Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Community Affairs References Committee on the review of legislative instruments made under the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, together with accompanying documents, and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

This review examines six legislative instruments made by the Labor government under Australia's income management system and was the result of a Greens amendment to the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill in 2023. That bill established the Labor government's enhanced income management regime and effectively expanded the destructive and punitive system of compulsory income management.

For nearly two decades, since the introduction of the BasicsCard, we have heard evidence from First Nations people, parliamentary inquiries, the Australian Human Rights Commission, researchers and community organisations about the failure of compulsory income management as a tool for alleviating poverty, addiction and other social issues, and we've heard time and time again how it disproportionately impacts First Nations people and violates human rights.

While we were unsuccessful in our attempts to block that legislation, the Greens were able to secure an amendment requiring a Senate committee review of any legislative instruments made on income management. One of the key concerns we had and still have about this legislation is that it expands the minister's powers in a dangerous way, and this review process that we have added adds a basic level of scrutiny and accountability to that process. The report that I am speaking to today is the first such review by the committee since the passage of the income management reform bill. I want to begin now by thanking the community affairs secretariat for their work on this inquiry; my fellow committee members; and all the participants, who gave compelling and important evidence.

This inquiry exposed the complete inadequacy and unsuitability of the legislative instruments underpinning Labor's Enhanced Income Management regime. An overwhelming number of inquiry participants expressed their concern about the extent and nature of the consultation on these instruments and, when asked during the hearing if the government had engaged in a formal consultation process on the instruments with any of the diverse range of witnesses, many, including the Queensland Indigenous Family Violence Legal Service, Economic Justice Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service and the Accountable Income Management Network, they said, no, they had not been consulted.

Further, many participants raised concerns about the level and type of consultation that had been undertaken with First Nations communities. A representative from the Queensland Indigenous Family Legal Service highlighted how the lack of consultation does not align with the National Agreement on Closing the Gap priorities, and participants also raised issues about the lack of public information about who and what kind of consultation that had been undertaken. This firsthand evidence of the lack of consultation completely contradicts the claims in the government's explanatory material for these instruments, which stated that 'extensive' consultation had been undertaken.

And this wasn't the only issue raised by witnesses about the explanatory material provided with the instruments. Many emphasised how the explanatory materials lacked adequate information for parliament and the public to properly scrutinise their impact. Even more alarmingly, witnesses highlighted how the impact analysis mentioned in each explanatory statement concerned the cashless debit card rather than Enhanced Income Management. It was also pointed out that, despite this analysis being outdated, this wasn't mentioned in the explanatory material at all.

For the parliament to properly scrutinise legislative instruments, we rely on explanatory materials. Tabling instruments that lack adequate and relevant information is lazy, deceptive and potentially harmful. And, while there were more issues raised by inquiry participants, another significant flaw in the instruments was the failure to address years of documented human rights concerns raised by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. It's clear that, in developing these legislative instruments, the Labor government had no regard for transparency, human rights or working in partnership with First Nations communities.

We're extremely disappointed that the Senate voted down the Greens motion to disallow three of these instruments last year. However, we urge the Senate to support our upcoming motion to disallow the declared child protection state determination, the recognised state or territory determination and the specified income management instrument in the coming weeks.

So, in response to the evidence presented before the committee, the report makes one clear recommendation: that, for any future income management legislative instruments, the Australian government give consideration to undertaking genuine consultation, to provide adequate and relevant explanatory material to parliament to enable appropriate scrutiny and to provide a detailed report on the consultation process and outcomes regarding the proposed determinations. The Greens support this recommendation, and I want to emphasise that implementing this recommendation is an important measure to improve the overall transparency of the Enhanced Income Management scheme. However, the Greens are of the firm view that all forms of compulsory income management should be abolished. They do not work, and we do not believe that this recommendation of disallowing these instruments goes far enough. As the Australian Council of Social Services said during the inquiry hearing:

… any amount of amendment to these instruments would fail to address the core problem of continuing mandatory income management, which now mostly affects people in the Northern Territory.

