Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I'd like to say a massive thank you to everyone in Newcastle for the incredible lengths that you've gone to to support and protect each other during these times. I say thank you to the community organisations that almost instantly rallied to identify people in need and to work out ways in which they would be able to best help; to the businesses that faced their own significant challenges but put those aside to help health workers and those in our community who were doing it tough; to the individuals who reached out to offer support to strangers and friends alike; to everyone who sacrificed so much to keep our community healthy. You made me and all of us so proud to be Novocastrians. We are living through historic times. COVID-19 has affected every single one of us. It's changed our lives in ways that would have been very hard to imagine just a few months ago. Of course one of the most catastrophic impacts of this crisis has been the sudden hit on jobs. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of those civic leaders, people who are critical thinkers in our community, and the many grassroots activists and volunteers who really generously gave of their time with me to ensure that I understood the challenges and the impacts that this sudden loss of employment would mean for our region. I don't think any of us will ever forget that week when our Centrelink offices were filled to capacity and the lines spilled out the streets and around corners. This was a confronting sight for many in our community, and for many of the people lined up it was the first time in their lives they had ever engaged with Centrelink.

A key factor in addressing this unprecedented spike in job losses has been the JobKeeper wage subsidy. Let me be very clear: Labor supports the JobKeeper program. Indeed, we called for it for many, many weeks, and we were relieved that the government finally seemed to have understood the absolute necessity for a wage subsidy scheme in order to protect livelihoods and also to allow businesses and workers to remain connected so that they could get back to work quite rapidly when the time comes. But this support was never without constructive criticism from opposition. This was a very good program, but it was implemented very badly. From day one Labor has said that the scheme should have been better targeted. But this hasn't happened, and in my community thousands of people who should be getting JobKeeper support aren't, whilst some that don't need it are getting it. Tragically, some of the hardest hit industries are also the industries with the highest number of workers who are ineligible for support. Take retail or food and accommodation services, the third- and fourth-largest employing industries in my electorate. A huge number of businesses were forced to shut their doors, leaving staff jobless and in precarious financial situations. A lot are still trying to work out if it's financially viable to open up again under the current restrictions. But many of their staff are ineligible for the JobKeeper payment because they've worked with their employer for less than a year—something that is absolutely normal in these increasingly casualised industries. Likewise, a huge number of people in Newcastle's large, vibrant arts community also missed out. Why should these people be excluded from support because of the industries they happen to work in?

I've also been worried about the thousands of international students in Newcastle who have found themselves without income and with no capacity to return home, but they're ineligible for both Jobseeker and JobKeeper payments. While the University of Newcastle has been incredibly generous in providing support for these students, it shouldn't be up to the universities alone to fill this gap, especially given the dire financial pressures that are now facing our universities. Remember, this is a sector that has received zero support from this federal government. The universities have received nothing.

For those that are lucky enough to be able to get access to these payments, they have held off financial catastrophe. This makes the government's insistence that the increased Jobseeker rate, along with the JobKeeper program itself, will abruptly end in September even more reckless, especially given that the mortgage pauses that the banks have given homeowners to provide some breathing space are set to end at about the same time. Concerns about debt are legitimate, but the government needs to be very careful about the consequences of such a change in an economy that is still extremely fragile. If incomes are slashed and debts are called in before economic activity has recovered sufficiently, the outcomes will be dire and any perceived savings will quickly be outweighed by the devastating impacts of mass defaults and flatlining economic activity.

I'd like to move now to childcare workers because, regretfully, the government seems deaf to the warnings that have been raised across the social and political spectrum about the importance of continuing this protection until the economy has demonstrated it is strong enough to stand on its own. This week, we learned of plans to begin the JobKeeper shutdown to some of the most vital workers in our economy—the very people who were absolutely integral to ramping up the recovery. Of course, I speak of the early childhood educators. At the same time, the government will rip away the support it offered to families, with help with childcare fees. Families were already hammered by high fees before COVID-19. Fees climbed more than seven per cent in a one-year period alone. Now, when parents are earning less or have lost their jobs, this snapback will make early education and care completely unaffordable and inaccessible for many. For many families thinking about going back to work or increasing their hours, this announcement could lead them to think twice because of the crippling cost of child care. The government must also guarantee that bringing back fees won't result in plummeting enrolments and attendance rates, which will again threaten the viability of services.

I'd also like to highlight a really critical issue in terms of the diabolical increase in domestic violence in recent months. We know that violence against women and children worsens in the face of job losses and financial uncertainty. Add to this the increased pressure of families being largely confined to their home and the risk of domestic abuse increases even further. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the brutal reality that, for many women, home is not a safe place to be. In my community, I've remained in close contact with a number of frontline services who help women and children fleeing domestic violence—places like Nova for Women and Children, the Warlga Ngurra Women and Children's Refuge, and Jenny's Place. They've told me that, while the number of women contacting them about domestic violence is up, they are expecting this to spike further as the lockdown conditions ease. For the past few months, many women and children found themselves trapped at home with the perpetrators, unable to reach out for help, but this will soon change and many providers must have the resources they need to respond.

I'm heartened that the parliament will now undertake a comprehensive inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia, especially in the context of COVID-19. I acknowledge the chair in his role, and I'm honoured to be the deputy chair for this important work. But it won't be enough. We urgently need to invest in our frontline services to help women and children escape family violence, and we need that now. I have called many times in this parliament for assistance for Jenny's Place in Newcastle to adequately fund an important telephone resource, a helpline, and have been buck-passed from one level of government to the other. Nobody wants to own this problem, and yet, for a $300,000 investment over a three-year period, this parliament, right now, could make a difference to so many lives in my region. It's unconscionable to me that this has not been taken up by the ministers to date.

In summary, there are so many elements of the government's response to this pandemic which do have Labor's support, but there are areas where we know it's not enough. We must do better. We will hold government to account.

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