Mr ANTHONY (Minister for Children and Youth Affairs) (5:58 PM) —I thank the previous speaker, the member for Stirling, and the member for Lilley for their contributions to the debate on the Family and Community Services Legislation Amendment (Australians Working Together and other 2001 Budget Measures) Bill 2002. However, a couple of points need to be raised. There is an indication here that the government is setting this up to fail. That is not the case at all. Indeed, Senator Vanstone acted in good faith in negotiating with the ALP.

Mr Swan —Pass it.

Mr ANTHONY —The ALP very conveniently want to split the bill, as they have tried to do with previous bills we have dealt with when there is a savings measure or other positive measure. It is absolute hypocrisy by the member for Lilley. His display in the House of Representatives this afternoon was perhaps a justification of the embarrassing situation when he refused to rule out his leadership credentials last week in the middle of this AWT debate. Even on AM and a number of other programs, he was hedging his bets: `Maybe we will; maybe we won't.' All we can hear now is: `Pass the bill.' That is exactly it. We do want to pass the whole bill. That is exactly right. But no, the Labor Party, just as they have done with the PBS and other measures, want to cherry pick.

The fact is that it is this government which has actually embarked on welfare reform to ensure that people are given much better opportunities. It is interesting that the member for Lilley raised the issue of breaching. Under the Labor Party—particularly when he was last on this side of the House—if you had a breach it was `one strike and you're out'. That was the Labor Party's policy on breaching. How fair was that? Swan by name, goose by nature. Their breaching regime was one strike and you're out—you lost your total payment. That was the ALP's compassion when it came to welfare reform.

When we introduced the breaching policy, guess who supported it? The Australian Labor Party. I remember the words of Senator Faulkner in the Senate. He said, `These are good measures.' They were even supported by ACOSS. But they do not quite like this, because they see that they can have a political advantage. Many of these changes that we made were made before the Pearce report, in recognition of those vulnerable job seekers. It is interesting to note the `facts' that the member for Lilley throws around, sprouting misinformation. He said that 43 per cent of breach decisions have been overturned on appeal. That is totally incorrect; it was 1.2 per cent in the last financial year. The fact is that the breaching rate has gone down by about 33 per cent since we introduced more compassionate measures—particularly for those who are vulnerable. By the same token, we have a firm policy of deterrence, which is absolutely necessary when it comes to ensuring that people fulfil their job seeking and mutual obligation requirements.

It was also interesting when he talked about what we were allegedly trying to do with DSP. We actually adopted all the funding measures; and of course the more important measure of trying to focus people with disabilities back onto their abilities was rejected by the Australian Labor Party. They talk about vulnerable job seekers and those on the disability support pension, but in 1991 the Keating government made the decision to change the classification and park a huge number of Australians on DSP by artificially deflating unemployment figures. That is why today we have more than 650,000—and climbing—people on DSP. That is not fair, because the measure that we tried to put in place under the original DSP bill not only ensured extra funding for employment and disability services but also focused on people's abilities rather than letting them languish. That is politically convenient for the Labor Party when it comes to people who are vulnerable.

In many ways, the AWT bill that we have tried to put up in its entirety reintroduces a more flexible and relevant working credit to overcome those lumps in payments for people who are going in and out of the work force or who are having difficulty in gaining employment. There is extra funding, particularly in literacy, numeracy and other programs. But the greatest crisis that we have now, particularly with a lot of lone parents, is that 850,000 children are growing up in jobless families. Fifty per cent of lone parents will remain on benefits five years after the youngest child has turned 16. Why shouldn't we encourage those parents to come back in to Centrelink—

Mr ANTHONY —You never did it! Interestingly, under the Australian Labor Party there were one million people unemployed. That is your welfare policy: park more people on DSP and give fewer opportunities, particularly to sole parents and young families. What we are doing, quite deliberately, is trying prevention and intervention with sole parents when they call into Centrelink. When their child goes into primary school, we expect certain requirements to be met including at least six hours of some type of voluntary contribution as part of the mutual obligation. I think we have been extremely fair and quite transparent, from the McClure report through all the changes that we have been trying to make with welfare reform—

Mr Swan —Name one!

Mr ANTHONY —I will name the one person who has been the champion opposer, and that is the member for Lilley. We know that the member for Lilley—he gets the big tick—is more interested in his future political ambitions here at the front desk. I am sure the member for Brand might be able to give him a few tips. During his diatribe he talked about the highest taxing government. As far as GDP is concerned, the highest taxing government was the Australian Labor Party when they were last in government. All these measures that we are planning with AWT are about improving the ultimate long-term financial viability and employment prospects, particularly for lone parents, and also ensuring that, for parents and mature-aged individuals receiving Newstart or other types of social security payments, there is some type of compliance but also some type of reward.

This is political opportunism by the Labor Party. They were meant to be acting in good faith; of course, they are going to try to reject it now. This is just their typical fashion: they are trying to cherry pick legislation and play to their very limited constituency. This bill should be supported in its entirety. I hope that there might be a conversion on the road to Damascus rather than on the road to the leadership, which is clearly what the member for Lilley had in mind in dropping the ball, particularly when negotiations were taking place—I see that smirk of his now—a couple of weeks ago. We believe that it is important to have the whole bill passed and to ensure that all Australians, particularly parents and mature aged workers—with issues like working credit and all our other spending measures—get the best possible chance. This is all about this government providing more long-term welfare reform and ultimately seeing more people focused on their ability and getting gainful employment. I support the bill in its entirety.

Mr Swan —Mr Deputy Speaker, I am delighted we have extracted that confession—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. D.G.H. Adams)—Order! The minister has closed the debate.

Mr Swan —What has he done?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER —The honourable member for Lilley will resume his seat.

Question put: