14 November 2019 Committee Secretary Senate Standing
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14 November 2019 Committee Secretary Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs PO Box 6100 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 By email: [email protected] Dear Colleagues Adequacy of Newstart and related payments and alternative mechanisms to determine the level of income support payments in Australia Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission in relation to the above inquiry. For reasons given in our submission we make five key recommendations: 1. The rate of Newstart should be increased to a level which enables recipients in the Kimberley to live with dignity, with measures to ensure that an increase to Newstart is passed in full to recipients, rather than being taken up by increased charges, for example in social housing rent. 2. Remote Area Allowance should be increased to accurately reflect the higher cost of living in rural, remote and regional Australia. 3. Akin to judgment proof provisions in Victoria, research should be undertaken to model income thresholds below which Commonwealth agencies should not pursue debts, and/or to exclude Newstart from calculations of income for the purposes of debt collection by Fines Enforcement Registry, credit providers and/or debt collection agencies. 4. In consultation with relevant NGO peaks and service sectors, the federal Government should establish standards regarding access to legal help in relation to social security and income support with particular emphasis on those in remote, regional and rural areas in Australia. 5. The Commonwealth should ensure that recipients of social security payments in the Kimberley have sufficient access to independent specialist legal and other support services. Please contact us if further information would assist. Yours faithfully Sarouche Razi Director ANU Aboriginal Justice Partnership Kimberley Community Legal Services Submission by Kimberley Community Legal Services Inc. to the Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs inquiry into the Adequacy of Newstart and related payments and alternative mechanisms to determine the level of income support payments in Australia Date of submission: 14 November 2019 KCLS contacts for this submission: Sarouche Razi Lauren Reed Director Solicitor ANU Aboriginal Justice Partnership PO Box 622 Kununurra WA 6743 PO Box 2715 Broome WA 6725 T: (08) 9169 3100 T: (08) 9192 5177 We acknowledge that we work on Aboriginal land, traditionally the home of the Yawuru people of the West Kimberley and Miriwoong people of the East Kimberley. We pay respect to all elders past and present. 1 Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Newstart 4 An acceptable standard of living 5 The Kimberley region 5 Cost of living 7 Social determinants of health 10 Remote Area Assistance 10 Impact of entrenched poverty 12 Debt traps 13 Unemployment 14 Access to social security legal help 15 Case studies 18 Case study 1 – Lucy 19 Case Study 2 – Gemma 21 Case Study 3 – Matthew 22 Conclusion 22 2 Introduction 1. This submission looks at the Newstart in the Kimberley in its inter-relationship with a range of socio-economic issues, and the disproportionate impacts on Aboriginal people in the Kimberley. We discuss: • Newstart and an adequate standard of living; • the cost of living remotely and specifically in the Kimberley; • the social determinants of health for Aboriginal people in the Kimberley and the entrenched impacts of poverty, debt, and unemployment; • the lack of legal services for social security help; and • we provide a number of case studies to shed some light to the lived experiences of some of our clients. We make 5 key recommendations. 2. Kimberley Community Legal Services (‘KCLS’) is an independent, not-for-profit, multidisciplinary community legal centre in the Kimberley, Western Australia. Our services include legal advice and representation on most civil law matters (including matters of family law, child protection, tenancy, credit and debt, criminal injuries compensation and redress), intensive tenancy and family violence support, financial counselling and law reform advocacy. 3. We conduct regular outreach from our offices in Kununurra and Broome, to Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing, Derby, Wyndham and more than a dozen remote communities in the Kimberley. Our practice is client-centric, holistic and embedded in the community and region in which we work. 4. KCLS works collaboratively with other non-profit legal services in the region - namely the Aboriginal Legal Service WA, Aboriginal Family Law Services, Marninwarntikura Women's Resource Centre in Fitzroy Crossing and WA Legal Aid. Resource levels are wholly inadequate for all legal services in the Kimberley compared to the nature and extent of the legal needs and the logistics of service delivery. 