While this inquiry only examined six legislative instruments in Australia's income management system, it reinforced a long history of evidence showing compulsory income management schemes are ineffective and incompatible with human rights. For example, the Central Land Council wrote in their submission:

… while Indigenous poverty rates are decreasing (albeit to a small degree) across most parts of the country, in remote NT and the West Kimberly, they are escalating—significantly. In these regions, poverty rates are more than 50 per cent, and in some cases, much higher. This level of poverty is unparalleled elsewhere in Australia and evidence of serious policy failure—and income management is a wholly inadequate policy to address it.

The Central Land Council go on to suggest:

Genuine efforts to address the poverty crisis in remote NT will focus on policy measures that are preventative, strengths-based and systemic—designed with Aboriginal people and their representative organisations, consistent with the commitments under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.

Dr Elizabeth Moore, the president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists said:

… we have advocated for the abolition of welfare quarantining because schemes like this are inherently flawed in their logic and the research indicates they don't actually reduce the purchasing of prohibited items. They have a range of impacts, some of which are negative rather than positive. In fact, the research shows that some of the earlier schemes did not reduce the impact of children not going to school. These schemes failed to support people with concurrent addiction and housing and employment issues, and they failed to support them in bringing around behavioural change; we've heard this from previous speakers. Positive reinforcing strategies and the fulfilment of mental, emotional and social needs have been shown to be much more effective. There is also concern around stigma, discrimination and disempowerment. They may in fact exacerbate grievance, unrest and retraumatisation, especially of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The evidence is clear: compulsory income management does not work. Rather it is a punitive and harmful regime that disproportionately targets First Nations peoples. As noted, this inquiry builds upon years of evidence pointing to the failures of compulsory income management. It also reinforces the ongoing calls from First Nations organisations for preventive measures and services that genuinely support people living in poverty and who potentially face addiction issues—services that are First Nations led and co-designed.

Before the 2022 election, the Australian Labor Party made a clear commitment to end all forms of compulsory income management. Disappointingly, the Labor government broke this promise when they chose to maintain the BasicsCard and establish the enhanced income management regime. Labor, it is time that you honour your commitment and listen to the voices of First Nations communities, social service organisations and those impacted by these punitive policies. It is time to end all forms of compulsory income management.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the final report of the committee entitled The worsening rental crisis in Australia.

What I'll seek to do here is outline for the Senate the realities of the cost-of-living crisis in regional Western Australia and highlight some of the double standards that are at work, particularly those double standards practised by the WA and federal Labor Party.

Last weekend I had the privilege of visiting the beautiful community of Margaret River in the south-west of WA. Visitors to the town want to live there, and locals who have called it home find it to be a dream. But, for so many, it will only ever be a dream to call Margaret River home. Indeed, for many, calling their beloved town home has become a nightmare. The rental crisis is hitting regional WA hard. Last week alone, there were only three rental properties available in the entirety of Margaret River. Similar to other regional centres across the state, rents are increasing seriously and doubling down on the impact of the housing and living crisis. It is already expensive enough to try to buy basics like fresh food and fuel in rural and remote towns, but now we are seeing, for instance, in Busselton, a reality where so much of the community is being thrown over the 30 per cent rental stress line where we are now seeing rents of over $700 a week. How are you meant to make that work? On top of all of this, we're seeing the WA state government fail to fund vital community groups like Just Home in Margaret River. Just Home is a fantastic organisation that does so much to support those struggling with the housing crisis and housing insecurity in Margaret River, yet they are months away from having to shut their doors, because the WA government refuses to fund them to continue to do vital work.

In Perth, we are seeing a record-long stretch of rent increases and record high increases in weekly rent. One tenant reached out to me to share the reality that they have been hit with a $250 a week rent increase. For that person, their fuel and food money has gone straight into the back pocket of their landlord. In WA, the state government has truly demonstrated an eel-like level of spinelessness. WA currently has some of the worst rental laws in the country. We still allow no-fault evictions in Western Australia, with the result that people are simply tossed out onto the street.

For the disability community the situation is even more dire. Less than five per cent of housing stock in Western Australia is suitable for a disabled person, yet the WA Labor government will not commit to universal access housing standards. This is an absolute outrage and locks disabled people out of accessible housing for another generation.

