Walker Holly: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Walker Holly: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 17 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3588. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on Part 1 of the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. In my call I would like to address in particular the impact of the sanctions regime outlined in the part on the dependent children of the young parents whom the bill talks about. We know that the changes to the work-test obligations and the sanctions regime that this bill introduces have not been evaluated in terms of their impact on children and that seems like a particularly big oversight and vitally important when one of the justifications that is often given for the Government’s welfare reform agenda— 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am reluctant to interrupt the member and I kind of apologise but that is not in this part at all. It is actually in Part 3. Part 1 is about youth providers but it is not about subsequent children or the effects on children. 
HOLLY WALKER 
: Speaking to the point of order I offer my apologies if as a new member I have misread things but I am looking here at Part 1 clause 20 on page 36 which talks about “Sanctions for failure by young person receiving young parent payment to comply with obligations under section 170”. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I am not going to uphold the point of order. The member Holly Walker has the floor. 
HOLLY WALKER 
: Thank you Mr Chair. The section I am referring to outlines the sanctions that apply to young parents if they fail to comply with their obligations under section 170. We are talking here about young parents with dependent children and the impact that those sanctions will have on the children. As I was saying I am concerned that no child impact assessment or analysis of these sanctions has been done to determine the impact on children because we often hear that the justification required for these reforms or for this particular part of the reforms is to improve the outcomes for children of benefit-reliant households and children who have parents who are young and sole parents. That is a noble goal and one that we share but I think it is very important that we make sure that the sanctions that this bill introduces are not going to have unintended consequences on the very children whom they are designed to support and to help. It highlights why we should be routinely doing these kinds of assessments because I think that if we did the bill would look very different. 
How will the provisions in Part 1 make things worse for children? Well I am talking here about the sanctions regime that it outlines for the failure of young people on the young parent payment to meet the obligations that the bill sets out. Actually it is useful that the Minister for Social Development made a contribution just now and I would like to invite her to take a call perhaps to clarify that for me. In my reading of what is new section 174 in the bill that is in front of the Committee it is my understanding that in recognition of the impact on children of applying sanctions to their parents’ benefit that sanction would never be more than 50 percent of the benefit. I am looking here at new section 174 which deletes the provision that would have restricted the sanction to only 50 percent of the benefit and inserts a provision that says that on a third failure a young person’s young parent payment can be cancelled altogether and a new provision on the next page that says that they can be stood down from receiving that for 13 weeks from the date of the cancellation. I would like to ask the Minister to explain why it looks like this. It may not be as sinister as it appears but to me that is very concerning because that could have huge implications for children whose parents are young parents who are receiving the young parent payment because that could result in them losing their income altogether. They would certainly be unable to supply food pay rent pay for the power bill and supply the basics of life for their children which is so important. 
 And it is ironic because the obligations that they are being tested against and that they may fail to comply with are things that are supposedly there for the benefit of their children like enrolling them in a primary health organisation or making sure they are in early childhood education. So if we are going to sanction the parents for not doing that by cutting off their income it means they cannot provide any of the basics of life for their children and it seems like one of those particularly perverse unintended consequences that we would like to avoid. 
Even if my reading of the clauses I have just outlined is incorrect and it is only a 50 percent sanction I still have some very serious concerns about the impact that this will have on children. As we know it is not a dream lifestyle living on a benefit. It is not a huge amount of money for young parents on the DPB or the new young parent payment and cutting that by 50 percent will make it extremely difficult for them to meet the needs of their children or to supply the essentials that we know are so crucial for children’s outcomes—you know the basics of a warm healthy home enough to eat and shoes to wear when they go to school. If their parents’ benefit has been sanctioned by even 50 percent I have extreme concerns about what that will mean for the ability of their children to have their basic needs met. It is ironic that we are trying to protect the best interests of children—supposedly—in this legislation yet we are introducing sanctions that will drastically reduce their parents’ income potentially by up to 50 percent or perhaps by removing the benefit altogether and leaving the children in a very unfortunate situation. 
I want to address briefly my colleague Jan Logie’s Supplementary Order Paper which has been ruled out of order. The Government has chosen to use its financial veto on it which is interesting actually because we heard Mr Sam Lotu-Iiga talk about the investment approach in his contribution just now and this seems to me like the prime example of taking an investment approach by reinstating the training incentive allowance for sole parents and other beneficiaries who are studying for degree-level courses because we know that people who receive the training incentive allowance and study degree-level courses move off the benefit up to 6 months earlier than those who do not. We know that when they do that they earn more and are better able to provide for their children. We know that a mother’s education is the single best indicator of child outcomes in terms of health education and other economic and social indicators through that child’s life. As the daughter of someone who used the training incentive allowance to train as a kindergarten teacher when I was a small child it is something that I know particularly well and it is particularly close to my heart. It seems to me to be the very embodiment of an investment approach where the ability of the mother and the family is invested in for the better outcomes of that family long term. So if the Government wanted an opportunity to take its investment approach then this Supplementary Order Paper from my colleague Jan Logie here was the prime opportunity for it to do so and it is very interesting and disappointing to see that it has chosen to use that financial veto to rule it out of order. I suggest that perhaps it must have been nervous that it might actually pass. 
So I will end my contribution there and I invite the Minister please if she could to clarify that situation. But I reiterate that whether it is a 100 percent sanction or a 50 percent sanction the impact on children is what is not being analysed in this debate and what is not being analysed in relation to this bill and it is what should by rights be the primacy of our consideration of this legislation.