Mister Speaker

In Anti-Poverty Week, I welcome any chance to discuss protecting vulnerable Australians and ensuring that help is available when they need it. Likewise, the $160 billion that the Australian government spends on social security payments annually should be used very wisely. It therefore follows that, from time to time, we must revisit our social security arrangements with an eye to improving them. Labor have never shied away from this process. The NDIS, pioneered by the Gillard government, demonstrates that we have the courage to innovate even in this extremely sensitive area of public policy. However, reforms should not be undertaken lightly or simply to test the limits of some economic theory. Welfare recipients are not lab rats. Even the prospect of changes to social security arrangements can greatly distress those who are doing it tough already.

Labor believes that it is necessary to bring people along with you, especially when big changes are planned. Hopefully, on this matter at least, the coalition intends to follow a similar course. The government's priority investment approach proposals associated with a Try, Test and Learn Fund are not uncontentious. The former, in particular, has received very mixed reviews. ACOSS and others see the minister as more interested in budget savings than in helping recipients. I hope such fears, though understandable, are misplaced. This motion, like the minister's 20 September Press Club address, is something of a curate's egg: it is good in parts but iffy in others. Any proposal that is evidence based, invests in people's potential and increases community involvement should be taken seriously.

Borrowing ideas from New Zealand is not bad in principle, either, if you recognise the limitations, including the differences in welfare and governmental arrangements in our two countries. Reassuringly ANU's Professor Peter Whiteford sees some good in the government proposals, suggesting it may have learnt from the New Zealand model by not being too obsessed with cost cutting. He applauds the commitment to rigorous evaluations and early intervention. But his is a qualified endorsement, and I for one believe a similar level of spending on early childhood support, with much earlier intervention, is preferable and better targeted. This should include also ways to get vulnerable young children into preschool and early screening and intervention.

Then there is the difficulty in knowing if the proposed PIA scheme is actually working until many years down the track. We just do not know. It does have the potential to create an underclass of the permanently working poor. I am not quite ready yet to join the member for Robertson in congratulating the government on allocating $96 million to the Try, Test and Learn Fund. That strikes me as a bit premature. Let's at least wait until something has actually happened and someone has actually been helped.

I am a little perplexed, too, by the member for Robertson wanting to remind us that it is essential that welfare is targeted to achieve better lifetime outcomes. If anything, it has been coalition governments that have been the unfocused and untargeted big spenders on middle-class welfare. The baby bonus and the wild-eyed Abbott parental leave schemes instantly come to mind. Australia already has a highly targeted social security system. Labor supports it. Dollar for dollar, it is as effective as any in the world at reducing inequality and disadvantage.

Reliance on welfare is not rising, especially if you do not see the aged pension as a welfare payment—pensioners certainly do not. The percentage of working-class population on income support actually peaked in 1997 at 24.9 per cent, falling to 16.6 per cent in 2008, rising a little during the global financial crisis and easing back in 2013 to 16.7 per cent. Most Australians do not stay welfare dependent for lengthy periods. As the member for Fenner writes: 'Australia's welfare system looks a lot more like a piggy bank than a conveyor belt.' Accordingly, savings from an investment approach may well be more modest than has been claimed.

Labor, unsurprisingly then, is reluctant to up-end the world in the process of testing an interesting hypothesis. Any social security scheme is far more effective, more durable and easy to pay for if unemployment rates are low—lower than now. Selectively investing in worthwhile national projects will do a lot more to keep Australians off welfare than even the most arcane welfare regimes. It is very important to remember that many people have not benefited from a growing Australian economy in the last 20 years. It is very important that people on welfare feel that they are included, informed and can see the benefits of any changes to the social security system if it is to achieve its stated aims.