According to Antony Green's Swing Calculator the 11-14 April 2019 Newspoll results will see Labor gain the Page electorate and retain the Richmond electorate, with Cowper electorate being retained by the Nationals.
Showing posts with label #MorrisonGovernmentFAIL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #MorrisonGovernmentFAIL. Show all posts
Tuesday 16 April 2019
No matter how had they dance and prance Scott Morrison & Co just can't turn Newspoll around
Only 32 days out from the 2019 federal election and the losing streak is not yet over for the Morrison Government.
The last time the Coalition were ahead on a Newspoll Two Party
Preferred (TPP) basis was on 2 July 2016 when the Turnbull Government
stood at 50.5 per cent on the day of the 2016 federal election.
Which means the losing streak has now stretched to a little over 33
months.
52nd Newpoll results – published 15 April 2019:
Primary Vote – Labor 39 percent (up 2 points) to Liberal-Nationals 39 per cent
(up 1 point), The Greens 9 per cent (unchanged), One Nation 4 per cent (down 2
points).
Two Party Preferred (TPP) - Labor 52 per cent (unchanged) to Liberal-Nationals Coalition 48
per cent (up 1 point).
Voter Net Satisfaction With Leaders’ Performance – Prime Minister Scott Morrison
1 point (down 1 point) and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten -14 points
(unchanged).
If a federal election had been held on14 April 2019 based of the
preference flow in July 2016, then Labor would have won government with a
majority 82 seats (unchanged since 7 April poll ) to the Coalition's 63 seats
(unchanged since 7 April poll) in the House of Representatives.
According to Antony Green's Swing Calculator the 11-14 April 2019 Newspoll results will see Labor gain the Page electorate and retain the Richmond electorate, with Cowper electorate being retained by the Nationals.
Labels:
#MorrisonGovernmentFAIL,
elections 2019,
poll,
statistics
Sunday 14 April 2019
Morrison Government caught out attempting to retrospectively censor native bird export information
The Guardian, 4 April 2019:
The Australian
government has attempted to retrospectively censor critical information related
to exports of rare and exotic birds to a German organisation headed by a
convicted kidnapper, fraudster and extortionist.
Guardian Australia revealed late last
year that
Australia had permitted the export of 232 birds, some worth tens of thousands
of dollars, to the Brandenburg-based Association for the Conservation of
Threatened Parrots (ACTP) between 2015 and November 2018.
Conservation groups and federal politicians
had repeatedly expressed concern about the group, which is headed by Martin
Guth, a man with multiple criminal convictions.
The Guardian’s
investigation relied on internal government documents secured through freedom
of information laws, released in August.
Guardian Australia made
subsequent freedom of information requests and received further documents in
January. But the federal department of environment has now attempted to
retrospectively redact parts of the documents, saying it accidentally released
information it shouldn’t have.
Some of the inadvertently
released information could “facilitate fraudulent export applications”, the
department said. The department had also accidentally released “personal
information, such as birth dates and name, and confidential business
information”.
The department has asked
Guardian Australia to destroy its copies of the documents, and not further
disseminate the newly redacted details.
“While we understand
that the FOI decisions have already been made, and that you are under no
obligation to follow the department’s wishes, we kindly request that you
either: destroy the documents that the department has previously released to
you and instead, use the redacted documents attached to this letter; or
otherwise ensure that the information in question … is not further disclosed or
made publicly available,” the department said in a letter emailed to the
Guardian on Wednesday, but dated last month.
The documents have not
been published on the department’s online FOI disclosure log. The department’s
stance suggests that other parties – journalists or conservation groups, for
example – would be subject to the newly introduced redactions if they requested
the same documents.
Freedom of information
experts say the government’s actions have “no legal basis”……
The new redactions remove
details that made it possible for Guardian Australia to establish that the
operator of ACTP’s Netherlands facility was convicted in 2015 of involvement as
a buyer in a trading ring that was illegally selling protected exotic birds.
The department has also
removed identification numbers for the birds that were exported to Germany, arguing that its original decision
to release that information could lead to “fraudulent” exports of Australian
birds overseas.
It has also blacked out
permit numbers from the export permits issued in Australia, the names of
individuals who operate other ACTP facilities in Germany and in other
countries, and removed information relating to ACTP’s exemption status from corporate
tax.
The redactions remove
images of ACTP’s main breeding facility and maps that illustrate its layout.
In recent months,
Guardian Australia has been trying to establish whether the department
undertook adequate due diligence to ensure that all of the birds sent to ACTP
were legally captive bred.
But the department has
refused to release names of suppliers in Australia that would show the chain of
custody for each of the birds before they were exported to Germany. Those
details were redacted from FoI documents released to the Guardian in January
and from documents tabled after an order for the production of documents in
parliament.
Attempts by government
agencies to retrospectively recover or redact FOI documents have previously
been found to have no lawful basis under NSW freedom of information law.
Landcom, the NSW government’s land and property development organisation,
attempted to retrieve documents it had accidentally released to a school
committee group in 2005, and took its case to the NSW
Administrative Decisions Tribunal.
The tribunal found it
had no power whatsoever to retrieve previously released FOI documents.
Labels:
#MorrisonGovernmentFAIL,
birds,
exports,
flora and fauna
Wednesday 10 April 2019
National Redress Scheme: Morrison Government's deviation from royal commission recommendations without sound evidence had been "to the detriment of the scheme and against the interests of survivors"
Sadly Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his political cronies continue to wage war on the poor and vulnerable without exception.
This time it is victims of insitutional child sexual abuse they are trying to deny access to compensation and to unfairly limit the amount of compensation recommended by the Royal Commission into Insitutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse.
Herald
Sun, 4 April
2019:
THE Federal Government
must explain how it capped National Redress Scheme payments to child sex
survivors at $150,000 rather than a recommended $200,000, said
a parliamentary committee left "deeply dissatisfied" when
it was unable to find an answer during a review of the scheme.
The $150,000 cap
was rammed into legislation after the Turnbull Government warned any push to
lift it would delay the scheme's implementation by 18 months.
But the committee's
unsuccessful attempts to solve the mystery has left survivors believing
$150,000 was chosen because it matched Anglican and Catholic maximum
payments, a joint select committee reviewing the scheme found.
"The committee is
deeply dissatisfied that the maximum payment amount has been reduced and that
no clear explanation has been provided about why this occurred or who advocated
for this reduction," the report released on Wednesday said.
"The committee has
tried to ascertain the reason for the reduction in the maximum payment and has
put this question to various witnesses, including Department of Social Services
and the Department of Human Services on numerous occasions.
However, apart
from acknowledging that $150,000 was the amount agreed to between the
Commonwealth, states, and territories, the committee has not received any
explanation or rationale about this discrepancy."
The committee, headed by
Senator Derryn Hinch with Newcastle MP Sharon Claydon as deputy chair, was
told more
than 3000 people had applied for redress by February 28 after its
launch on July 1, 2018, but only 88 cases were finalised, with fewer than 10
survivors paid between $100,000 and $150,000.
At least one person
received the maximum $150,000.
"The committee
recommends that the government clearly and openly explain how the maximum
payments came to be set at $150,000 rather than $200,000, and the rationale for
this decision," it said in
one of 29 recommendations. The committee recommended amending legislation
to lift the cap to $200,000.
The cross-party
committee made up of four Liberal members, three Labor, one Green and Senator
Hinch issued a damning assessment of parts of the redress scheme that
vary from recommendations by the Royal Commission into Institutional
Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2017.
They include an
assessment matrix that restricts maximum payments to penetrative child
sexual abuse, counselling capped at $5000 and excluding people with
serious criminal convictions or making applications from jail.
The criminal conviction
and jail exclusions would "disproportionately impact" Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander peoples who made up almost one third of survivors
seen by royal commissioners during private sessions in jail.
"This is an
alarming statistic," the committee said.
Ms Claydon said the
Federal Government's deviation from royal commission recommendations without
sound evidence had been "to the detriment of the scheme and against the
interests of survivors".
BACKGROUND
On 20 June 2017 the House of Representatives
agreed to a Senate resolution that a joint select committee on oversight of the
implementation of redress related recommendations of the Royal Commission into
Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse be established following the
tabling of the final report of the Royal Commission.
