Labor fails the test on welfare over drug testing trial
24-August-2017
It appears
that the Labor Party, ACOSS, and health groups who oppose our drug testing
trial would rather see the continuation of the same destructive path, than try
something new to avoid it.
This week,
the two of us announced drug testing trials for new welfare recipients as a way
of assisting people to get off drugs and back into work.
No one loses
a cent if they test positive. Rather, they will be placed onto income
management whereby 80 percent of their payments are quarantined for the
essentials and can't be withdrawn as cash. If they test positive again 25 days
later, they will be required to undertake tailored drug treatment as part of
their mutual obligations.
The Labor
Party, Australian Medical Association and other health bodies have opposed the
trial on the basis of there being "no evidence" for it working.
However, it is a trial, in the very sense of the word, similar to how every
major health advance occurs; through experimentation and trial and error. Why
is trialling good in health policy, but not in social policy?
Further,
while the precise method of our drug testing trials has never been done before,
the essential components have all been done and shown to work.
Consider
each of the three elements. First, the drug testing itself. This is now common
practice across much of Australian society. Many in the construction, mining,
transport, defence, and emergency services are subject to random drug testing.
Of course, anyone who drives is equally so. Drug testing is not a radical idea
and there are good methods for doing it quickly and easily.
The second
element is the quarantining of welfare payments for the basics if someone tests
positive the first time. This is designed to ensure that less welfare cash is
available for drug habits and that the basics are covered, particularly when
children are involved. The independent evaluation of our cashless debit card
trials (which also involve quarantining 80 percent of people's welfare
payments) shows that drug use is lower as a result and that families are better
able to look after their children.
Providing
restricted welfare for those with addictions is also recommended by peak social
service bodies. The Australian Council
of Social Services, for example, recommends in their Emergency Relief Handbook
to not give cash out to people with addictions; rather to give stored-value
cards, like a Coles card. It states clearly that "cash may not be an
appropriate form of Emergency Relief for people with addiction issues who may
be tempted to use the cash to support their addiction.”
The final
element is requiring a person to undertake treatment if they test positive the
second time. Again, this principle of requiring a person to undertake treatment
is not new; the judicial system uses this frequently instead of incarceration.
Further, the Australian National Council on Drugs report delivered to
government in 2013 showed that using a lever to compel a person into treatment
does help people get off drugs.
Given the
evidence of these three individual elements, surely combining them together is
worth testing in discrete locations?
The
alternative is that we continue on the same path. Of course, there is good
evidence of the outcomes from this. We will see ice usage among unemployed
people continue to be 2.4 times higher than those in work. In
Canterbury-Bankstown, one of our trial sites, the hospitalisation rate from ice
will continue to climb. It has already increased by 21 fold in the last five
years. Those individuals with drug problem will effectively continue to exclude
themselves from the workforce - particularly those jobs which require workers
to be drug free - and will be welfare dependent for longer.
As many
critics suggest, more services will make a difference, and the Government has
put $685 million of more funding into this, including $300 million through the
National Ice Strategy. We are putting in a further $10 million as part of the
drug testing trials. However the evidence also shows that you can have a
saturation of services but if a person doesn't use them, they will continue on
with their problem.
There is
barely a community in Australia that is not affected by drugs, particularly the
drug 'ice', which is so destructive. Walk down any rural or suburban street and
individuals will have stories of friends, loved ones or people they know that
have been caught up in it. The police will tell you that in many locations, ice
underpins nearly all the crime.
At the very
least we should be ensuring, where possible, that taxpayers are not facilitating
the problems by handing over cash to addicts.
Let's see if
we can identify those with drug problems and get them the treatment they need.
Alan Tudge
is the Minister for Human Services
Christian
Porter is the Minister for Social Services