Human Rights Commission tells Senate inquiry that punitive impacts of the program risk ‘entrenching poverty and inequality’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s president has strongly criticised the ParentsNext welfare program, arguing it breaches Australia’s human rights obligations and “risks further entrenching poverty and inequality”.

In notably scathing public comments at a Senate inquiry on Wednesday, Rosalind Croucher said the commission was “gravely concerned” about the punitive impacts of the program, which was rolled out nationally by the government last year.

“The approach as compulsory is not compliant with Australia’s human rights and anti-discrimination obligations nor has it been shown to achieve its intended outcomes,” she said.

Welfare program has 'devastating' impact on single parents, inquiry told Read more

Croucher said international human rights law states that all people are entitled to a minimum essential level of social security.

“Yet under ParentsNext these struggling families face automatic payment suspensions … for a single instance of noncompliance,” she said.

“Without money to provide adequate food and shelter for your family, how can human rights be realised? How can there be human dignity?”

A Senate inquiry is examining the program, which places compulsory participation requirements on about 73,000 people who are receiving parenting payments, have a child between the age of six months and five, and are classified as “disadvantaged” by Centrelink. About 95% of participants are women, and most are single mothers.

At the heart of this we are dealing with a level of misogyny and discrimination against women Cassandra Goldie

Women’s groups, non-profit ParentsNext providers and the nation’s peak social services body told the inquiry the government should blunt the harsher aspects of the program before the federal election. It should then be made voluntary, with “compliance” aspects removed.

But department officials defended the program, saying ParentsNext was “supportive and family friendly”.

Nathan Smyth, the deputy secretary of the Department of Jobs and Small Business, said the requirements on participants were “not onerous”.

Guardian Australia has revealed that about one in five participants have received a temporary payment suspension, but department officials said 82% of those did not affect the person’s income support because they had “re-engaged” before their money was due.

The inquiry also heard claims that participants had been told by their consultants to take photos of themselves to prove their attendance at compulsory activities.

Department officials said such requirements were not part of the guidelines.

“But that’s what’s happening,” the Greens senator Rachel Siewert said.

Terese Edwards, the chief executive of the national council for single mothers and their children, told the inquiry one woman had told her she had been signed up, without her consent, to attend medical appointments for her children as her compulsory ParentsNext activity.

Cassandra Goldie, the chief executive of the Australian Council of Service Service, told the hearing: “At the heart of this we are dealing with a level of misogyny and discrimination against women.”

“The moralising that goes on about that ‘kind of lifestyle’ has been in this country for far too long ... It has to stop.”

The inquiry heard that the evaluation into an earlier trial into the program did not indicate how many people had been surveyed…

Ella Buckland, a single mother campaigning against the program, presented a petition with more than 30,000 signatures to the Greens senator Rachel Siewert and Labor senator Murray Watt.

“I started this campaign because access to social security in Australia is not a privilege, it is a human right,” she said.

Siewert said the inquiry had already heard “distressing” evidence about the effect on women and their children.

Watt said the program appeared to exercise “a form of control” on those “who were trying to escape that in the first place”.

Labor was examining its position on the program ahead of the election, he said.