5. A significant proportion of Kimberley residents are dependent on income support payments: ● In 2014, 37,479 individual payments were made by the Department of Social Services to people in the federal electorate of Durack (which includes the Kimberley region),1 a division which is (as of 2016) comprised of 97, 068 electors.2 ● Newstart Payments within the Durack electorate were the highest recorded within all WA electorates in 2019; higher than Curtin by 129.3%, higher than Fremantle by 59.6% and higher than Perth by 60%.3 1 ‘DSS Payment Demographic Data’, Department of Social Services (Web Page, 2 July 2014) <https://www.humanservices.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2014-03-dss.pdf>. 2 ‘2016 Census QuickStats: Durack’, Australian Bureau of Statistics (Web Page, 23 October 2017) <https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/CED506>. 3 Calculations made from excel spreadsheet within the DSS, DSS Payments by 2018 CED March 2019 - June 2019 Report (2019). 3 6. In 2011, every Local Government Area in the Kimberley (aside from Broome) was found to have a socio-economic rating within the lowest 10% of Australia.4 7. No socioeconomic issue exists in isolation. There are a number of factors that contribute to the nature and extent of poverty experienced by Aboriginal people and welfare recipients in the Kimberley. The inadequacy of Newstart payments is one of these factors that contribute to the cycle of entrenched poverty. On this basis alone, there are compelling grounds to increase payments to a level that will bring people out of relative and absolute poverty. However, it is important to understand this is only one part of the equation to improve outcomes for Aboriginal people in the Kimberley. 8. Our submissions focus on the relationship between low income and other social determinants of health and wellbeing for financially disadvantaged people in the Kimberley. Newstart 9. To receive Newstart Allowance a person has to be unemployed and aged over 22. Recipients who rent privately are eligible for Commonwealth Rent Assistance (‘CRA’). Individuals living in remote areas are eligible for Remote Area Assistance (‘RAA’). Newstart Allowance is income tested and activity tested. Approved activities and formal employment programs are expressed to be designed to support recipients to obtain paid employment. 10. The Newstart Allowance is designed to be a temporary payment for jobseekers with the intention they will return to the workforce. It fails to account for those who are dependent on welfare payments long-term despite statistics showing nearly half of recipients have been on Newstart for at least 2 years.5 11. The benefit ‘attempts to balance adequacy of support for people who are unemployed with the incentive for them to seek work and the cost to the Commonwealth…and to ensure that people have adequate resources to search for and obtain employment’.6 12. There is a need for social security policy to distinguish between those who are on Newstart as a transitional measure and those who are structurally trapped at low levels of welfare. High rates of long term reliance on social security across the Kimberley underscores the extent of financial disadvantage in the region. It also highlights the extent of the mismatch between current policies and human needs and realities in the Kimberley. ' 4 ‘Socio-economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) 2016’ Australian Bureau of Statistics (Web Page, 27 March 2018) <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/2033.0.55.001>; ‘Kimberley – population and health snapshot’ Rural Health West (Web Page, 2016) https://www.wapha.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Regional-Profile-2016- Kimberley-population-and-health-snapshot-FINAL.pdf. 5National Commission of Audit, Towards Responsible Government:The Report of the National Commission of Audit – Appendix Volume 1, https://www.ncoa.gov.au/report/appendix-volume-1/9-11-unemployment-benefits- minimum-wage 6 National Commission of Audit, Towards Responsible Government:The Report of the National Commission of Audit – Appendix Volume 1, https://www.ncoa.gov.au/report/appendix-volume-1/9-11-unemployment-benefits-minimum-wage 4 An acceptable standard of living 13. Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, of which Australia is signatory, recognises ‘the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of his living conditions.’7 Australia must to more to ensure that this obligation is met and that Newstart recipients in the Kimberley are able to live with dignity. 14. For people reliant on Newstart in the Kimberley, the rate must be contextually sufficient for a standard of living which is 'adequate' including access to: 'adequate food, clothing and housing'. This standard is not met where the rate of Newstart is contextually insufficient to prevent people going hungry, being homeless, or living precariously in circumstances in which they and their children are placed at risk. However, this is the picture among many Newstart recipients in the Kimberley, including many with whom we work. 15. Further, what constitutes an acceptable standard of living in the Kimberley is indicated by many laws which mean that: ● Children must be looked after, clothed and fed; ● Homes in which children live must not place them at risk (e.g.