I recently heard from a WA couple who are disability pensioners facing a $100 a week rent rise. They are currently compromising their medical treatment to pay for their rent even though the property they are living in is outdated, lacks basic maintenance and is inaccessible for their disabilities. This situation is not rare. In fact, two-thirds of WA renters report that they are too scared to ask for the repairs or maintenance they need, in case they are evicted. This means they are living with leaks, dampness, mould or houses that are more like pressure cookers in the summer, because they are scared to ask for the repairs that are needed.

On the other side of the coin, I hear from constituents who are disabled people who do have a place to call home that is somewhere they can make work, and yet they have been issued with a no-fault eviction notice, and so they are out and don't know where to go next. This is unacceptable. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of the Community Affairs References Committee's final report titled The worsening rental crisis in Australia. I'd like to begin by thanking all the witnesses who attended the in-person hearings and the thousands who sent written submissions for this inquiry.

Australia is facing a cost-of-living polycrisis under this Labor government. The price of groceries and fuel, along with interest rates and rents, have all skyrocketed under the Albanese Labor government. As a result, the dream of homeownership is slipping away for many young Australians as they're firmly placed into the rental trap. This creates a toxic cycle. More renters means more pressure on the rental market, which means higher rents.

I believe you must fix the homeownership crisis if you are to fix the rental crisis. Both require a substantive increase in supply. We heard during the public hearings the overwhelming view that supply was the issue. In Brisbane, Ms Caniglia from Q Shelter explained exactly how the housing market works when she said:

Housing is a system, and at the moment we don't have enough supply to meet demand. That causes not only an incredible set of repercussions for households seeking to rent in the private market but also these other repercussions which make it difficult to deliver human services.

This sentiment was repeated at the Canberra hearings by REIA, when they put on the public record:

It is REIA's strong view that it is a shortage of housing supply that is causing this catastrophic situation for renters.

But you don't need an economics degree to understand that, if you have fewer houses than there are people, the cost of housing will go up.

Another thing this report did was to comprehensively rule out rent freezes and caps as a solution to this crisis. They simply do not work and often come with unintended consequences. In their joint submission, Treasury and the Department of Social Services explored academic literature that investigates the impacts and effects of rent caps and freezes in international jurisdictions such as New York and Berlin. Treasury concluded that, while controls on rental prices may deliver benefits to existing tenants through lower rental prices, achieving the policy objectives of price intervention is difficult, as it limits labour market mobility, is inequitable, imposes negative externalities, negatively affects the quality of rental stock, imposes costs on future renters, and leads to a reduction in rental supply and an increase in rental costs in the long term.

What was also gleaned from this inquiry was that all Australian governments must be bold in their desire to fix these crises. Stamp duty reform must be at the top of the agenda for state and territory governments. As the Grattan Institute said during the Melbourne hearing, housing would also be better allocated if more state and territory governments swapped stamp duty for a broad-based land tax. Stamp duties are amongst the most inefficient taxes available to the states and territories. They discourage people from moving to housing that better suits their needs, and sometimes they discourage people from moving to better jobs. My home state of New South Wales tried this, but, sadly, Labor once again decided to stymie reform what is Australia's worst tax. This is a critical tax reform. We could lower housing prices by possibly four per cent if states and territories reformed stamp duty.

What we also discovered is that the rent trap is preventing renters from saving enough for a deposit, further killing off the dream of homeownership for millions of young Australians. That is why the coalition believes that, if we are to revitalise the culture of homeownership, Australians who are first-home buyers should have the ability to access super to purchase their own home. It is, after all, their own money.

It is our view in this report that, to fix the rental crisis, the government must address the homeownership crisis that is trapping millions of young Australians in the rental market. We can achieve this by working urgently with state and territory governments to increase the supply of housing, including with stamp duty reform. We should be bold and find alternative ways in which first-home buyers can enter the property market, such as the use of their super as a deposit and then offset of super for their mortgage. We must strongly oppose policies that seek to destroy property rights or place them in the hands of institutions or to intervene in the market through measures such as rental caps or freezes. These actions will only make matters worse. Australia is a homeowning democracy, and, by prioritising the opportunity for homeownership, a key measure will develop in solving the current rental crisis.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.