2018-11-09
By Senator Rachel Siewert
As per usual the last couple of months have been extremely busy and obviously lots has been happening on the political front!
My office strongly focused on Anti-poverty Week in October, including ensuring that the Greens Bill to raise Newstart and Youth Allowance by $75 a week was debated in the Senate. The Bill will also change the indexation arrangements for these payments and other income support payments so they align with the indexation arrangements of the pension. This was part of our long term campaign to raise Newstart which has not been increased since 1994. Unfortunately both of the old parties are still opposing an increase to these payments.
As Deputy Chair of the Community Affairs Legislative Committee I have been involved in various inquiries including one looking into the Community Development Program (CDP) Bill to which I submitted a dissenting report. The inquiry found that almost 6,000 people have gone ‘missing’ and have left the program because it is so punitive and difficult to navigate, this means that they are not receiving income support and puts more pressure on extended family to support them. The CDP is a Work for the Dole scheme which only applies to remote regions and is more punitive with much more stringent mutual obligation requirements than the urban-based version. I have been calling out the Government on having a two-tiered system which disproportionately impacts First Nations people and is not backed up by the evidence. Disappointingly the Government is still refusing to release its evaluation of the program.
Aged Care has received a lot of attention over the last couple of months following the explosive 4 Corners programs. This has focussed attention on the proposed new Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission which was the subject of a committee inquiry recently, to which I submitted additional comments on the need for improvements to the Bill. Both this bill and the CDP Bill are likely to come up for debate in the next sitting week of the Senate. We will be opposing the changes to CDP (we oppose the program overall) and seeking to improve the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission via amendments.
The Senate supported our motion for the Government to release their audit of the implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody. The Minister has now tabled the review undertaken by Deloitte Access Economics on the implementation of the recommendations. While there are questions over the methodology of the audit, it does indicate a number of major areas of concern over implementation of the recommendations which are clearly shown in the appalling number of deaths in custody since the Royal Commission.
The committee inquiry into rural and remote Mental Health has been continuing hearings in St Helens and Devonport in Tasmania, and Mt Isa and Townsville in Queensland. I have also been chairing the Community Affairs Reference Committee inquiry into the My Health Record system, hearing concerns about privacy and the security of electronic medical records.
I have been a member of the National Apology reference group following on from the Royal Commission into Institutionalised Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. As an independent and survivor-focused reference group we listened to survivors around the country on what an apology would look like. On Monday 22 October, the group’s work culminated in the Prime Minister’s National Apology to survivors in Parliament. This is the result of years of tireless work from campaigners and survivors and their families and carers. We acknowledged the courage of survivors and our support for their continued pursuit of justice. It was an emotional day for survivors and their families and it was a privilege to take part. We also have to make sure that children and people in institutional care settings and out-of-home care right now are safe. We have record numbers of First Nations children in out-of-home care and shamefully high rates of abuse and neglect of disabled people. We will also continue to pursue justice and redress for survivors of institutional abuse including Forgotten Australians and the Stolen Generations.
The apology was a first step. Related to this, I introduced a motion in Parliament to amend the Governor-General Act. Many survivors are of the view that former Governors-General who have acted unconscionably or illegally should not receive ongoing government-funded payments worth millions of dollars. Survivors have been calling for action from our politicians, not just words, as important as they are. I’ll continue to follow up this issue.
We have just come out of a big week of estimates where we found out that the Government had cancelled their medical reviews of the 90,000 existing recipients of the Disabilty Support Pension. I have been pursuing this punitive approach over a series of estimates and I’m glad to see that following a review of this process it has been cancelled.
In September I had the pleasure of travelling to Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand and Toronto and Ottawa, Canada, as part of a parliamentary delegation, meeting with organisations and government agencies on issues such as mental health, aged care and First Nations issues. I learnt heaps and I’m already incorporating ideas into our work.
We have 3 sitting weeks left before the end of the Parliamentary year, I suspect they are going to be a big 3 weeks.
Header photo: At the National Apology to Victims and Survivors of Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, 22nd October 2018. Georgia Blackburn