Alexander Marc: General Debates 
Alexander Marc: General Debates 
[Volume:619;Page:15248] 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I want to talk about the independent youth benefit—something that I questioned earlier. But before I do I just want to make one observation: amongst Labour we have an interesting dichotomy. There are those members who were sensible enough to allow United Future to push forward with the Families Commission recognising the need for such an entity to pursue the interests of the family. Yet at the same time we have another less sensible part of Labour that is doing its damnedest to destroy the families of this country. One of the members in that part of Labour I suspect is the Minister the Hon Rick Barker whose jowls and jaw seem to be flapping like a flag at the surrender of IwoJima with regard to the independent youth benefit. He utterly and totally misses the point. 
The fact is that although there are some youth at risk who do require the independent youth benefit unfortunately in many cases there is no attempt to seek out the veracity of the allegations made by the youth. Very often the youth simply wants to opt out of being parented and to be able to get access to the funds to do so without his or her very good parents being able first of all to answer back the allegations because of privacy rights. There is no determination whatsoever on the part of Action Works and of Work and Income to look at the veracity of the allegations made against the parents in the first place. It is very hard for parents to reconcile with a youth once he or she has been given a sufficient amount of money to live separately. That is very very difficult. It destroys families and destroys family relationships. 
Since 2001 we have spent $109.6 million of taxpayers’ money of which $25 million was spent in the last year on this benefit. That represents the Government trying to split kids off from their families which is utterly despicable and disgusting. It gives kids a taste of what life is like on a benefit and gives them the encouragement to pursue exactly that lifestyle. One of the other attributes that is so distasteful about the whole process is that Work and Income hands out that money yet does not then turn round and investigate the lifestyle that is being led by those youths. It does not look at their living conditions or at whom they are living with and it certainly does not back up the claim that the benefit allows kids to pursue their scholastic work at school. 
I have cases left right and centre of families that are receiving phone calls from teachers asking them why their kids are not at school. The parents are still held to be responsible for that but it is the State that allows those kids to live away from home without parental supervision. Who is to blame? When some of the parents wanted to question exactly that they were told that despite the fact that the State pays for the youths to live away from the family and despite the fact that the Government allows those kids to unmonitored in terms of whether they attend school and their living conditions parents are still held to be accountable for what those youths do. That is ridiculous. We are telling the parents of this country that they are responsible for bringing up the kids they bring into the world yet we are taking away the means by which they can be responsible for that—the means by which they can parent those kids. This Government is complicit in doing just that by failing to look at exactly how it is being done. 
There are some kids in this country who do need the independent youth benefit. They are at risk. But the problem is that the Government is doing nothing to ascertain the veracity of the allegations that are made against parents. If we expect the taxpayers to foot the bill for splitting families up then at least we should go after the parents throw the allegations at them and charge them with an offence. They should be charged for the abuse that they are supposed to have inflicted on their youths for whom taxpayers are footing the bill. It is an absolute nonsense. What we got from the Minister in answer to questions earlier was nothing but a frothy concoction that was devoid of meaning. It seems to me that when it comes to families it is not the case that the Government bites off more than it can chew but that it chews more than it can bite. The independent youth benefit acts as an incentive against reconciliation between parent and child. It is a taxpayer-funded benefit to incentivise youth to get away from the requirements of being parented and the responsibilities involved in being a member of a family. What we should do is to focus on the real abuse that occurs.