Excerpts from Joint Committee's report:
Intrinsic to a
survivor's access to redress are the institutions responsible for the sexual
abuse and their decision to join the scheme. While all states and territories
are now participating in the scheme, there are no mechanisms to force private
institutions to join the scheme. Yet survivors will not be able to obtain
redress if the institution responsible for their abuse refuses to join the
scheme. This is both unfair and unacceptable. Plainly, more needs to be done to
pressure non-participating institutions to join the scheme, and provide survivors
with access to redress....
Central to the redress
scheme are the survivors. Wherever possible, the scheme should be an inclusive
scheme that does not exclude groups of survivors. Currently, certain groups of
survivors are either not eligible for redress or are subject to potentially
arbitrary decisions when seeking permission to apply for redress. The
government has suggested that some of these exclusions are necessary to protect
the scheme from particular risks, such as fraud, while others are necessary to
ensure the efficient administration of the scheme. These are not sufficient
justifications to unilaterally exclude large groups of survivors, who would
otherwise have a legitimate claim, from accessing redress.
Recommendation 14
8.94 The committee recommends that the government clearly and openly explain how the maximum payments came to be set at $150 000 rather than $200 000, and the rationale for this decision.
Recommendation 15
8.95 In line with the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the committee recommends that Commonwealth, state and territory governments agree to increase the maximum redress payment from $150 000 to $200 000.
Recommendation 16
8.100 In line with the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the committee recommends that Commonwealth, state and territory governments implement a minimum payment of $10 000 for the monetary component of redress, noting that in practice some offers may be lower than $10 000 after relevant prior payments to the survivor by the responsible institution are considered, or after calculating a non-participating institution's share of the costs.
8.94 The committee recommends that the government clearly and openly explain how the maximum payments came to be set at $150 000 rather than $200 000, and the rationale for this decision.
Recommendation 15
8.95 In line with the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the committee recommends that Commonwealth, state and territory governments agree to increase the maximum redress payment from $150 000 to $200 000.
Recommendation 16
8.100 In line with the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the committee recommends that Commonwealth, state and territory governments implement a minimum payment of $10 000 for the monetary component of redress, noting that in practice some offers may be lower than $10 000 after relevant prior payments to the survivor by the responsible institution are considered, or after calculating a non-participating institution's share of the costs.
The full April 2019 Joint Standing Committee report can be read here.
NOTE:
The Anglican Diocese of Grafton on the NSW North Coast has now joined the National Redress Scheme.
NOTE:
The Anglican Diocese of Grafton on the NSW North Coast has now joined the National Redress Scheme.
Monday 8 April 2019
The Morrison Government's Budget 2019-20 appears to be fooling very few
By 26 August
2018 North
Coast Voices was posting this……
On this
list are individuals who have:
* not yet
been approved for home care;
* been
previously assessed and approved, but who have not yet been assigned a home
care package; or
* are
receiving care at an interim level awaiting assignment of a home care package
at their approved level.
Waiting
time is calculated from the date of a home care package approval and this is
not a an ideal situation, given package approval times range from est. 27 to 98
days and the time taken to approve high level home care packages is now [more] than twelve months - with actual delivery
dates occurring at least 12 months later on average….
By June 2017 New South
Wales had the largest number of persons on the home care waiting list at
30,685.
Given the high number of
residents over 60 years of age in regional areas like the Northern Rivers, this
waiting list gives pause for thought.
This was the
Morrison Government announcement of 17 December 2018 reported online…….
Community
Care Review
magazine, 17 December 2018:
The federal government
has announced $553 million in aged care spending including the release of
10,000 home care packages and increased residential supplements for the
homeless and people in regional areas.
The splash-out is a
centerpiece of the federal government’s Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook,
which forecasts a return to budget surplus and a raft of new aged care spending
initiatives.
The new high-care home
care packages will be available within weeks, Prime Minister Scott Morrison
said. Funding will be split across 5,000 level 3 and 5,000 level 4 care
packages, providing up to $50,000 per person in services each year.
This is the Morrison
Government pretending that the 10,000 aged care packages it announced last year
are a new round of age care packages in Budget 2019-20……
Budget Papers 2019-20:
To support older
Australians who choose to remain in their own homes for longer, the Government
is providing $282.4 million for 10,000 home care packages….
