Breaching Obligations?
The Age
Saturday October 28, 2000
ON WEDNESDAY, Jason was in detox. He was making another attempt to kick a heroin habit that has consumed the past two years of his life.
On the same day, just two days after his 20th birthday, he was meant to attend an interview at a Melbourne TAFE college. Not surprisingly, he didn't turn up. And not surprisingly, given that he is drifting from friend to friend and from crisis centre to crisis centre in search of a bed, he didn't even know he was meant to be there.
Centrelink, the Federal Government agency that administers the welfare and unemployment systems, had sent a letter to inform him of the interview. But the letter was sent to Jason's mother's address - an address he has avoided for years.
The end result is that Jason was ``breached" by Centrelink, resulting in his youth allowance of $270 a fortnight being cut by about $30.
``It's very unfair because they don't understand what us people are going through. It's hard for us to get into society and let them know what we are going through," he says.
Jason is one of a growing number of Australians whose social security payments have been cut by Centrelink for failing to meet its requirements.
According to figures released by the Australian Council of Social Service, there were 302,494 breaches against welfare recipients last financial year under the government's ``mutual obligation" policy. Some people, including Jason, were breached more than once. For a first breach, benefits are cut by either 16per cent, 18per cent or 24per cent; a third breach could see benefits cancelled for eight weeks.
At one point, Jason says, he was forced to live on about $60 a week because of breaches. Welfare workers say the breaches slash the money beneficiaries have to spend on food, rent, transport and other living costs.
For example, a single 23-year-old on Newstart, without children, receives a maximum $437.20 per fortnight in dole payments and rent assistance. This puts them about $8 a fortnight above the Henderson Poverty Line.
As the government prepares to overhaul Australia's welfare system, mutual obligation - a policy that requires welfare beneficiaries to do something in return for their benefit - and the associated breaching system are making many in the welfare sector nervous. Welfare workers fear the policy will be extended to new groups such as sole-parent pensioners and disability support pensioners.
According to ACOSS, the number of breaches almost trebled from 120,718 in 1997-98 to 302,494 last financial year. In 1999-2000, ACOSS says, the government saved at least $150million via breaches.
This week one of Australia's oldest and best-known charities, the StVincent de Paul Society, issued a not-so-subtle warning to the government as it considers welfare reform. In a letter sent to all federal MPs and senators, the society urged the government not to ``divest itself of its welfare obligations".
St Vincent de Paul says it has had up to 85,000 people referred to it from Centrelink in the past 12 months. It says it is not opposed to the principle of a government agency referring a person in need to a charity, but is concerned at the frequency of the practice.
The government says it is not shirking its responsibilities, nor developing an American-style welfare system. The Minister for Community Services, Larry Anthony, says it is appropriate for government agencies to refer people to charities. The old Department of Social Security began doing it in the 1970s, at the request of charities, he says.
He adds that the level of assistance provided by the government to charities has risen considerably in the past decade. ``There has been a threefold increase in Commonwealth funding to charities ... to $3.5billion a year," he told The Age.
Anthony also defends the breaching system, describing it as open, transparent and fair. Three out of four breaches occur because a person failed to comply with job search requirements or failed to declare earnings, he says.
``One-third of the budget does go out in social security payments, and I think taxpayers do want to be reassured that those funds are going to the correct people, and that they comply."
Anthony says only 14 per cent of the 1.3 million who received unemployment benefits last financial year were breached. Most people breached were penalised only once.
But figures supplied by non-government welfare agencies show how demand is mushrooming. Five years ago the Salvation Army spent $200million helping 700,000 people. Last year demand was more than 50per cent higher.
The Salvation Army's director of communications, John Dalziel, says one contributing factor is that benefits have not increased as much as the cost of living. ``And gradually we have become, if you like, a supplement to the income that is provided in Australia (via social security)," he says.
Like ACOSS, Dalziel believes the breaching system is having a big impact on the poor, and is another reason more people are seeking help. ``When you're on a below-poverty-line income, to lose 18 per cent means that you've got to go elsewhere and get the money, or get the food, and that's when they turn to people like us."
The chief executive of the Victorian Council of Social Service, Dimity Fifer, has noticed another worrying trend. Community organisations are running ``severe deficits", she says. They are asking more of their volunteers and fighting fiercely for sponsorships.
``There is a trend over the last number of years for the NGO (non-government organisation) sector to be handed more and more areas of government responsibility," she says. ``That happens at state and Commonwealth level and we end up picking up the pieces, and you almost feel like the NGO sector's goodwill and commitment to the community is being used."
Fifer says the large number of referrals from Centrelink to welfare organisations, now running at about 170,000 per year, is either an acknowledgement that the government can not meet the high needs in the community, or shows it does not have the appropriate resources or policies in place.
Helping the needy How the burden on charities has grown Salvation Army^ Spending 1995 $200 million 1996 $219 million 1997 $247 million 1998 $264 million 1999 $303 million Anglicare Victoria^ 1997-98 $21.65 million 1998-99 $27.81 million 1999-00 $30.36 million St Vincent de Paul (Victoria)* 1994-95 $7.7 million 1995-96 $7 million 1996-97 $7.5 million 1997-98 $7.3 million 1998-99 $8 million Brotherhood of St Laurence* 1995-96 $532,280 1996-97 $517,312 1997-98 $327,988 1998-99 $379,405 1999-00 $434,826 Melbourne City Mission^ 1997-98 $19.4 million 1998-99 $20.62 million 1999-00 $21.51 million * Material aid only * All assistance Source: Various welfare agencies JB/THE AGE 28/10/2000
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