The
Guardian, 28
January 2019:
Single mothers placed on
a compulsory welfare program for disadvantaged parents allege they were
pressured into allowing private job service providers to collect their
“sensitive information”.
ParentsNext participants
are asked to sign a privacy notification and consent form, which is similar to
documentation provided to those on other welfare programs such as the
employment scheme Jobactive.
The program is
compulsory for those who want to receive parenting payments and are considered
“disadvantaged”, but departmental guidelines state that participants may
decline to sign the form and still take part.
Instead, some case
workers have told participants that they would have their payments cut if they
refused to sign the form.
The situation has meant
women who did not want to give their consent have done so anyway. One of the
five participants who spoke to Guardian Australia about their experience said
they felt the situation represented “coercion”.
“She [my case worker]
just said, flat out, ‘If you don’t sign it, you won’t get your parenting
payment’,” one mother, who did not want to be named, told Guardian Australia.
“It was simple as that.”
The women were concerned
by the fact the privacy form states that providers “may collect sensitive
information … [which] may include … medical information”. It is understood the
form would allow providers to handle participants’ mental health information.
Parenting payment is the
sole income for many women on the ParentsNext program, which
is currently the subject of a Senate inquiry.
While is standard
practice for welfare recipients to be asked to sign privacy consent and
notification forms, the chairman of the Australian Privacy Foundation, David
Vaile, noted that, in this case, the women felt they needed to sign the form in
order to keep receiving their payments.
“It has all the
characteristics of bad consent,” Vaile said.
Ella Buckland, who has
been campaigning against ParentsNext since she was placed on the program, has
asked her provider to destroy the consent form she signed last year. She was
told she needed to sign the form to take part in the program – and therefore
keep her payments.
“I felt humiliated and
disempowered that I didn’t have a choice,” Buckland, a former Greens staffer,
told Guardian Australia. “[I thought] if I didn’t sign it, I wouldn’t be able
to feed my kids.”
The department has told
Buckland in writing she may withdraw her consent at any time. Her provider, who
did not reply to a request for comment, has been asked by the Department of
Jobs and Small Business to respond to her claims.
Terese Edwards, the
chief executive of the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children,
said many women had legitimate reasons for refusing to sign the form, such as
having left a violent relationship.
“Providing this information reduces their
sense of security,” she said. “It could be where the child is getting schooled,
which then has the address of the parent. It could also have the name of the
child.”
Among the women Guardian
Australia has spoken is a mother of a transgender child who did not want to
sign the form because she was concerned about the privacy of her daughter.
Eva* is eligible for an
exemption from the program because she homeschools her daughter, but was told
in a text message she would have to sign the consent form for this to be
processed. She was also told she would have to attend a meeting with her
provider, about two hours’ drive away, and to provide evidence that her
daughter was homeschooled......
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