Single-mother overload

A new Centrelink program aimed at getting single mums into the work force is being criticised as doing more harm than good.

Angeline Penrith, at Redfern Park in Sydney, has had her Centrelink payment suspended and been unable to pay the rent after she failed to take her son to activities because she was working. Picture: John Feder

The Senate’s committee on community affairs is inquiring into the federal government’s new employment program, ParentsNext, which maybe sounds a little dull.

Not once you’ve read the submissions.

Rarely does expert policy opinion run so clearly in one direction: ParentsNext is pernicious, mean-spirited and does vastly more harm than good.

It aims to “encourage” mothers of babies and toddlers to find jobs or get out and about in the community. If they resist, it cuts their Centrelink payments, leaving them unable to pay the rent, or feed the kids.

And that’s just what the providers — the organisations paid handsomely to roll it out — say.

You should hear from the ­parents.

What is ParentsNext?

The $260 million federal government program aims to get single parents off welfare.

“It’s good for their future, and it’s great for their kids too,” prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said at the time of its launch.

The program was trialled last year and is now compulsory for about 77,000 parents. About 96 per cent of them are single mums, most of whom were startled to this year receive a letter from Centrelink telling them they had been signed up.

“Your payments may stop if you don’t take part in ParentsNext when you should and don’t have a valid reason,” the program’s website warns.

So, what does it mean, to “take part in ParentsNext”? For the first time, Australian mums now have to prove they are out and about in the community, taking part in activities such as playgroup or swimming lessons.

They must record these activities on an app on their phones — good luck if you’re out of credit — by 9pm the same day. If they don’t go — because the child had a meltdown in the car or threw up on the way there — their Centrelink payments will be suspended.

The ParentsNext website naturally glows with positive feedback from mums now having their activities watched and monitored by government employees.

“Abeda was a busy stay-at-home mum whose sole focus was on parenting her four boys … Then she was referred to ParentsNext,” says one case study. She now feels “encouraged and motivated”.

Unrealistic demands

In the real world, many of the ParentsNext mums feel stressed by the requirement to attend these activities, especially since the program seems to have been designed by people who do not have children, or don’t know how the day may go when you do.

Take swimming lessons. Most swim schools require the mum to get in the water. What does she do with her other children?

Likewise story time. What if one child is up for it, and the other a screaming mess?

“You have to get yourself there (to swimming lessons) and you have to pay, including for childcare if you need it,” says Mary, 34, a single parent who does not want her real name used because she fears repercussions.

“If you don’t go — if my child is sick, or can’t get there for whatever reason — they threaten my payments. What if I don’t have the money for a term? It’s stressful. It’s also my privacy. I shouldn’t have to tell them what I do with him. That’s between me and my son.

“Yes, we are on Centrelink for now, but I have worked in the past, and I have studied, and we are ­entitled to live our lives.

“It’s demeaning.”

For many, it’s impossible. By definition, mums on ParentsNext do not have partners. They live alone with their kids, often in public housing. Some have more than one child; some of their children have developmental delays. Some live in remote areas.

A submission from YourTown — formerly BoysTown — outlines the plight of those in the Yorke Peninsula, where dozens of ParentsNext mums have been signed up. Most have no driver’s licence, no car, and no childcare. They also have no money.

Would they like to attend a baby rhyme time at the public ­library 40 minutes away? Maybe. But how are they supposed to get there? Who will take care of their other children? How does it help them get a job? What evidence is there that such activities will assist the children more than whatever activities they are already doing with cousins and kin, closer to home?

“Parenting babies below the age of one year is demanding and can be highly stressful,” the YourTown submission says.

Playground tension

It’s not “optimum, or even realistic” to try to force these mums to join a playgroup in a faraway suburb, then clip their payment if they don’t go. And guess what happens when you try to force them? The submission from Playgroup Australia, an organisation with 110,000 members, lays it out rather brutally. Most community playgroups are run by volunteers. Attendees pay a small fee — $2, say — for the hall hire, and tea and biscuits. It’s an opportunity for parents to make friends and socialise their kids.

ParentsNext forces its clients to attend playgroup, or else they’ll get their payment cut.

Nobody asked Playgroup Australia what it thought.

And so, from the submission: “We have a pile of new mums that have come in recent weeks, openly telling us they are only here because of the new Centrelink scheme, simply to get their benefits. They don’t help out when they are here, they don’t engage with the kids, (we) often have to remind them to pay. They leave early so they don’t have to help pack up.

