One in five parents had payments cut in first six months of new welfare program

Extract from The Guardian

Welfare in Australia

Exclusive: Inquiry into ParentsNext told government threatening to leave disadvantaged parents ‘without money for food for them and their babies’

Luke Henriques-Gomes

Thu 7 Feb 2019 04.00 AEDT Last modified on Thu 7 Feb 2019 04.02 AEDT

Australia’s ParentsNext program risks ‘entrenching and exacerbating poverty and inequality’, a Senate inquiry has been told. Photograph: Joe Castro/AAP

One in five parents on the government’s contentious job-ready scheme for disadvantaged parents had their payments suspended in the program’s first six months, new data reveals.
As the Australian Human Rights Commission argued the ParentsNext program was “manifestly inconsistent with Australia’s human rights obligations” and social services and legal groups call for the program to be overhauled or scrapped, departmental figures show thousands of parents are having their payments cut under the new program.
More than 16,000 parents received a payment suspension between July and December 2018, representing 21% of the 75,000 participants. The suspension rate for Indigenous parents – who are targeted for eligibility and make up 19% of participants – is higher at 27%.
The suspensions are considered particularly concerning because all ParentsNext participants have children between six months and five years old and generally have no other source of income.
The new data is contained in a joint submission to Senate inquiry into ParentsNext by a coalition of legal groups, which is among those calling for the $263m pre-employment program to be abandoned.

Thousands of single parents were temporarily cut from welfare between July and December 2018.

The coalition – made up of the Human Rights Law Centre and the National Family Violence Prevention Legal Services Forum – argued the program unjustifiably discriminates against women and Indigenous Australians.
The money would be better spent on “evidence-based, voluntary and empowering” programs, the submission said.
“Our government should be thanking women for the endless hours of breastfeeding and nappy-changing … not threatening to leave them without money for food for them and their babies,” said Adrianne Walters, a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre.
The submission was one of many – including from the National Social Security Rights Network, Good Shepherd Australia and the National Council for Single Mothers and their Children – that called for a voluntary program without compliance measures.
The Australian Human Rights Commission, which echoed that call, said the program was “inconsistent with Australia’s human rights obligations”.
The “retrogressive” compliance regime breached the “right to social security” and risked “entrenching and exacerbating poverty and inequality”, it said.
The commission said the program’s “direct discrimination” of Indigenous Australians and “indirect discrimination” against women could not be justified, despite the government’s claims it would reduce disadvantage for those groups.
The commission was also concerned by reports in Guardian Australia that parents on the program were allegedly pressured into allowing private job service providers to collect their “sensitive information”.

The government acknowledges the “intensive stream” of the program is aimed at areas with high numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents receiving the parenting payment. Welfare recipients who live in “intensive stream” areas are more likely to be placed on the program because the eligibility criteria is broader.
Statistics indicate 95% of participants are women and about 99% are single parents. ParentsNext providers had previously called for the suspensions to be scrapped because they are forcing some parents to visit food banks.
Once placed on ParentsNext, participants must complete set weekly “activities” such as study or parenting classes to keep their payments. Guardian Australia revealed last year that those activities have included playgroup, “story time” and swimming lessons.
Parents who fail to report their income, their attendance at activities, or for not turning up at appointments with their providers receive a temporary payment suspension.
These are restored when they “re-engage” with their provider, but participants have reported being unable to report due to problems with the Centrelink app and receiving suspensions for taking their children to kindergarten rather than their pre-approved activity.
One ParentsNext participant has served a “financial penalty” after they had racked up six “demerit points”.
The points are imposed by ParentsNext providers when parents fail to meet their requirements. Financial penalties can include having their payment docked by 50%, losing a full payment or being cut from Centrelink for four weeks.

The Senate inquiry into ParentsNext, which was established by the Greens and Labor, will report at the end of March.