1st Aug 2019, 9:55 AM – Senate Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Cashless Welfare) Bill 2019 - in Committee - Serious offence

The majority voted against an amendment introduced by WA Senator Rachel Siewert (Greens), which means it failed.

Senator Siewert explained the context of this amendment:

Some of the issues that I still think are problematic are under section 124PHB(3). It says that a person wishing to exit the trial will be assessed according to the following:

(a) the person can demonstrate reasonable and responsible management of the person's affairs (including financial affairs), taking into account all of the following:

(i) the interest of any children for whom the person is responsible;

(ii) whether the person was convicted of an offence against a law of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory, or was serving a sentence of imprisonment for such an offence, at any time in the last 12 months …

I acknowledge that this is a change from what originally went through this place, which was about whether the person 'has a likelihood of engaging in any unlawful activity'. That was totally subjective. It wasn't measurable. It was dependent on whether somebody in the community, because at this stage it was about the community panels and the community bodies, thought someone was going to carry out any unlawful activity. So I do acknowledge that that's an improvement on what was there. We do, however, have concerns that it's 'convicted of an offence' rather than 'convicted of a serious offence', so I do have an amendment to make to emphasise that it's about a serious offence.