2GB – The Alan Jones Breakfast Show
E&OE
Subjects: Drug Testing Trial
ALAN JONES:
Well, Christian Porter is a West Australian Cabinet Minister and he’s the Social Services Minister. Today, he’ll go a step further. This bloke has ability. He served in the West Australian Parliament from 2008 to 2013 and then was elected to the Federal Parliament in 2013 and re-elected in 2016. I might add, he holds the seat of Pearce – P-E-A-R-C-E – by a slender margin of 3.6 per cent, and the left are going after him at the next election big time.
Porter and Peter Dutton in Queensland are the two people who are genuine conservatives – that is, seeking to hang on to what the Liberal Party is meant to represent. But Christian Porter is doing tremendous work and he’s in town today with Alan Tudge – another able member of the Turnbull Government – to announce that Canterbury Bankstown will be the first location for a trial of drug testing of new job seekers.
Now, basically this is simply common sense. From 1 January next year, a two year drug testing trial across three locations will test 5000 new recipients of Newstart Allowance and Youth Allowance for illicit substances – that’s ice, methamphetamine, ecstasy, MDMA or marijuana. Canterbury Bankstown has been selected as one of the three trial sites across Australia because of a relatively high number of job seekers applying for welfare payments each year, but data showing that methamphetamine-related hospitalisations are a growing problem in the area.
Now, at the end of the day, what Christian Porter is saying is this is someone else’s money – your money. Now, you know my view. I’m not saying people have to work. I’m not saying that at all. I simply say that if you don’t want to work, don’t expect to put your hand in someone else’s pocket. And if you’re going to line up for welfare, there have to be some rules. Here’s one: you may have to be drug tested, and if not, why not?
The Minister’s on the line. Christian Porter, good morning.
MINISTER PORTER:
Good morning, Alan.
ALAN JONES:
You’re in foreign territory. You’re in the Paul Keating Park.
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, Paul Keating was a great reformer, Alan, and here we are as a government trying something different and new to sort out a problem that we know exists and that too little has been done about.
So around here in Canterbury, for instance, we’ve got data available to us that says that hospital admissions for the use of ice have increased over four years by 2000 per cent. We know that that creates huge problems in the community. It clearly creates massive barriers to employment, so we’re trying to find ways – and we’ll have three trial sites eventually, but this is the first one – trying to find ways to use the welfare system for a change to get people the help they need to break down these barriers to employment, rather than just continually pushing out cash, which so often just makes things worse.
ALAN JONES:
Well, of course, the bleeding hearts and the left will say, well, you’re just some brutal right winger from Western Australia, get out of our territory, what would you know?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, the community’s actually been very supportive and whenever there’s been any polling around this done it’s very supportive, because it delivers some common sense. I mean, we know that people who find themselves unemployed are much more likely to use drugs like ice – two and a half times more likely than people in the general population …
ALAN JONES:
Could I just stop you there, and what people are saying when they hear you say that, Christian, is – and I noted that in the material that you released that people who are unemployed are much more likely to be drug takers. Drug taking costs money. How, if these people are unemployed, do they afford drugs?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, this is why we’re devising these trials, so that on a first positive test you go onto income management – very similar to the cashless card that you spoke about in your intro. So you’d have far less cash available to fuel that habit.
On a second positive test, you would be required to be assessed by an independent medical professional that we would appoint and pay for. They would devise an appropriate treatment plan, and then as part of the condition of your receiving welfare after that second positive test you would have to abide by that treatment plan.
ALAN JONES:
How do you respond to the argument that many would volunteer, that this is someone else’s money welfare, and if you are going to prosper the business of drug taking and you’re on drugs, you are disqualified from welfare full stop.
Now, I note that you’re saying we’ll test them, they test positive to drugs, but they’ll continue to get welfare even though 80 per cent of it will be quarantined via what you call income management.
Many people out there are saying, well, hang on, I’m going to work early every morning, rolling my damn sleeves up, getting out of bed; these people are drug-addled, sitting at home doing nothing, claiming welfare; well, I’m sorry, if they want to spend their money on drugs, then they’re disqualified from welfare at all. How do you answer that case?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, this isn’t designed to cut people off simply because of a positive drug test.
ALAN JONES:
No, but should it be?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, what it’s designed to do is ensure that people are taking positive steps to address their problem.
Now, at the moment, inside the system the reality is not far from what you have just described, that welfare can flow, people can use drug and alcohol as an excuse to be exempted from job search and there are no consequences of any type to that.
Now, what we’re saying is that if you are doing something for yourself then we will help you in that process. So this is designed to break down …
ALAN JONES:
But then if you’re going to help people, Christian – sorry to interrupt you here – but going to help people – you’re only going to test 1750.
Now, A.) is it random, and what happens to the others? In other words, you test some poor kid and he tests positive, so he gets 80 per cent taken away from him, it goes into income management. He’s only got 20 per cent in his bank account. But the bloke next door escapes the test and he goes on spending his money on drugs.
