Turner Judy: Social Security Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Turner Judy: Social Security Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:636;Page:7205] 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future for the first reading of the Social Security Amendment Bill. We are certainly prepared to support what appears to be a substantial amendment to the Society Security Act. The bill also appears to contain some very interesting new provisions. 
United Future would like to signal some issues of concern and we look forward to hearing from submitters on them. Firstly we will be interested to hear what people think about the new clarification and definition of what constitutes full-time employment. Secondly we will be interested to hear from people regarding the decision to no longer allow people on the unemployment benefit to use community activities as employment interventions. I understand from briefing papers that there is evidence suggesting that such activities have demonstrated negative employment outcomes. If that is true then so be it. But when people have been out of work for a considerable period of time it is often very difficult for them to demonstrate a work ethic to prospective employers. I have personally seen folk who can turn up every morning as a volunteer to a community project finally get work due to a reference from project leaders who clarify their keenness to work and their reliability even when they are not being paid. So I look forward to hearing evidence and being convinced that this is the right move. 
I am interested to hear about how this amendment bill will work for self-employed people who struggle to take an income off a new and struggling business. I understand there are some provisions around that. I also note that there are provisions to better support those caring for other people’s children—and members will know that United Future has been the proverbial dripping tap in the Minister’s ear in advocating for kinship caregivers particularly grandparents raising grandchildren. We are yet to have clarified by the ministry whether the provisions I just mentioned apply to this type of caregiver. We certainly hope that they do and that there is some improvement for people who take on those responsibilities. 
The other area of interest for us relates to changes to the independent youth benefit. United Future has always been concerned about the early encouragement for young people to become beneficiaries. If a minor needs to be cared for outside of the home then payment should be made to the carer not to the young person. However we accept the concerns that this amendment bill is trying to address regarding young people who are discharged from the care of Child Youth and Family often before they finish high school and young people who at the age of 16 or 17 would like to stay with their caregivers who would be keen to keep them but want some support to help them do that. That is a really important issue that needs further discussion and I will be interested to hear submissions. 
Reducing the stand-down provisions raises some questions about the practical realities of temporary assistance as currently experienced by Work and Income staff measured against concerns about encouraging people to recklessly move out of work without serious consequence. Again we look forward to hearing discussion on that matter. 
We are pleased to see new provisions to backdate benefits where recipients have been given erroneous advice by the department. I personally have come across a number of people who were given the wrong advice and there were some weeks when they would have been entitled to a benefit that they did not receive. So considering the bills and debts they often accrue during that time it is very fair that there is some retrospective payment to cover those errors made by the department. 
I look forward to hearing from officials about why parents who lose custody of a dependent child will still receive another 8 weeks of benefit. There may be some good reasons for that but they are not clear to me yet. I am sure we will get explanations around that. United Future believes that the benefit system should be work-focused where that is appropriate so we are very happy to support the first reading of the bill.