Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today with my Labor Party colleagues—including the member for Macarthur, who articulated very well what Labor feels about the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2017 and what Labor's position is—to oppose this bill. Here we go again. The Prime Minister and the Liberal coalition government are making yet another attempt at cutting support to ordinary and low-income Australians. The changes proposed in this bill will predominantly affect people with a disability, carers, sole parents and unemployed people who are reskilling and retraining. I see this bill not just in the context of social policy but also in the context of economic policy. The bill shows that the Prime Minister and the government are absolutely out of touch and are completely oblivious to the true costs of living for most Australians. In fact, it is uncaring.

I am deeply concerned by the proposals contained in schedules 2 and 3 of this bill—namely, the government's proposal to remove the eligibility for education entry payments for recipients who undertake less than 25 per cent of the full-time study load and the government's proposal to cut the amount payable under the education entry payment for those undertaking between 26 per cent and 75 per cent of the full-time study load. These payments function to give income support recipients the opportunity to reskill and to re-enter the work force, and isn't that what we want, so that this country has a consistently evolving and innovating workforce? The Prime Minister says that it's important to get income support recipients into the workforce. Yet there is a cut to the very payments and supports designed to do exactly that. I don't know whether it's incompetence, chaos or just a lack of caring.

Schedule 2 is the education entry payment. The education entry payment is an annual payment of $208 to assist certain social security recipients with the cost of education so that they can eventually re-enter the workforce. Recipients of Newstart, parenting payment single, the disability support pension, special benefit payments and the carer payment and some closing payment recipients are eligible to receive the education entry payment if they are studying an approved course. But what this bill proposes in schedule 2 is to link the amount of support received under this payment to study loads or the amount received under the pensioner education supplement.

The bill creates a definition for a normal amount of full-time study, and the payment received will be determined by the study load as a percentage of the full-time study. Students with a study load of between 51 per cent and 75 per cent will be $52 worse off per annum. Students with a study load of between 26 and 50 per cent will be $104 worse off per annum. In the 2016-17 financial year, 11,662 people received the education entry payment. Of those, 4,805 were recipients of the single parenting payment, 2,986 were recipients of the disability support pension, 2,762 were recipients of Newstart and 826 were recipients of the carer payment.

Recipients of the payment are less likely than other students to be able to undertake studies full-time, as they often have health barriers or caring responsibilities, as just articulated, that prevent them from doing so. The overwhelming majority are recipients of single parenting payments or the carer payment and disability support pensioners. Disproportionately, the carer payment and the parenting payment are paid to women, and it follows that this schedule will disproportionately impact on women; 94 per cent of recipients of single parenting payments are women.

I am also concerned about schedule 3, which includes cuts to the pensioner education supplement. The pensioner education supplement is a fortnightly payment to some social security recipients to assist with the ongoing cost of study. Currently the pensioner education supplement is paid at $62.40 per fortnight, or $1,622 per year, for full-time students or $31.20 per fortnight, $118 a year, for part-time students. That is a lot of money. It is paid in every fortnight, and the recipient receives the payment from Centrelink. This bill cuts the pensioner education supplement during non-study periods. This will result in a cut for every recipient of the supplement, as it will no longer be paid every fortnight of the year. How stingy and how mean is that?

Recipients of the pensioner education supplement, like recipients of the education entry payment, are less likely than other students to be able to maintain a full-time study load, because of health barriers and caring responsibility. Those with a study load of between 51 and 75 per cent and those with a study load of 25 per cent will be $15.60 worse off per fortnight. In the 2016-17 financial year, 37,717 people received the pensioner education supplement. Of those, about 16,000 were on the single parent payment, about 15,000 were recipients of the disability support pension, over 3,000 were recipients of the carer payment and well over 2,000 were recipients of Newstart—the same groups I spoke about earlier. The Australian Council of Social Service estimated that 75 per cent of recipients of the pensioner education supplement were women. It follows, as I said regarding the previous schedule, that this will disproportionately impact on women.

There is a theme emerging here. This is the latest attack on everyday, ordinary Australians—most significantly, Australians who are in receipt of those payments and who are desperately attempting to retrain and reskill themselves and get into the shrinking job market. And we have heard much about the fact that there are so many people who are underemployed. This is the very group of people the government says it wants to get into employment, yet these two schedules are doing everything to make it difficult for that group of people.

The Prime Minister and the government talk about getting income support recipients standing on their own feet and getting back into the workforce, as I just said, but how can one believe that? How can the public believe it?

More importantly, how can this significant group of people believe the government's rhetoric when the reality is that the mechanics of government are making it much more difficult?

The Prime Minister's favourite buzzwords of 'innovation' and 'agility' hold about as much political substance as something that evaporates. They look good; they sound good; but, ultimately, you just don't know what the Prime Minister actually stands for—and, by association, what this government stands for. If we want income support recipients off income support and back into the workforce, we need to help them reskill and skill up to ensure they are best placed to re-enter the workforce. If we want a constantly evolving workforce that meets the constantly evolving needs of the economy, we need to provide income support recipients with the capacity to reskill and skill up. These Australians, who so happen to need a bit of help to support them while they undertake further study, are being disproportionately punished.

I find astonishing the contempt with which this government views income support recipients. I have articulated this week and in the past, as my colleagues have, on countless occasions, the—I can't even find the words—veil of invisibility over that rhetoric. The pursuit of 20,000 Australians with the robo-debt recovery; forcing older Australians to wait for almost a year to qualify for the age pension; drug testing income support recipients despite the evidence against; 42 million unanswered calls to Centrelink; underfunding and under-resourcing Human Services, including axing 1,100 jobs; cutting back backdating payments, cutting back eligibility for the age pension: the list goes on in this victimisation. Those opposite are only interested in making it so difficult and so painful, and in feeding negative stereotypes about people who need our support—people who rely on governments of both persuasions to help them in the most difficult of times. This means that you on the other side are completely out of touch, and people understand that.

One of the principles of this country, one of the things that Australians pride themselves on, is the notion of a fair go, and this bill and these measures are not about a fair go. A fair go includes the times when many Australians require support. To cut these payments is, as I said earlier, stingy and mean. The education entry payment and the pensioner education supplement are most commonly paid to recipients of the parenting payment. As I said, most of them are women. A single mum working one shift a week has just had her family tax benefit rate frozen and her penalty rates cut, and she could be facing a loss of the energy supplement as well. The government say that they have given up on their unfair cuts, but we know—and this is an example—that those unfair cuts are well and truly alive.

This is a war being waged by the Liberals on the social safety net, something that we as Australians have built, should be proud of and should be protecting. We believe those who are unable to help themselves should be supported. We believe those who make a reasonable attempt at contributing to the economy, contributing to the community, but are unsuccessful, for many reasons, should be given the necessary support until they are in a position to do so. That is socially responsible. It is economically responsible, which is of course an important point. Labor believes in strengthening our social safety net, not diminishing it or overseeing its demise. Labor believes it can be and should be accessible and accountable to all Australians when they need it.

I finish my comments by saying that those of us on my side of the House are the people that are taking up the cudgels for those that need support. It astounds me that, in the desperate search for a negative narrative about people on income support, the government is undertaking these stingy, mean cost-saving measures to the cost of people who are seeking to improve their lives; to the cost of people who want to contribute to the economy; to the cost of people who are demonstrating, by re-entering the education and skilling system, that they are committed to what we are all committed to in this place, and that is getting people into employment.

Do not try to paint Labor as not wanting to get people back into employment. That is scandalous. That is what we want to do, and that is what these measures are doing, yet you see fit to slash those measures. You see fit to take away the very thing that is giving some people the hope of being able to re-skill and re-enter the workforce. Do you really think people want to be unemployed? Do you really think people want to have a disability? Do you really think people want to rely on a social safety net for their entire lives? No, they don't. Labor has been clear: if people are scamming the system, they should bear those consequences, but to put this bill into this place, attempting to undermine the very people you say you want to support, is nothing less than scandalous. It's duplicitous, and you should be ashamed of yourselves for doing so.

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