Parents of kids who skip school to lose their welfare payments
The parents of children who skip school would lose welfare payments under a possible overhaul being considered by the Federal Government.
Social Services Minister, Christian Porter, says linking recipients' payments to their children's school attendance could have the same success the "no jab, no play" policy, the Herald Sun reports.
The "no jab no pay" policy withholds payments from families who fail to have their children vaccinated.
“There are other areas where if you had the same stringency of design, it’s quite possible that you could have also very good results,” Mr Porter said. “I must say that one of them ... is the linking of payments to school attendance.”
The option is one of many possible ways to tackle what he says is a growing welfare bill which he said could reach a massive $4.8 trillion from the current level of $160 billion.
It comes as a new baseline report on welfare showed 750,000 Australians are on Newstart - also known as the dole.
The report also found more than 250,000 carers and 432,000 parents receive payments as part of the Government's biggest budget spend - welfare.
He said the government would combine a raft of unpopular savings measures including scrapping access to taxpayer parental leave for new parents receiving payments from their employer with funding to promote ideas on how to stop welfare recipients relying on government handouts.
Mr Porter said he is worried generations of youth are being trapped into a life on welfare - from young mothers who have had parents on benefits to students graduating and unable to shake off reliance on unemployment payments.
“The situation where you have just on half and potentially more household drawing from the system than contributing to it is, again in my observation, like a snake eating its own tail,” he said. “It does not work so well after about halfway.”
"The human cost of lost opportunities, of lost potential, is a terrible result of the system that we have in place at the moment."