However, not everyone
was fooled……
The
Conversation,
2 April 2019:
In aged care, the government
will fund 10,000 home care packages, which have been previously announced, at a
cost of $282 million over five years, and will allocate $84 million for carer
respite. But long wait times for home care packages remain.
Monday 18 March 2019
Even as it devours itself the Morrison Coalition Government is determined to impose its warped 1950s ideology on women and girls
On 8 March
2019 the United Nations Human Rights
Council of which Australia is a member began its general debate on the promotion and
protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural
rights, including the right to development.
On that day
the Australian Human Rights Law Centre said that the [UN] High
Commissioner highlighted the importance of the right to social security and of
recognising the value of unpaid care work in addressing women’s
inequality. Yet the Australian Government was steadily undermining its
social security system and making life harder for many women. Currently
it was imposing its punitive ParentsNext programme on single mothers accessing
social security.
And Mexico
and Finland, speaking on behalf of a group of countries, stated
that human rights bodies’ remedies must fulfil the rights of victims, and
include adequate, effective and prompt reparation. Women and girls in
humanitarian settings were particularly vulnerable to human rights violations
such as sexual and gender based violence, human trafficking and forced abortions.
After a motion
was put forward in relation to Mexico and Finland’s concerns 57 countries including the United Kingdom signed the subsequent statement.
According to SBS News on 11 March 2019 the motion broadly called for greater
accountability for human rights violations against women and girls and the
statement proposed greater implementation
of 'policies and legislation that respect women and girls' right to bodily
autonomy'. This included guaranteed
universal protection of women's sexual and reproductive health, comprehensive
sexuality education and access to safe abortion.
Australia
refused to be a signatory to this official UN statement.
BuzzFeed was given to understand by a
departmental spokesperson that the Australian delegation, coordinated by
the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, did not join the statement because
it called for access to safe abortion without referencing that this access
should be consistent with the law.
Why was
reference to existing law so important to Australia?
The
highlighted section in the Human Rights Law Centre news release below gives
the answer.
The Morrison
Government - dominated as it is by middle-aged far-right men - refuses to open the door to debate on decriminalising abortion in
the last three states which still retain a prohibition of abortion in their
criminal codes.
Apparently
Scott Morrison is averse to any debate on this issue, as in his own high-handed, paternalistic words “I don’t think it is good for our
country”.
Human Rights Law Centre, Morrison Government missing in action
at UN on International Women's Day, 9 March 2019:
The Morrison Government
has failed to sign on to an International Women’s Day statement at the United
Nations calling for access to safe abortions, comprehensive sexuality education
and sexual reproductive health.
As recently as last
week, in a speech to the UN Human Rights
Council,
the Australian Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, said the number one guiding
principle for the Government's time on the Council was "gender
equality". Yet when 57 countries came together on International Women's
Day to support a motion proposed by Finland and Mexico, the Morrison Government
chose not to back it.
Edwina MacDonald, a
Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, who is attending the session in
Geneva, said it was extremely disappointing to see the Australian
Government once again fail to live up to its promises at the UN.
“Being able to make
choices about our own bodies and access reproductive health are absolutely
essential to achieving gender equality. No government can truly support gender
equality and human rights without supporting access to safe abortions and
reproductive rights," said Ms MacDonald.
In Australia, abortion is still in the criminal statute
books in New
South Wales, South
Australia and Western Australia. This is a recognised form of sex
discrimination in international human rights law. The criminalisation of
abortion harms women by making it harder to access safe and compassionate
reproductive healthcare.
"The Morrison
Government holds a really important role on the Human Rights
Council, it should be using its voice at the UN to stand up for the rights of
women all around the world. Instead we get hollow words here in Geneva and a
failure to lift its game back home. It's so disappointing," said Ms
MacDonald.
Friday 8 March 2019
Something to think about - Part One
September 2015 to January 2019 |
8501.0 - Retail Trade, Australia, Jan 2019 |
* All images from Twitter.
Twenty-eight climate scientists, academics & former heads of energy companies tell the world that Morrison and Co are lying to the Australian people
“Proud to be a signatory to this statement from @climatecouncil. Between us, we have devoted 600 years to this issue. Last week's announcements are not enough to get us to meet our lousy Paris Target. That target, by the way, isn't even nearly enough to ensure a safe climate.” [Tim Baxter, Twitter, 4 March 2019]
Climate Council, 4 March 2019:
Dozens of the country’s
leading climate and energy experts – including climate scientists, academics
and former heads of energy companies – have signed a joint statement stressing
that without further action Australia
will not meet its 2030 pollution reduction target.
