I've heard about the challenges of finding childcare educators in Tom Price, where the limits on child care are being driven by the huge challenge of accommodation pressures and the challenge of getting people with qualifications in early childhood education to Tom Price. In Albany, I've heard about the challenge of getting truck drivers. In fact, basically anywhere you go in WA, even in the city, you hear about the need for more truck drivers on our roads to help with logistics, to help with the mining industry, to help with the agricultural industry and more. There are challenges in Geraldton with aged-care workers. There are tourism providers who are facing unique challenges in terms of a different customer base but also the need for different skills across the state. So we do have jobs, but the program in this legislation doesn't do the hard work of connecting people to those jobs.
One successful program that I was fortunate to go out and see in the member for O'Connor's electorate recently is the Esperance Tjaltjraak Cultural Rangers. It is an amazing program that I know the member for O'Connor and many in this place—and I was there with the member for Fremantle—recognise as a successful demonstration of an Indigenous rangers program. It provides community education and school programs. They're preventing invasive species taking over beautiful native vegetation, working on developing and protecting cultural sites, doing the very important work of rehabilitation and also the important work of tourist education. This is a successful program. We should have more focus on these successful programs. We should also acknowledge that there are challenges when it comes to making sure that the people who participate in these programs have access to all the other services that we rely on to have a successful working life, whether that is childcare services, whether it's in terms of access to government agencies or whether it's in terms of access to health services.
I'm really concerned, still, as many are in this place, that unfortunately there is a city-regions divide when it comes to the rollout of the vaccine. Clearly, we have not given enough support to Indigenous organisations, Aboriginal controlled health organisations, to be part of the partnership to roll out the vaccine. Now, I understand that, for many, many months, there were not enough vaccines to roll out, so that would have been pointless. But now we have to be honest. In Coolgardie, less than 50 per cent of the population have had their first dose; Waddington, 60 per cent; Kalgoorlie, 60 per cent. We need a plan from this government to fix the vaccination rollout in our regions, because, if we don't have that, we're going to see more people miss out on job opportunities and more people miss out on the ability to re-engage with the workforce, which is exactly what this legislation seeks to do.
I note that Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory have serious concerns about this legislation. One of their biggest concerns is the effect of the bill on those receiving payments. In their submission to one of the inquiries into this bill, they noted:
Those in receipt of the payment would remain in the income support system. They could be subject to income management. While they would do work that is 'like a job', they would not have the rights and protections of other workers.
There are a whole bunch of problems tied up in just that one quote. These people would remain in the income support system, despite the fact that they were working; they would have no protections as employees; and, despite working and earning their income, they could be subject to income management. Unfortunately, I believe that this is part of this government's sick obsession with telling people how to spend their money. Their obsession with income management and cashless debit cards is something that seems to pervade every area of government policy. We know that the government have said they want this to be a mainstream part of how they roll out government funding. I am a very strong supporter of the member for Bruce and his private member's bill to make sure that we stop this in its tracks, because who knows where it ends?
Around Australia, we see that this cashless debit card system is already creeping its tentacles all over the place. In parts of Western Australia, people on the disability support pension and carer payments are already being put onto the cashless debit card. In Far North Queensland you've got aged pensioners being placed onto this card. When you think about this, if you start to normalise that for people in their working life, and then you normalise it once they stop working, once they hit retirement age, that's a real concern. There are 2.6 million aged pensioners in Australia, with 241,000 of them in Western Australia. I don't want to see a situation under this system where someone is forced to work for below minimum wage for years on end with no promise of a proper job, and then, once they have worked below minimum wage with no promise of a job and get to retirement age, is forced onto a cashless welfare system. That's not how you treat people. It's not forward-thinking policy. This legislation doesn't do anything to send us in the right direction.