The federal government will abolish its ParentsNext scheme from next year, while compulsory requirements for its participants will be stopped immediately.
It comes after the program has faced years of criticism from advocates, who have said the mutual obligations for the scheme are punitive and damaging for vulnerable single mothers.
The ParentsNext program applies to about 98,700 parents who have children aged nine months to six years and have not worked for 6 months. Almost all participants – 96 per cent – are women, while 75 per cent are single parents.
It was implemented by the previous Coalition government, and was slated to help prepare parents for future employment (or study) once their children started school.
Abolishing the program has been recommended by the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce. While a parliamentary committee chaired by Labor’s Julian Hill also recently recommended the scheme be abolished because it wasn’t flexible, compassionate or supportive of single parents.
Indeed, when the committee handed down its report in March, Hill acknowledged that many people thought the program was something “close to evil” and had described the compliance process as “re-traumatising and akin to coercive control”.
“Parents have a right to choose to actively parent their babies and very young children, and this right should not be available only to wealthy parents,” Hill noted at the time.
“Caring for young children is work which used to be valued in its own right, and a mandatory focus on preparing parents of very young children for future employment is a very patriarchal view of caring and doesn’t take account of enormous diversity in the needs of families and children.”
The Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce recommended the government reinvest in a new “evidence-based program co-designed with young parents”, taking into acccount principles of “encouragement, support, flexibility and meeting their needs”.
In announcing ParentsNext would be scrapped, Minister for Women Katy Gallagher and Minister for Employment Tony Burke said a new voluntary service will be designed in consultation with parents and stakeholders from across the community.
“Women around the country have been telling us that the former Government’s ParentsNext program is punitive, counterproductive and causes harm,” Gallagher and Burke said in a statement.
“At the election we committed to listen to women’s experiences and make decisions that make their lives better and fairer.”
All compulsory requirements for ParentsNext will be paused from today, May 5, meaning participants will no longer receive payment suspensions or penalties for not engaging with activities under the program.
The government said all affected participants will be contacted to inform them of the changes.