OZschwitz slave pen: Enforced education or suspended welfare payments

Labor backbenchers have raised concerns about the government's plan to suspend welfare payments to parents who don't send their children to school.

Just two days before Education Minister Julia Gillard plans to introduce draft laws to parliament, backbenchers told the Labor party room they were worried by the "mechanism and detail" of the policy.

Ms Gillard and Families Minister Jenny Macklin jointly announced the plan on Monday, saying it would be trialled at eight sites in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

The plan sparked negative reactions, with the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) declaring it a blunt instrument.

"We have yet to see the evidence that this kind of approach will work," national president Lin Hatfield-Dodds told ABC Radio.

"It is extremely punitive. It will have an immediate and severe effect on people's lives."

Opposition families spokesman Tony Abbott claimed Labor's welfare policy was contradictory because of its refusal to stop unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed.

"The government is being gravely inconsistent," Mr Abbott told reporters.

"On the one hand they're punishing kids for the mistakes of their parents but they're refusing to punish adults for their own acts of non-compliance."

Mr Abbott did not commit the opposition to supporting the bill.

"We're certainly not going to commit to anything until we've seen the detail," he said.

The call for detail was echoed by Australian Council of State School Organisations executive director Terry Aulich.

"There should be no withdrawal of welfare payments without a commensurate involvement of advisers and support for parents," he told AAP.

Despite the criticism and concerns raised, Ms Gillard held firm.

"We want kids to be in school, we want that generation of children to succeed in their lives in the future, and getting a great quality education is the absolute foundation stone of that," she said.

"We view that as so important that we are prepared to take this measure."

Governments in WA and the NT have offered the federal government support to implement the plan.

The proposal will be trialled at a number of communities in the NT along with the eastern Perth suburb of Cannington.

Ms Macklin denied suggestions the plan was aimed at indigenous parents.

"We're not only talking about indigenous children," she said.

"We're talking about the need for all children to both be enrolled and attend school on a regular basis.

"In the Northern Territory, one of the trial communities is the town of Katherine, where there are both indigenous and non-indigenous children and, of course, in the suburb of Cannington there will be more non-indigenous children than indigenous."

LNK

OZschwitz slave pen: Enforced education or suspended welfare payments

OZschwitz slave pen: Enforced education or suspended welfare payments

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