Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews will have some serious reading to do over the Easter holiday, with an interim report on the government's review into the welfare system due before the end of next week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A spokeswoman for the Social Services Minister told Fairfax Media that an interim report "is expected before Easter".
"The minister plans to make it public before the budget," she said.
Apart from excluding aged care payments from the mix and a focus on working age income support payments, little detail has been released about the review.
No official terms of reference have been issued and here has been no public call for submissions, leading to criticisms from community and welfare advocates that the process has not been open or transparent.
There are particular fears that the review will be used to influence government decisions in the federal budget, due on May 13.
"Mr McClure is consulting with stakeholders including employers to seek their ideas on ways to improve opportunities for those on income support payments to participate in work," the spokeswoman for Mr Andrews said.
Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Cassandra Goldie welcomed the pending public release of the report but said she expected "urgent engagement" with stakeholders so that it could be considered before the budget.
"We retain our concern that in a review that is as important as this one ... that we don't have an open and transparent process for considering what the problems are for working together to develop appropriate solutions."
Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers also questioned "what real response the government could make" in the three weeks between Easter and the budget.
While welcoming the review into payments, Ms Chambers said that "we would note that both ourselves and the sector, and particularly people on those benefits, have had difficulty providing input into this review".
"We hope that this one is going to give the minister some guidelines for a more transparent review," she said. "Any changes will have far reaching effects into people's lives."
In the lead up to receiving the interim report, the government has flagged concerns about the number of people on the disability support pension and the growing gap between the DSP and Newstart.
But last month, Mr Andrews said that a change to pension indexation was "nothing something which I expect we would be immediately addressing in the [upcoming] budget".
