5AA Mornings with Leon Byner
E&OE
LEON BYNER:
Well as you know the Federal Government put through a Federal Budget, most of which has gone through. But some of the controversial bits are sticking points and the Senate have said look we’re not going to have the co-payment, there’s a whole raft of things.
So what I thought would be helpful would be to talk to the Social Services Minister and get a snapshot instantly of where we actually stand. So let’s welcome the Social Services Minister, Kevin Andrews, Kevin thanks for joining us today.
MINISTER ANDREWS:
My pleasure Leon.
LEON BYNER:
Now first of all what have we got in or out? Now we were talking at one stage about the fact that if up until 30 you might have to wait to get unemployment benefits where do we stand with that?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
There’s two bills which are going to the Senate this week for debate. That measure in relation to the under thirties is part of that legislation. Essentially what it is, that if people are not in work this is an encouragement for them to be in training so that they can get work in the future. There’s some exemptions from it for example; if you’re not capable of working full time that is 30 hours or more a week, if you’re in a parenting role, if you’re disabled, if you’re a stream three or four jobseeker which are the more difficult people in terms of getting a job. All those people are exempted from it, so it’s essentially aimed at someone who is capable of working 30 hours or more a week and the alternative if you haven’t got a job is to be in training so you can get a job in the future.
So we’re putting that to the Senate and we’ll see what happens in the Senate this week.
LEON BYNER:
Alright now if you’ve (inaudible) with the amount of jobs for which you might apply in any given time.
MINISTER ANDREWS:
That’s a separate measure, that’s part of measures that have been proposed by my colleague Luke Hartsuyker in the Employment Services Portfolio.
It’s up to 40 jobs, not actually 40 jobs, and it’s part of a proposal that’s gone out in terms of the new contracts for the job employment service agencies.
LEON BYNER:
Alright, where do we stand with the family payments cause they were also going to be altered, is that going to change at all?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
That again is in the Bills that are going to the Senate. The proposal there was to reduce the threshold to $100,000 from $150,000 and for Family Tax Benefit B to cease when the youngest child turns six rather than as it is now which is 16.
LEON BYNER:
Alright now I understand that whilst we are on this subject, you’ve been to New Zealand and you wanted to have a look at their social security system and basically if an applicant in that country doesn’t complete required activities within a time period, say a month, their benefit claim lapses and some jobseekers wait several weeks before receiving a payment. Now that’s a little bit different to what we’re talking about here isn’t it?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
It is different to what we’re talking about here. Essentially if you turn up to the Work and Pensions Department, the equivalent of Centrelink in New Zealand. They say you need to do certain things, such as prepare a resume and go to a job seminar about getting a job, and you don’t automatically get paid in New Zealand because you just turn up to the equivalent of Centrelink. Effectively they call this a one month waiting period, so it’s actually 20 working days but they referred to it to me as a month waiting period and what they find in New Zealand is that about 40 per cent of people never come back and never claim a benefit.
LEON BYNER:
Alright, so how confident are you that some of these amendments or changes will get up in the Senate?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Look all we can do because of the complexion of the senate is to continue to mount the argument, put the legislation into the Senate and hope that the Senate will see the sense of what we are trying to do, because eventually what this is about is ensuring that as many people who are capable of working are in work rather than on welfare. Now I don’t know what is going to come out of the end of the Senate process, I’ve had discussions with various crossbenchers over the last couple of weeks or so but until they make their position known or suggest amendments or whatever we just have to go through this process.
LEON BYNER:
Alright, where are we with the $7 co-payment?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
That’s Peter Dutton’s responsibility, that hasn’t as I recall, gone to the Senate at this stage, I understand, but you’d have to ask him or his office that is still subject to discussion.
LEON BYNER:
I just want to make the point of the business of being in training. I think there have been enough studies done by both sides of politics which show that some of the training scheme that people have been involved with are less than dinky, but they’ve qualified people to get benefits and really the training has been substandard.
Are we doing anything about that to ensure that if we are going to offer training to people not only is it relevant, but it does give you a degree of competency?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Yes I totally agree with you Leon. There have been training courses in the past, people have talked about a sort of revolving door of training courses and that’s not good for anybody. Part of these proposals is that the training would have to be the type of training that would likely lead to an actual job rather than just training for training’s sake.
LEON BYNER:
Yep, alright. Now what about people on disability benefits? There are those who, at the time, that got them believe that they are still entitled to them. Are we going to review all of them or is it that if you seek to be on such a benefit the rules will change?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
We’re only going to review a certain small number for people who got the disability support pension between 2008 and 2011; we’re going to reassess those people against the new eligibility guidelines. And then for people who are on the DSP under the age of 35, currently there is a requirement that they have what’s called a participation plan which might be encouraging them to get some work experience or do work for the dole or things like that, but there’s been no obligation to carry through with that plan and we’re proposing that not only should you have a participation plan but you should have to follow through with it.
LEON BYNER:
Alright, so we’ll know later this week whether the Senate is going to allow the things that you’ve talked about, that you want through but if you can’t get them through what then?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Well I’m hoping that, you know at least some of these measures will get through the Senate and then we’ll be able to take them off the table as passed legislation. Then we would intend that we would reintroduce any measures that haven’t passed the Senate and continue to advocate their passage.
LEON BYNER:
Alright Kevin Andrews, thank you. That’s the Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews.