No Jab, No Pay; Cashless Welfare Card; Redress
E&OE
SABRA LANE:
The Federal Government is strengthening its No Jab, No Pay rules. Today, it’s introducing a Bill into Parliament to deduct family payments every fortnight, to remind parents to have their kids vaccinated. That’s a change in the way parents are penalised for failing to keep their children up to date. Social Services Minister, Christian Porter, is the responsible minister. He joined me earlier. Minister, good morning and welcome to AM.
MINISTER PORTER:
Morning, Sabra.
SABRA LANE:
The Government introduced No Jab, No Pay, last year. That encouraged how many parents to get their kids vaccinated?
MINISTER PORTER:
Two-hundred-and-ten-thousand, so, a lot. And that had a very significant impact on what doctors – rather unglamorously – call the herd immunity rate, but we have to aim for 95 per cent of population immunity. And what we have found is that we’d fallen well below the 90’s in a whole range of age categories. So, we had to do something and No Jab, No Pay, to us, seemed like a very sensible way forward. And I guess it’s part of moving from a welfare system that this Government is engaging in, that pushes or used to push taxpayers’ money out the door without expecting terribly much in return, to one where we strengthen all of the mutual obligations and expect people to do things and one of the things that we expect people to do is vaccinate their kids.
SABRA LANE:
You’re now changing the penalty applied to parents who don’t get their kids vaccinated. It will still be the same amount but it’s being applied differently. How are you doing that and why?
MINISTER PORTER:
Yeah so, roughly it will be the same amount but the ‘no pay’ part of No Jab, No Pay used to occur at the end of the year. So, you stood to lose the end of the year family tax benefit supplement if during the course of the year you’d not had your child vaccinated. Now, we’re going to make that potential loss of money occur on a fortnightly basis. So, if you’re not having a child vaccinated you can lose $28 per fortnight, per child – the theory being that the consequence of not having your child vaccinated occurred very late, after the failure to vaccinate, whereas you’d have here a constant reminder that you’re missing out on something because you failed to vaccinate your child. So, we think that this will drive even greater behavioural change than we’ve seen so far.
SABRA LANE:
Well, how many people do you think – how many kids will be vaccinated as a result and will that get you to what you’re calling the herd immunity level?
MINISTER PORTER:
Yes so I mean, when we look at what’s happened so far, what we’ve seen is that kids between 12 and 15 months, they’ve gone up to 93.79 per cent; twenty-four to 27 months, 90.86 per cent, and five year olds are at an immunity rate of 93.55 per cent. And that represents increases of 1.5 per cent, 1.5 per cent, and about 1 per cent. Now, that doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s actually very, very significant in terms of the medical outcomes we’re achieving.
SABRA LANE:
So, how many?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, we don’t know is the honest answer to that, but we expect that the immediacy of the potential loss of payment is going to produce even greater increases in vaccination than we’ve seen under the first version of No Jab, No Pay.
SABRA LANE:
What do you say to those doctors who caution that children miss vaccinations for a range of reasons, often closely linked to socio-economic hardship and logistical barriers?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, there’s not unanimity of views amongst the medical profession. So, the AMA have been a consistent supporter of No Jab, No Pay. The Royal College of Australian Physicians did not support it and I don’t know whether they have changed their mind on that. So, there’s not a consensus there. But in public policy we are looking for things that work. We stuck by our guns on this one, instituted it and it has been a very strong if not resounding success.
SABRA LANE:
A number of National MPs want the cashless welfare card to be rolled out to all unemployed people in regional areas. In fact, it seems anyone on a welfare payment who’s not retired but specifically unemployed people. Is that what the Government eventually has in mind?
MINISTER PORTER:
There’s no plan for that. At the moment, we’ve got two operating trial sites in the east Kimberley in my state of WA and Ceduna. A third trial site in Kalgoorlie has been announced and interestingly with the third trial site in Kalgoorlie, there’s a much more even-mix between Indigenous and non-Indigenous recipients of the card. And then a fourth trial site will be announced by Alan Tudge, shortly. And under the stewardship of Alan Tudge, I think it’s fair to say that the cards in the trial sites are working and working very well. They’ve reduced alcohol consumption, they’ve reduced gambling, the purchase of fresh food. But these are trials and we’re watching to see how they go before we make further decisions.
SABRA LANE:
So, no plans but maybe yet?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, we are a government who has strongly moved away from a welfare system that pushed taxpayer money out the door without expecting terribly much in return, to a system where we strengthen and tighten mutual obligations. And that occurs in the Welfare Reform Bill before the Parliament at the moment. We’re also announcing today, Sabra, some changes around the automatic deduction of rents through welfare payments for public housing. So, we think that it accords with basic community expectations that when welfare’s paid, the Government does everything within its power to make sure it’s paid in a way that encourages people to do the right thing by themselves. And drug testing trials is another part of that.
SABRA LANE:
Let’s turn to the Redress Scheme that was recommended by the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse. From the beginning it’s been an opt-in scheme. How confident are you that you’ll get all of the support of the states and territories?
MINISTER PORTER:
Look, I’m fairly confident. Of course, it had to be an opt-in scheme because we don’t have the power to compel, other than the ACT and the Northern Territory. And we have said that we will compel those two jurisdictions. We can’t compel the other jurisdictions and nor can we compel-in individual institutions like churches or charities. So I mean, I’ve been a lawyer for many years, it’s the most single complicated legal issue I’ve ever dealt with. It is immensely detailed. We’ve been in long negotiations with the states…they’ve been conducted in good faith. We’ve had one draft of the legislation circulated to the states. We’ve listened to their comments. A second draft will go out very shortly and go wider to the non-government institutions. I’m very confident that we will have a lot of the states opting in. I’m fairly confident that it will be an overarching majority of states and territories. But we’re still in the process – and it is a slightly grinding process – of negotiating that outcome.
SABRA LANE:
You’re meeting with key groups tomorrow about this. Some have concerns that they’ll have a heavier responsibility applied to them rather than, ahead of states and territories, potentially financially crippling them. How worried are you by those concerns?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well I mean, I take all the concerns of all the non-government institutions, church and charities seriously. But ultimately we’re designing a scheme to benefit victims and to look after victims, not to look after institutions. And the Royal Commission basically said that the system has to be one of responsible entity pays, so that the primarily responsible entity – whether that was a church or a charity or a government – absorbs the cost of redress. And that is a very important structural and moral position. Because the way that you stop this from happening again in the future is you don’t let a non-responsible institution pick up the tab for a responsible institution. Now, that will affect organisations differently, depending on how responsible they were. But everyone must take care to pay redress where they were responsible. And that’s a fundamental principal from which the Government won’t deviate.
SABRA LANE:
Minister, thanks for talking to AM this morning.
MINISTER PORTER:
Thank you, Sabra.