Division
Catryna Bilyk As I was saying last night, before I had to cease my contribution, the restriction of waivers will disproportionately impact on some of the most vulnerable people in our society. These are the people we should reach out a hand to and support—people with mental illness and people experiencing homeless. They are the people who I am very concerned to hear appear to have been described by Joe Hockey as 'leaners'. This government does not understand the challenges faced by the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in our community. They are completely out of touch with what goes on out there in the real world, or, even worse, they might understand it but they just do not care. They are quite happy for the most vulnerable unemployed Australians to be the collateral damage in a cruel and heartless scapegoating exercise. It is important for a strong mutual obligation system that we have both the carrot and the stick systems—a system of penalties for failing to comply, accompanied by help and incentives to engage with the employment support system. This is why the waivers are so important. When there is a serious failure, the waivers allow the department to consider individual circumstances and whether applying the penalty would be appropriate. The department can consider whether the job seeker has the capacity to comply with the serious failure requirement and whether applying the penalty would cause them serious financial hardship. Also, the job seeker has an opportunity and an incentive to re-engage with the system and return to actively seeking work. What the Abbott government wants to introduce is a system that is cruel and inflexible. There is no argument from this side of the chamber that people should be penalised in some way if they steadfastly refuse to engage in finding suitable employment, or if they do not bother to make any reasonable effort. But, having any restriction on the number of waivers that are applied to eight-week penalties is just p
Senate, 2014-09-03. negative: ayes 29, noes 36.
Question
Catryna Bilyk As I was saying last night, before I had to cease my contribution, the restriction of waivers will disproportionately impact on some of the most vulnerable people in our society. These are the people we should reach out a hand to and support—people with mental illness and people experiencing homeless. They are the people who I am very concerned to hear appear to have been described by Joe Hockey as 'leaners'. This government does not understand the challenges faced by the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in our community. They are completely out of touch with what goes on out there in the real world, or, even worse, they might understand it but they just do not care. They are quite happy for the most vulnerable unemployed Australians to be the collateral damage in a cruel and heartless scapegoating exercise. It is important for a strong mutual obligation system that we have both the carrot and the stick systems—a system of penalties for failing to comply, accompanied by help and incentives to engage with the employment support system. This is why the waivers are so important. When there is a serious failure, the waivers allow the department to consider individual circumstances and whether applying the penalty would be appropriate. The department can consider whether the job seeker has the capacity to comply with the serious failure requirement and whether applying the penalty would cause them serious financial hardship. Also, the job seeker has an opportunity and an incentive to re-engage with the system and return to actively seeking work. What the Abbott government wants to introduce is a system that is cruel and inflexible. There is no argument from this side of the chamber that people should be penalised in some way if they steadfastly refuse to engage in finding suitable employment, or if they do not bother to make any reasonable effort. But, having any restriction on the number of waivers that are applied to eight-week penalties is just p
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Related bills
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