Wednesday 6 March 2019
What one woman from Australia intends to tell the United Nations about the Morrison Government's war on low income women with young children
“We know that
poverty is unpleasant; in fact, since it is so remote, we rather enjoy
harrowing ourselves with the thought of its unpleasantness, but don't expect us
to do anything about it. We are sorry
for you lower classes, just as we are sorry for a cat with the mange, but we
will fight like devils against any improvement of your condition. We feel that
you are much safer as you are.” [George Orwell, 1933, “Down and Out inParis and London”]
If ever Australia’s
captains of industry and, those elected members of the two conservative political
parties they support. ever knew a period of poverty it is now so long ago that an
abundance of personal income has driven all thought of it from their memories.
Thus it takes
a lone woman to bring to the notice of the United Nations some of the economic and human rights injustices
perpetrated by Prime Minister Scott Morrison & Co on single mothers with young children.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 March 2019:
Imagine having to get
someone else to provide proof you aren’t shagging anyone on a regular basis and
that even if you are, you aren't getting financial support. Your own word isn't
good enough any more.
That’s what happens to
single mothers in Australia if they want to be eligible for welfare.
There’s a lot that goes
wrong for single mums in Australia. They already have difficult lives, managing
kids, jobs and life on their own. And on top of all that, there are a whole
range of compliance tasks in order to get benefits, from signing endless forms
to applying for a ridiculous number of jobs, a huge task all on its own.
It's a miserable life
for a single mother on welfare in Australia, so hard that one woman, Juanita
McLaren, has decided to take her complaint all the way to the United Nations.
She says the way Australia treats single mums breaches human rights and now,
the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, will
be hearing from her directly at a UN Women’s conference in New York next week.
In fact, he will be
presenting by her side. Huge honour and some of us might have put that on our
credit cards. She had to crowdfund to get there.
McLaren, who has also
had to get proof she’s not in a financially-bound relationship in order to be
eligible for Newstart, worked full-time when her kids were little. Then her
husband, who was the primary carer, left the family and now lives overseas.
“I just hit a wall and
headed into casual work because there was always something happening with the
kids.”
She had to ditch her
part-time studies because she couldn’t manage financially on Newstart even
though her studies were a pathway to getting better work.
Benefits were erratic
and in one case, took eight weeks to arrive – finally some money arrived on
Christmas Eve. She entered the wrong year on a form (who else has mixed up
their birth year with the current year?) and was told it couldn’t be corrected
over the phone.
It was all the little
things on top of the poverty that motivated her to make a complaint.
In some respects,
McLaren is fortunate. She’s had steady part-time work for a couple of years
now, which is slightly seasonal. She remains registered for Newstart because of
the off-season.
But it’s the constant
battle with Centrelink, with managing her family and money, with being forced
to apply for hopeless work she doesn’t want, that forced McLaren to turn to the
UN. So far, it’s the Australian government and the UN in a deadlock about
what’s harmful to single mothers.
For years now, Terese
Edwards, the CEO of the National Council for Single Mothers, has campaigned for
better financial support for her members. Edwards helped McLaren write her
complaint, which was the first individual complaint using the optional protocol
of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women; and will
be at her side when she speaks at the conference…..
Cassandra Goldie, the
CEO of the Australian Council of Social Services, says single mothers are easy
to target and easy to vilify.
She says it’s not just
impoverishment that has been relentless, it is the way in which both autonomy
and agency have been removed from single mothers in direct contrast to what’s
happening in the aged care sector. And she’s not just talking about the
ridiculous requirement to get someone else to guarantee your relationship
status.
Here’s some shocking
news: One in three sole parents and their children are living in poverty
according to the latest ACOSS-UNSW Poverty report. In just two years, the rate
of poverty amongst unemployed single parents rose from 35 per cent to 59 per
cent.
“I don’t know how you do
it!” we say to them, and in the next breath: “Here, let me make it harder for
you.”
