Vinnies: Scrap penalties!

Sydney
24 March 2002

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Vinnies: Scrap penalties!

By Kathleen Carmody

Scrap the penalties: That’s the reaction of the St Vincent de Paul Society to a report which exposes major flaws in the Federal Government’s policy of breaching welfare recipients.

The Independent Review of Breaches and Penalties in the Social Security System said in its report that there were failings in the design and implementation of the system that led to unemployed people suffering arbitrary, unfair or excessively harsh penalties.

The system had concentrated excessively on high breach rates and penalties rather than on encouraging active efforts to find work, it said.

Three times as many penalties were imposed in 2001 than in 1998, the penalties often exceeded $1,000 and they often caused severe hardship for the unemployed and their families.

Under the system, welfare recipients face penalties if, for instance, they miss a scheduled interview with Centrelink or Job Network providers.

The Australian Council of Social Service, supported by several other welfare bodies, established the

independent review last year. Its members are: Professor Dennis Pearce, law school, Australian National University (chair); and Heather Ridout, deputy chief executive, Australian Industry Group; and Julian Disney, director, Social Justice Project, University of NSW.

They make 36 detailed recommendations in their report, including reducing the size of penalties, giving 14 days’ notice of intention to breach, removing incentives in government contracts with Centrelink and Job Network that encourage breaching and making greater use of social workers and specialist officers to assist vulnerable job seekers.

The Society of St Vincent de Paul, however, believes the policy on breaching should be scrapped.

“It doesn’t need tweaking,” said the society’s acting president, John Meahan. “It needs scrapping.

“In its place we need to see a whole-of-government strategy, involving all three levels of government in a co-ordinated approach to addressing regional development and government intervention to create new jobs with decent wages and conditions.”

Toby O’Connor, national director of Catholic Welfare Australia, agreed that the focus needed to be on job creation strategies, not on punishing the unemployed.

He said the rate of breaching had increased by more than 300 per cent.

“We’re not questioning the government’s responsibility to monitor its social security system to ensure the wise use of taxpayer funds, but we are questioning the huge increase – and the outcomes the church providers and community welfare providers are seeing on a daily basis,” he said.

“We certainly need to see a significant review of the government’s breaching policy, a significant reworking, to ensure that it does undertake a wise administration of the system but (that) its current punitive treatment of income support recipients is removed.”

Mr O’Connor praised the report and urged the Minister for Family and Community Services, Senator Amanda Vanstone, to implement its major recommendations.

“Contrary to claims that the current breach regime reflects community expectations, the fact remains that the regime is simply unjust,” he said.

Job creation should be the number one priority, he added.

“Clearly, a job creation strategy targeted to the most vulnerable seekers is the most important priority. Vacancies have to be created if we’re to successfully allow recipients to attain independence from the social security system,” he said.

John Meahan said that more than 700,000 people were unemployed at any one time in Australia but there were only 100,000 or so jobs available.

Breaching was a means of penalising people for failing to get a job that didn’t exist, he said.

“The fault does not lie with the individual,” Mr Meahan said. “It lies with the inability of the market to reach and sustain acceptable levels of economic participation for disadvantaged Australians.

“Hence, despite the world record growth in Australia announced last week, few additional full-time jobs have emerged. This is why we are continuing to see a growth in the gap between rich and poor.”