“We are worried about the safety of the children, as some of the new mums that come to get their benefit have left the pool gate fence open to go outside smoking … a one-year-old got out and was halfway down toward a main road.”

The staff at public libraries are also in the frame. They have traditionally offered such things as “baby rhyme time” for mums who have decided their kids are ready, and they have time, and it might be fun, and so forth.

Nobody asked them about ParentsNext, but they now find themselves having to “vouch” for mums forced to go along, whether they want to or not.

Besides taking their children to such activities, ParentsNext clients are also being instructed to show their willingness to work by volunteering at local charities. Volunteering Australia, a peak body, says “forcing people to ­engage in programs in order to ­receive a payment does not meet our definition of volunteering — time willingly given”.

Traditionally, the act of volunteering “is done of a person’s free will”.

And if it’s not, it affects the dynamic of the whole group in ways that are not wholly positive.

There is, of course, an argument for “mutual obligation”, which is the dogma from whence ParentsNext sprang.

If you are a jobseeker, you should be looking for a job, not sitting around smoking or playing Fortnite. There is an argument for trying to ensure that young mothers, or mums who have been out of the workforce for a long time, do not fall into a pattern of long-term welfare dependency.

But ParentsNext is a jobs-ready program foisted on new parents, and that is a problem, at least according to those who should know, such as the Brotherhood of St Laurence, which participated in the ParentsNext pilot last year and is now delivering the program to parents in some of Melbourne’s tougher suburbs.

“The demerit points system is harsh, and suspensions have been very high — equivalent to around 20 per cent of the caseload,” the Brotherhood’s submission to the inquiry says, meaning one in five mums have been punished for not doing what they were told.

“Participants are having their payments suspended for inadvertent or unavoidable breaches, such as failing to report their attendance at an activity by 9pm the same night, or because they couldn’t make it to an activity such as story time at the library,” the Brotherhood says. “When you have young children, things don’t always go to plan.”

Also, when you delay a payment to “families subsisting on wafer-thin budgets, it means they cannot pay the rent that’s due, can’t transport their children to school, or need to rely on emergency relief to eat … Australia can and must do much better.”

Devastating impact

According to staff at The Hive in Mt Druitt, western Sydney, the clipping of payments has “potentially devastating economic consequences for parents who live from one payment to the next, with everything — petrol in the car, lunch in the boxes — planned down to the last cent”.

Besides being punitive, the program can be demoralising. Parents have to meet their caseworkers in ParentsNext offices where no childcare is offered, so very young kids are exposed to what The Hive describes as “inappropriate conversations” about why mum is getting her payment suspended, or how she’s failed at this or that ­requirement.

Some have a “child corner”, meaning a part of the office with a few toys in a basket but no supervision.

Not everyone is opposed to ParentsNext, of course. The Department of Jobs and Small Business, which administers the scheme, claims it has “helped more than 77,000 parents work towards their education and employment goals”.

What that means, obviously, is that they’ve got 77,000 people on the books. Their submission also says 9800 of the original Parents­Next cohort have found work. There is no way of knowing whether the program helped.

The Personnel Group, which also provides ParentsNext services, likewise provided a glowing review. It says the response from mums now under its supervision has been “overwhelmingly positive” — and, to prove it, it includes quotes from some parents in its submission.

“Wonderful staff that are so friendly!” says one.

Parents on The Hive submission have a different view.

“This has caused me constant stress and anxiety around what I need to do,” says one mum.

“It’s like they own your arse,” says another.

The Senate standing committees on community affairs inquiry into ParentsNext is due to report on March 31.

-

‘I have no control over my life’

Angeline Penrith, ParentsNext mum

Last October I got a letter saying that I had an appointment at ParentsNext, and it’s compulsory.

I was really scared. Are they going to tell me I’m doing something wrong?

They said: “The program is here to help you, but you have to prove to us that you are taking your child to activities.’”

I told them we do activities, and I work in the arts — as an actress — as well.

I don’t necessarily have permanent jobs but I definitely work sometimes.

My child is only four and he is not at school yet.

They said: “You will be reporting to us from now on.”

It’s such a stressful thing to go in, because you have to explain your whole life, what you are doing and why.

If I have an acting job and I can’t take my child to his activity, I have to report in, like I can’t make that decision myself.

I have been suspended a few times for not reporting properly. I live on the breadline, pay cheque to pay cheque.

I am literally down to the last cent every day.

When the rent can’t go out because I haven’t got my payment because they cut you, that immediately put me in arrears.

It feels like I have no control over my life.

I have always tried to do my best and they make you feel like you’re failing.

Caroline Overington