Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to put my comments on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening the Job Seeker Compliance Framework) Bill 2015. As we have heard from other senators this evening, Labor has put forward a number of amendments to this bill but certainly does not support the bill in its current form, because it is way too punitive.

It is fine for members of the Turnbull government to say these are simple measures and this is a simple matter. It is not. If it were a simple matter, we would not have such high youth unemployment and indeed we would not have increasing unemployment across the country. It is now getting to the point in Western Australia where unemployment is the highest it has been in a very long time. So this is not a simple issue. How people are dealt with in the system is also not a simple measure or a simple thing to do, because people are not all the same. They have different circumstances. They have different backgrounds. They have different needs. Whilst Labor is not opposed to mutual obligation—in fact the bill seeks to make harsher penalties on the sort of regime that Labor put in place, so we do believe in mutual obligation—we also have a real respect for job seekers and a real understanding that it is not a simple measure, that it is not going to work simply by taking this punitive approach to people being found employment.

We have seen right from day 1 with this government, no matter whether it was Mr Abbott or Mr Turnbull as the Prime Minister—and it was certainly confirmed today by Mr Brandis in question time—that the same policies are there. We have seen this punitive approach taken in a whole range of areas, not just in relation to job seekers. What is being proposed here tonight needs to be taken in the full context of what is on offer by the Turnbull government. We know that, in addition to this bill, they are talking about the introduction of a 15 per cent GST, which would certainly be something that job seekers would not be able to handle. We know that penalty rate are on the table. We have heard many senators in here—Senator Smith is a great advocate—