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, nothing like this has really been conducted anywhere else in the world that we’ve been able to locate. So this is a trial and we’re measuring very closely …
ALAN JONES:
Why did you settle on 1750?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, there’s 5000 across Australia, three sites, and we want to obviously run a rigorous evaluation of each of those sites against each other. I mean, what we’re looking for here simply is whether or not the people who become subject to this testing in a site like Canterbury Bankstown, do they have better longer term employment results than comparative people who are not subject to the trial. So we’ll be rigorously evaluating this. It’s about helping the taxpayer, but obviously about helping the individual to …
ALAN JONES:
But they’ve got to help themselves, too. They’ve got to help themselves. See, do you require legislation to do this?
MINISTER PORTER:
We have hundreds of pages of legislation which does a range of- undertakes a range of …
ALAN JONES:
And will that get through?
MINISTER PORTER:
This is part of it. I believe it will. I think this is a very complex …
ALAN JONES:
But you’ve got these lunatics in the Greens and everything opposing the Cashless Debit Card. They won’t even look at a video about violence in your own state of WA. When do you submit the legislation?
MINISTER PORTER:
The legislation’s before Parliament now. So it’ll go to the Senate once it’s gone through the rest.
ALAN JONES:
And will that give you power …
MINISTER PORTER:
I don’t expect any support from the Greens.
ALAN JONES:
Sorry?
MINISTER PORTER:
I don’t expect support from the Greens. As Alan Tudge said about the Cashless Welfare Card in Ceduna and Kimberley, that could bring about world peace and the Greens just wouldn’t support it based on ideology.
ALAN JONES:
That’s correct. Just on that though, Christian, does the legislation give you power to – I’m sure – to submit people to drug testing? I’m sure there’s some law somewhere that says this is an invasion of privacy and all that other nonsense.
MINISTER PORTER:
If the legislation is passed this is certainly doable. There’s no question about that.
Look, we require people to undertake a range of mutual obligations to get welfare all the time. The welfare system is conditional. You have to do the right thing to receive welfare, and what we’ll be doing with this legislation is making people acknowledge, as they go on to welfare, that they could be drug tested.
There’s always the choice not to go onto the payment if you absolutely want to avoid a drug test in one of these areas, but a condition …
ALAN JONES:
Sorry, what does that mean? Say that again?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well there’s conditionality. So the legislation will require people to acknowledge when they first come onto the payment, that they may be drug tested if…
ALAN JONES:
And if they don’t approve the drug test, the welfare’s removed I hope.
MINISTER PORTER:
That’s correct, that’s right. The only time in which you’d find that your welfare would end is if you point blank refuse the process.
ALAN JONES:
See, you’ll need a hell of a new bureaucracy. God I hate the thought of this. The bureaucracy you say – firstly we’ve got drug testing. How much is the bureaucracy going to grow to enable the drug testing to take place? Then you’ve got income management. What kind of bureaucracy is going to manage this money?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, I think the two points are that firstly there are really big potential long term savings here for taxpayers. But drug testing occurs for millions of Australians – in their workplaces they can be subject to drug testing – and so what we’re doing is contracting out to certified private contractors, who are very experienced in these things, and we’ll run the tender process so that this can be done as efficiently as possible for the taxpayer. But the long run savings for the taxpayer in having people address their barriers to employment and move into employment and out of the welfare system can potentially be very large here. So it’s worth trying …
ALAN JONES:
Is the barrier, though, to employment in this area that you’re talking about – particularly Canterbury Bankstown and Western Sydney, which is where you are now, because you’re at Bankstown and Paul Keating Park – is one of those significant barriers to employment the fact that there are no jobs?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, there are jobs being created all the time in a range of industries. I mean, in other portfolio areas I have like the NDIS; there’s going to be 60,000 jobs in disability care created over the next three years. And Alan, for instance, there is going to be a wonderful new airport built very close to where I’m standing now …
ALAN JONES:
Don’t get too excited.
MINISTER PORTER:
But if you have a drug problem, you will not be able to work there, because a range of transport construction industries require, as a preliminary condition for employment, that you submit to employer-based drug testing.
ALAN JONES:
But the last time I looked, the selling of drugs and the receipt of drugs from sale is illegal.
Now suddenly you’re testing people, and those people are breaking the law, but you won’t, under privacy provisions, be able to pass any of that information onto police.
MINISTER PORTER:
Only in the most serious of circumstances; if there’s an imminent threat to life or safety, or the life or safety of a child. But otherwise this information is designed to help the person, help the taxpayer, and address a problem that we’ve been turning a wilfully blind eye to.
ALAN JONES:
Well the one thing about you, my friend, this bloke’s got ability right on top of the portfolio. It’s a very provocative thing. Many people would say if you’re on drugs, you’re not entitled to welfare. But nonetheless, thank you for talking to us and good luck.
MINISTER PORTER:
Cheers
(ENDS)