Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the Social Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. It is really interesting. Last week in this chamber, we saw a plethora of government members speaking on their enterprise tax plan that will give $50 billion of tax cuts to the biggest corporate entities in the country, including $7.4 billion to the biggest banks. They were proud of their legislation, without any analysis, details or research to counter the fact that it would not make an appreciable difference to employment. Over a long period of time—10 years—it will make a 0.1 per cent improvement in employment. The Gonski funding and needs based funding alone would bring in three times that amount of improvement in terms of employment and growth in the country.

Today I look at this legislation which was rushed through the Senate without the opposition having the opportunity to look at it and without any parliamentary committee being able to examine it. Sadly, many of the crossbench are supporting it. How proud would the coalition members be to speak on this particular legislation today? They were very proud about the fact that they would give $50 billion worth of tax cuts to the big end of town. Look at the list of those persons who are going to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. They include the member for Jagajaga, the shadow minister; me as the shadow minister for immigration and border protection; the member for Lyons; the member for Lalor; the member for Oxley; the member for Lindsay; the member for Bendigo; and many more Labor MPs.

I was thinking about just how proud the coalition members would be to cut social service payments, including family tax benefit payments, for 1.5 million Australian families and to rip $1.4 billion out of their household incomes. But not one of them is speaking on it—not one. I got up and spoke after the member for Jagajaga. Another one of my Labor colleagues will speak after me. And on and on it will go. Not one member of the coalition backbench—certainly no holder of a marginal seat—is proud to come into this place and speak on this particular bill. They do not have anyone speaking on it. Look at their benches over there. No-one is going to get up and proudly support this particular legislation. They will not. Do you know why? It is because they know the adverse impact it will have on their constituents, with the most vulnerable Australian families being adversely impacted.

The government have their priorities all wrong. They give $50 billion of tax cuts to big corporate Australia, but they will not defend 700,000 Australians who will get $77 a week less as a result of the Fair Work Commission decision that was handed down recently, they will not support Labor's proposed legislation to protect the living standards of those workers, and they will rip away the deficit levy, giving millionaires more than $16,000 a year in tax cuts. Allegedly, that deficit levy was introduced to address the issue of debt and the deficit, but the government have tripled the deficit and added more than $100 billion of debt to the bottom line. They are the biggest-taxing government in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia. When they were opposition, they said they would bring in a surplus in their first year and every year thereafter. They have tripled the deficit and added more than $100 billion of debt.

This legislation shows just how out of touch their priorities are. The issue of weakening protection against racist hate speech seems to have really vexed them and caused them to be distracted for such a long time. Their priorities have drifted. They seem to be divided and dysfunctional. Certainly, that is why the Australian public is disillusioned with them; the polls clearly show that. This bill is an attack on the most vulnerable Australians. It had its origin in their much-vaunted 2014 budget. That is the budget that was handed down by the then member for North Sydney and lauded for a day or so until the Leader of the Opposition said that Labor would fight tooth and nail against the cuts to family payments, the cuts to family tax benefits. This is not responsible fiscal budget repair—not at all. This government's approach seems to be targeting vulnerable Australians. It is almost as if the Prime Minister is held hostage to the far right of the Liberal Party. Now he is trying to undo them.

The bill introduces four key measures: a freeze in indexation for working-age and student payments, the introduction of waiting periods for parenting payment and youth allowance applicants, the freezing of indexation for family tax benefits and the automation of income-stream review processes. While we support efforts to improve income-reporting systems, there are things in this particular legislation that are chilling attacks on the basic social contract upon which this country is built.

The first measure proposed in this legislation is in relation to indexation. It is an egregious attack on some of the lowest-earning Australians. The bill would freeze for three years the income-free threshold for payments including Newstart, youth allowance, parenting payments and carers payments, leaving the income test for single parents, jobseekers and students trailing behind the cost of living. They are going to be worse off; 204,000 of the lowest-income earning Australians will be worse off. These are payments that enable some of the neediest and the most hard done by people in our country to get through the week financially—to feed and clothe their family, to make sure that they do not become homeless and to live a decent life. For many of my constituents in the electorate of Blair in southeast Queensland, these payments make it possible for their families to keep a roof over their kids' heads and to put food on the table when they fall on hard times. For others, the payments provide support for those who provide constant, around-the-clock care and support for family members in need.

The government feel that they can target these Australians. It is appalling; it is simply appalling. The thresholds that will be frozen by this bill are already dangerously low. For people receiving Newstart, the threshold is currently about $104 per fortnight. For single parents wanting to access the parenting payment, the threshold is a little better—$188.60. What possible sense is there in making this less? Do the government understand at all what these people are going through? According to the government, the answer to that question is definitely no. They have no idea what is happening in the lives of these people.