This attitude is
stitched into the heart of a welfare program called ParentsNext, which can
require some single parents on the parenting payment to report to the state
that they have taken their children to improving activities, such as swimming
lessons or story time at the local library.
If they don’t comply,
they can have their payments cut off, often with no notice, and no clear line
of appeal. The arbiter of complaints is also the provider, the company
privately contracted by the government to administer the program.
Some mothers have
reported being asked to provide photographs as proof they have attended the
child-focused activities. Others report the provider phoning the library, or
the local pool, to verify their attendance.
Librarians as monitors,
swimming instructors as social police: it’s a level of surveillance and control
that would make Orwell twitch.
The program has faced a
barrage of criticism from welfare groups, and was the subject of a Senate
inquiry last week.
Peter Davidson, senior
adviser to the Australian Council of Social Service, says the program
was previously "less heavy handed”.
I spoke to one single
mother-of-three this week, 32-year-old Sarah, who had a positive experience of
the program in its previous incarnation. She had a good case worker who helped
her into a small business course, assisting her to set up her own
florist’s business. Now she is earning some income and intends to get off the
parenting payment as soon as possible.
But in July 2018, the
Coalition government (then led by Malcolm Turnbull) extended the program from a
smaller pilot to about 70,000 single parents, 95 per cent of them women. In its
expanded form, the “targeted compliance framework”, which applies to other
payments such as Newstart, was imposed on ParentsNext. It is language that
would make Orwell’s fingers itch.
Davidson says about a
fifth of single parents on the program have had their payments suspended.
Parents are put on
participation plans, ranging from vocational training to taking their children
to a playgroup or "story time". This muddies the waters between the
practical objective of helping women back into work after the child-rearing and
the insidious policing of their parenting.
The result is
bureaucrats invigilating parents from a moral, child-welfare stance, making
payments dependent on proof that parenting is being done correctly.
This is a qualitative
difference from other “mutual obligation” welfare requirements, because it is
not about getting people off taxpayer money. It is predicated on the assumption
that parents (read: mothers) on welfare must not be as “good” as other parents.
These measures assume
that the poor have different social standards than the middle class, who know
the correct way to nurture children, with story time and swimming classes.
They are also cruelly
detached from the chaotic reality of raising small children, where leaving the
house with everyone fed and clothed is itself an achievement, but one that
almost never runs to time. Some days, the bad days, it doesn’t happen at all.
This kind of
compliance-and-penalty system stems from the belief that the poor are not just
unlucky, but they are fundamentally different from other people; that they lack
the correct values, and the rectitude to pull themselves up. This is not
so far from the Victorian-era belief that Orwell upturned with his memoir: that
poverty is a moral failing.
This attitude can exist
only when you wilfully ignore the fact that the majority of Australians will
rely on government support at some stage in their lives, with millions of us
slipping in and out of the safety net as our circumstances change.....
Australian Parliament, Senate Community Affairs References Committee, Inquiry into ParentsNext, including its trial and subsequent broader rollout, public hearing, Melbourne, 27 February 2019, excerpts:
Australian Parliament, Senate Community Affairs References Committee, Inquiry into ParentsNext, including its trial and subsequent broader rollout, public hearing, Melbourne, 27 February 2019, excerpts:
Ms
Edwards [Chief
Executive Officer, National Council of Single Mothers and their Children]: It
is unfettered power. It is shown up in a lot of ways, even as to participants'
knowledge about signing a participation plan. The participation plan is like
the blueprint for the engagement. You have your goals on your participation
plan and then, from that, you have the flow of your activities that are meant
to support those participation goals. In theory, you're allowed 10 thinking
days after meeting and developing your participation plan. What we discovered
in our survey which supported what women were telling us was that they would
sign it in that meeting, and they would sign it because they were so compliant
because the person they were sitting in front of had the power to affect their
life, in terms of their payment but also in terms of their commitments. What is
not well known by participants is: there is no minimum weekly activity
requirement, like mutual obligations. But, because women are so aware of those
mutual obligations, they start thinking that they have a similar sort of level
that they must do, and they won't upset the provider because the provider can
determine the activities; they can breach them—and, as Jenny said, in the blink
of an eye they can breach. If the participant disagrees with the breach, the
person who umpires that is the provider—they decide whether they have operated
appropriately or not. There is not one independent body that manages or
oversees that process. So that is why women are compliant—they're in this, and
it's like they've gone down this slippery slope into hell and the only way they
can come out is if they sign and do what's required. They won't upset a
provider.
