Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

A freeze on family payments is a cut to family payments; those opposite can play as many word games as they like. Are rents and mortgages going to freeze for two years? Are supermarkets going to freeze the price of groceries? Are power companies, water utilities, councils and private health insurers going to freeze their bills for two years? This two-year freeze on family payments is a cut and it is one that Australian families cannot afford—and that is assuming this remains a two-year freeze. We have all seen how this government likes to extend what are supposed to be short-term freezes. A Medicare rebate freeze introduced by Labor shortly before the 2013 election and meant to last less than a year remains in place after five years of coalition government. It is little wonder that I have zero confidence that this supposed two-year freeze will fare any better.

Once the indexation of family payments is frozen, what guarantee does this government offer that the freeze will be lifted? What assurances on anything could this government give that could ever be believed? This is a government that is sneaky, untruthful and uncaring. This is a government that takes money from families, pensioners, students and workers, lecturing them about the need to rein in the budget deficit and the duty not to saddle future generations with debt, but, in the next breath, gives massive tax cuts to millionaires and a $50 billion handout to corporations and banks.

As well as freezing family payments for two years, the Social Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 extends waiting periods. The impacts of this bill affect 1½ million Australian families. Many of them live in Tasmania. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, the constituents of my electorate cannot afford yet another cost-of-living wallop from this government. In my electorate of Lyons, 9,200 families receive family tax benefit A. Such households earn less than $52,000 a year. These are people already doing it tough. In Lyons, 6,967 families receive family tax benefit B to help make ends meet. Families with two primary-school-aged children in Tasmania are looking down the barrel of being $440 a year worse off. Those opposite may scoff and say, 'That's just a coffee or two a week,' but these are people who already struggle to meet their bills. Taking $8.50 a week from families who already scrape 20 cent pieces together for bread and milk is a real impact.

We must never forget that these measures are not new. They have been dragged off the shelf, and the cobwebs and dust have been blown off the cover. The cover would have had on it the words: '2014 budget submission: Treasurer Joe Hockey.' That is right—this is a submission from one of the worst budgets ever to be presented to this House, a budget so awful that it ended the parliamentary career of the former member for North Sydney and led to the downfall of the member for Warringah. It comes from a budget that brought us the infamy of 'lifters and leaners' and the image of the former Treasurer and the Minister for Finance puffing away on cigars in the parliamentary courtyard, content at a job well done.

These measures were born of a budget extraordinary for its meanness and its calumny of the Australian people. One would have thought this government would have preferred to never again be reminded of that budget of horrors, but the Liberals never let a bad idea die. They just put it on the shelf, where it waits to be reanimated. And it is the member for Pearce, the Minister for Social Services, who gets to play Dr Frankenstein. He has brought out the jumper cables and he has zapped Joe's zombie back to life. Like any good zombie, this one is going to be let loose to shuffle about in the community, wreaking havoc and leaving tears and tragedy in its wake.

There has been no consultation on this measure—neither of key stakeholders nor of the families who will be personally affected. These measures are striking in their meanness. At their heart, they make ordinary families pay the price of meeting the government's objectives to balance the budget and rein in debt, but the same government is removing its deficit levy on millionaires and still intends to hand $50 billion to corporations and banks. Families get a cut in income; corporations get a cut in tax. It does not make sense. Family tax benefits are in place for a reason: they stop families falling below the poverty line.

This bill also attacks students, amongst others. Students are generally thought of as a political free kick, but students in high school and at university are our sons and daughters. They are our grandsons and granddaughters and they deserve support. Many of them already do it tough. Many of them live at home. My own daughter is a university student, and she lives at home. She has the privilege of living at home and of having most of her expenses met by her mother and me. But there are a number of university students who do it very tough in the community. They need to pay rent and petrol, afford a car and buy their own textbooks. These are the people who will be hurt by these measures. They are already doing it very tough, and this just makes life tougher for them.

Students and others will see their income-free areas frozen for three years. This means that single parents, jobseekers and students will not be able to keep pace with the cost of living. This is particularly problematic when you consider that most income-support payments are already below the poverty line, so these cuts will push people who are already doing it tough to live in even harsher conditions. Practically speaking, these cuts will mean people on Newstart allowance will only be able to work three hours on the minimum wage before they are over their threshold and their payments are impacted. These moves do not encourage people to get work and stay in work; they punish them. This is a disincentive to getting out there and making a go of it. These measures kick the people earning the least in our nation.

We are a wealthy nation, one that can and should look after everyone. Freezing indexation is a cut—a plain, ugly cut. It is a cut when the people relying on these payments cannot afford it. It is an unfair cut at a time when inequality in this country is at its worst for decades. There has never been a time in living memory when income inequality in this country has been worse. There is an old saying: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and unfortunately that is true in Australia at the moment. It is this parliament's job to rein in that inequality, not make it worse.

This is a cut when wages growth is at record lows. Wages are stagnating. It is a cut when weekend penalty rates are under threat. This parliament has been debating for more than two weeks the penalty rate cuts that are coming into place for low-income workers, people who depend on penalty rates, on Sunday rates, for their income, people who face a $77 a week loss from their pay. It is a cut when workers are being pushed back into part time and casual work, when they are losing the security of full-time permanence. They lack security. They lack the ability to plan financially for the long term. This is a cut when company profits are surging 20 per cent, while wages for workers fell by half a per cent. I am pleased that company profits are doing well. When companies do well, workers do well. I am happy to admit that. I myself am formerly a small businessman. But there comes a time when we have to look at where the profit share is going. When companies are making these huge profits, where is the community dividend? If wages are flat and if the poorest people in this nation cannot afford to make ends meet then you have to ask: where are those corporate profits going? How are they helping the community?

These are cuts that the other side seem not to realise will hurt small business. They will bring in less tax revenue. When we cut the pay of so many people and so many families the downsides are immeasurable. The Liberals prioritise company profits over everyday Australians. In my first speech in this place I said that we live in a society, not an economy. The economy exists to serve us. We do not exist to serve the economy. That is so true in these words today.

Labor is not okay with these cuts. We oppose them. Attacks on families are not on. Families are the backbone of the Australian community. Those on the other side just do not seem to understand fairness or the concept of a hand-up rather than a handout. Just this week in Tasmania we heard about pensioners doing it really tough, running out of money and eating poorly to get by. I am holding up the feature page from the Sunday Tasmanian. It reads: 'Thousands endure a life of struggle.' A thousand Tasmanian pensioners told their story to the newspaper about how hard life is on the age pension: a pensioner couple buying an '$8 pack of supermarket sausages' and dividing them up into three portions to last three nights. We are a wealthy nation. We can do better by people who live so hard. These are the people who built this great nation with their hard work, their sweat and their tears, but now they cannot even afford fresh food and vegetables. It is shameful.

This bill also seeks to automate processes. If the coalition had agreed to excise that element from this bill we would support it. But seeing that they have insisted it be part of the entire bill we have no choice but to oppose the bill as a whole. The bill also extends waiting periods for Newstart and sickness allowance by another week before payments begin. Sickness allowance! The government is making people wait longer to get sickness allowance! This government is all about kicking people when they are down. It is a low act. Anyone who gets sick or loses their job is waiting longer to access even the small payments that help them get by. It is shameful.

Labor will not support this bill. It is not fair that those who are doing it the toughest are forced to do it even tougher. Struggling families should not have to carry the budget burden those opposite are creating. Australian families should not bear the burden of repairing a budget when this government is prepared to give $50 billion over the next 10 years to corporations and banks. We can do better as a nation.

See this speech in context