The introduction of further waiting times for income support is yet another assault on vulnerable Australians. This bill would see the recipients of parenting payment and youth allowance forced to wait seven days before they can receive their payment. To be eligible for youth allowance, you must not be undertaking full-time study and not be an apprentice. The unemployment rate in this country is higher than it was during the global financial crisis. It is 5.9 per cent. Nearly 1.1 million Australians say that they would like more work. They are underemployed. We have well over 700,000 Australians who are unemployed and not able to find work. We know from reported figures that there are 6,400 fewer jobs while as many as 33,000 part-time employees lost their jobs in the same period, in the last month. But, instead of taking concrete action to protect these jobs and build apprenticeships, the government have ripped nearly $2 billion out of jobs and training. We have 135,000 fewer apprenticeships in this country than when the government came to power four years ago. If the government were bothering to listen to those in need, they would not bring in this legislation today.

Most people I know do not look for a handout; they look for a way to get through the week, trying to do everything they can to pull themselves up and get a better life for themselves and their family. The government are making it harder for them to get a job and harder for them to make ends meet. We know this is only the start of what they want. We know that if they had their druthers, if they really did what they wanted to do, the $8.5 billion in cuts in the 2014 budget would have passed. But for the opposition of Labor they would have passed. We have consistently protected those people and stood up for them.

The Prime Minister is not listening and nor did his predecessor, and that is why they turfed him out. This Prime Minister had a near-death political experience at the last federal election, getting by with virtually a goal, in AFL terms, or a field goal in rugby league terms, in the last minute to win the election. This bill should not be here. This bill will have an adverse impact on his political fortunes. Those opposite will wear this because, at every debate that Labor members have at the next election, I guarantee we will raise this particular legislation. We will raise the fact that this is what they are doing to families. Tens of thousands of them in my electorate, in Ipswich and Somerset in south-east Queensland, will be adversely impacted by what this government is doing. What possible reason has the Prime Minister for this particular legislation? What possible priority does he have? He is not content with attacking jobseekers and single parents. This bill hurts families. This is a family tax benefit cut. It is a piece of fiscal repair so unpopular that those opposite cannot even bring themselves to speak on it in this chamber. It is beyond belief that this is the sort of legislation that the government think is a priority.

From 1 July 2017, indexation for the rates of family tax benefit parts A and B will be frozen for two years. That means that for two years the payments that those families receive and rely on will be out of step with the cost of living, cutting $1.4 billion straight out of the budgets of Australian families. We have a situation where 1.5 million Australians will be adversely impacted by this legislation. The changes in this particular aspect will hit every family receiving family tax benefit, leaving over half a million low-income families worse off. Six hundred thousand families are already receiving the maximum rate of family tax benefit part A, meaning that their household income is less than $52,000 a year. It is difficult to understand why the government would do this—the impact on low-wage households; the cut to family incomes making it harder to make ends meet. A family earning $60,000 with two children in primary school will be $440 worse off by 2018. A single parent on $50,000 with two high school students will be $540 worse off by 2018. A single-income family on $60,000 with three children under the age of 12 will be $600 worse off by 2018. It is just inexcusable that the government would do this. The government do not have their priorities straight. They claim from time to time that the cuts are necessary to pay for their childcare reforms. How can you get a situation where you spend $1.6 billion and leave one in three families worse off with your childcare reforms? At times they claim that these cuts are necessary to fund the NDIS. It is simply astonishing that they would do that. It is shameful and disgraceful that they would hold that position. The cuts are not necessary to fund the NDIS. They were not necessary in relation to the childcare reforms.

Every year I relaunch the Blair Disability Links directory, which provides families living with disability and their carers information about the different local organisations and services. Every year I do that. At my most recent launch, we saw 50 organisations from Ipswich and Somerset take the opportunity to gather together to highlight the work that is being done. The priority for the government should be looking after the vulnerable Australians. The priority for the government should be looking after children who need a lift up and a chance to get a good education. The priority for the government should be to focus on the people they talked about and those who attend the Blair Disability Links expo every year. That should be their priority. If they want to talk about priorities, the government should look at privatisation in terms of restoring the funding that they are cutting for community legal centres. I just met with representatives from the Australian Services Union in a parliamentary briefing in relation to the cuts that the government are undertaking in terms of community legal centre funding and cuts they are undertaking in mental health funding and gaps.

We know that the Personal Helpers and Mentors and Partners in Recovery funding is being rolled into the NDIS, and some of those services are delivered by Aftercare, through headspace, in my electorate, in Ipswich. If the government want to talk about priorities, do not prioritise this sort of legislation; prioritise funding for the NDIS, prioritise funding for PhaMs, prioritise funding for Partners in Recovery and prioritise funding for community legal centres. Make sure these things need to be funded and make sure those are your priorities. Do not prioritise funding for the big end of town and do not prioritise tax cuts for millionaires; prioritise funding for families, children and those living with disability and their carers. That is where the government's priorities should be, not this sort of legislation. I urge them to withdraw it. Go back to the drawing board. Stop being divided and start being committed to the unity of the Australian public and the Australian social compact.

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