Ms
Davidson: They don't even know about that 10-day period. With the lack of
information that people are provided, they don't know about the 10-day thinking
period.
Senator
WATT: The way the system is supposed to work is that people are supposed to
have 10 days to have a think about the proposed plan before they commit to it.
Ms
Edwards: Which implies that it's two people having a mutually equal
conversation about: 'What would actually help you get to where you need to go?'
Senator
WATT: Yes, but, in fact, many people feel pressured to sign there and then?
Ms Edwards: Yes, and then what else is
happening, which is where the providers are working outside of their
guidelines, is that they will unilaterally change activities and times.
Senator
WATT: The providers will?
Ms
Edwards: Yes. And they will do that in writing, they will do that in phone
calls and they will do that in texts......
Ms
Buckland [Private
capacity]: I'll give you an example, and it's a complicated one, because there
are many issues with it, but I was contacted by a woman who had a newborn
baby—she'd had it the day before. She should be exempt from ParentsNext—
CHAIR:
It's supposed to apply at the very most when the baby's six months.
Ms
Buckland: Yes. So it's from 34 weeks pregnant to the child being six months
that there's an exemption. She wasn't able to speak to anyone about her
exemption. She was still expected to mark her attendance at an activity; she
was expected to attend an appointment one-week post birth. I think that there
are obviously inherent issues with that kind of system. Her payments were
suspended.
CHAIR:
With a newborn?
Ms
Buckland: With a newborn baby......
Prof. Croucher [President, Australian Human Rights
Commission]:….
The
commission's submission identifies five key problems with the compliance
framework of ParentsNext. I will briefly remark on two of these problems. First,
the detrimental effect of punitive compliance can be unjustifiably harsh. Many
of Australia's most valuable parents and children rely on the parenting payment
to afford basic day-to-day essentials. This includes single mothers living on
or below the poverty line. Yet, under ParentsNext, these struggling families
face automatic payment suspensions. This can happen for a single instance of
noncompliance with a program requirement, despite having a reasonable excuse
like a sick child. In the worst cases, their parenting payment can be reduced
or cancelled.
Without
money to provide adequate food, clothing and shelter for your family, how can
human rights be realised? How can there be human dignity? Poverty erodes the
enjoyment of many human rights, such as access to education, health care and
participation in public life. The current operation of ParentsNext risks
further entrenching poverty and inequality in Australia. It already risks
reducing a parent's resilience to the complex challenges they already face,
including homelessness, domestic violence and mental illness.
The
commission is also concerned that there are insufficient safeguards to prevent
inappropriate compliance action. For example, some punitive financial measures
are automatic. Others can be made by private commercial service providers
rather than by public officials.
Secondly,
the claimed success of ParentsNext is not appropriately evidence based. On the
basis of the evaluation of the program to date, it is not possible to conclude
that the program is achieving its aims or that it has had a positive effect
which outweighs the detriment of undermining the right to social security. For
example, the department's evaluation of the trial program relied heavily on a
survey of participants, but it didn't disclose how many people participated in
the relevant survey, and it's unclear whether the sample size was statistically
significant. The design and methodology of the survey were not disclosed. The
department's evaluation also draws many positive conclusions about the efficacy
of the program—for example, that it increases chances of employment. However,
many of these conclusions are based on the opinions of survey participants
rather than on objective data.
Lastly,
the commission is seriously concerned about the discriminatory impacts of the
program. ParentsNext is only applied to a small and targeted proportion of
people receiving the parenting payment. Women and Indigenous Australians are
disproportionately affected, with women comprising approximately 96 per cent of
the 68,000 participants and Aboriginal and Torres Islander people approximately
19 per cent.
The
human right to social security should be enjoyed equally by all, regardless of
sex, race or age. Australia's domestic legislation, such as the Racial
Discrimination Act 1975 at the Commonwealth level, also protects the right to
equality and nondiscrimination. It is unfair that the parents who are required
to participate in ParentsNext are at risk of losing essential support, while
the majority of parenting payment recipients can access their social security
without meeting the additional onerous obligations of ParentsNext.....
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