The government’s planned changes to the welfare system risk pushing more vulnerable Australians into homelessness, a Victorian body has warned.

The Senate is expected to this week consider a planned overhaul of Australia’s welfare system, designed to simplify payments and change the jobseeker compliance regime.

The changes are designed to save the federal government hundreds of millions of dollars and have already drawn the ire of welfare advocacy groups, including the Australian Council of Social Services.

On Monday, the Council to Homeless Persons in Victoria expressed its own concerns about aspects of the bill, which it fears will exacerbate homelessness.

The CHP is particularly worried about plans to delay the start date of welfare payments for some jobseekers.

The government plans to save $198m by delaying the start date of certain Newstart and Youth Allowance payments until a person first meets with an employment services provider. The start date for payments is currently considered the day on which the claim is lodged.

A CHP spokeswoman, Kate Colvin, said Centrelink applications were difficult and time-consuming to navigate at the best of times, due to confusing processes and an overburdened phone system. Colvin said it could take weeks to get an appointment with an employment services provider.

She said those on the brink of homelessness could not cope with any delays to their payments.

“We would expect tens of thousands of extra people [requiring homelessness services],” Colvin said. “The challenge of that is that services are already turning people away, because there’s already more people coming to homeless services than can possibly be assisted. So any extra people will only be extra people turned away.”



The explanatory memorandum to the bill says the changes will not apply to welfare recipients who are exempt from RapidConnect, a program designed to fast-track welfare recipients into employment.

That exemption would include, for example, highly disadvantaged jobseekers, including principal child carers and those with only partial work capacity.

The memorandum also says the change will only occur if the employment services provider is unable to offer an appointment within two days.

“If an employment services provider does not have an appointment available within two business days, the job seeker will not be penalised,” the memo says. “If a jobseeker cannot attend an interview within two business days because no provider appointment is available, the job seeker will have their income support backdated to the date on which the requirement to attend an interview was imposed.”

The social services minister, Dan Tehan, said the legislation was designed to streamline the welfare payments system into a single, new payment. He said it would also improve the employment prospects of welfare recipients through new mutual obligation requirements.

The CHP is also concerned about the removal of intent to claim provisions, a measure designed to save the government $68m.

The provisions are designed to protect those who cannot lodge a claim for welfare in time, due to unforeseen circumstances.



“The government misunderstands the lives of people who are struggling,” Colvin said. “They think they have all the time in the world to sit all day in Centrelink offices and forget that women with children have responsibilities to get children to and from school, to get them to doctors’ appointments, to care for anyone else they may need to care for.

“Doing anything when you don’t have any money takes longer. So you can’t just get a cab – everything will take the longest possible time if you’re trying to do it on no income.”



But Tehan said vulnerable claimants would be exempt from the changes. The Department of Human Services would have “discretionary power” to determine who is vulnerable on a case-by-case basis, he said.

“The intent to claim provisions contain exemptions for vulnerable claimants who are unable to provide all documents at the time of claim, including those who may be disabled, live in remote areas, are homeless or are affected by domestic violence,’ he said.

The most controversial aspect of the legislation – the drug-testing of welfare recipients – has been dropped.