Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Can I begin by saying that Labor will be moving a second reading amendment which has been drafted and distributed in my name. I will submit the amendment to the desk once we are able to do that. Believe it or not, this was the legislation that Angus Taylor actually gave a speech for some weeks ago.

An opposition member: Was it the right speech?

That's right. I just wanted to point that out.

The amendments are really important. I note that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Families and Social Services have just completed a press conference in the Prime Minister's courtyard. They were talking about the fact that the payment for the coronavirus supplement to JobSeeker will be reduced to $150 at the end of December and remain until the end of prescribed time for JobKeeper, which of course is in March. Labor is moving amendments in the Senate today that talk very much about the JobSeeker coronavirus supplement, which we are arguing should remain at at least $250, at least until the end of the JobKeeper payment.

We are also arguing it is another missed opportunity by the government to announce a long-anticipated and anxiously awaited announcement about a permanent increase to JobSeeker. The Business Council of Australia, ACOSS and everyone in between on that spectrum have agreed that JobSeeker needs a permanent increase. Labor has consistently called on that for a very long period of time. I just want to put those things on the record this morning in terms of what Labor will be moving.

Those things have been moved in this House and were defeated by the government, but we're moving them again in the Senate today. They are modest requests and they are inevitable requests that the government is going to have to grapple with. That's why I find it so baffling that the government wouldn't grapple with those things today. However, they are clearly not going to. The clear intention is to further reduce the coronavirus supplement to JobSeeker from the current $250 to $150. Labor's argument is that this is going to create two tiers of issues that I'd like to outline through you, Mr Speaker, to the House.

The first thing it's going to do is make it incredibly difficult for the people who are currently on JobSeeker. We know that that cohort of people is going to increase, according to the government, by about 300,000 before Christmas. So it won't be 1.6 million on JobSeeker; it will actually be something around the order of 1.8 million people. The other thing, of course, is that we know a very small amount of money for people on JobSeeker pushes them into poverty. It also makes it incredibly difficult for those people to participate in the jobs market and participate in seeking employment, which is of course what we on both sides of the House all want to see them be able to do. The second reason is an economic imperative. The economic imperative is this: we know that people who are on JobSeeker, living on smaller amounts of money, are more likely to spend all of the money that they are in receipt of in the economy. At a time when we are in a very deep recession and at a time when the economy needs stimulus, it just seems incredulous to me that the amount of the stimulus package for JobSeeker would be reduced. As I said, there's still no announcement about a permanent increase.

The amendment that I will be moving to the second reading today will be what's been circulated. It goes to the points that I've actually spoken about, including the fact that many pensioners—age pensioners, people on a disability support pension and people on carer payments—have faced increased costs during the pandemic. The Leader of the Labor Party made the point that, prior to the pandemic, people didn't have to spend money on masks or sanitisers. For people, particularly those people on a disability support pension, it has been extremely difficult with additional costs as a result of the pandemic.

The minister has the power under the Social Security Act to extend the coronavirus supplement but has chosen not to. We are appealing to the better angels of the government to think about this action carefully. These requests and the amendment Labor is moving are modest. They have been thought through very carefully. We are simply saying: keep the $250 extension, in line with the JobKeeper payment, which is until the end of March; better support pensioners, including age pension, disability support pension and carer payment recipients facing increased costs in protecting their health because of the coronavirus pandemic; and announce a permanent increase to JobSeeker.

I'd like to also say that the purpose of this omnibus bill is to introduce a number of technical and administrative amendments that go to compliance and sharing of information. One of the measures in this bill is to put beyond doubt that an offence applies to Services Australia generally, not just a particular officer of the agency. This change is proposed in the context of online service delivery, where an officer might not actually be provided with information. It also requires persons served with a formal notice or summons by a royal commission to produce documents or information, or give evidence, to comply with that requirement. It will require that, even if the document or information is protected by secrecy provisions in the social security and related law. This will ensure that the Department of Social Services and related agencies will participate fully in the disability royal commission and future royal commissions. That change will put the department in the same position as any other person served with the requirement by a royal commission under the Royal Commissions Act. My speech is brief—I just wanted to make that clear.

This bill will also make a range of technical amendments to correct errors and anomalies and repeal obsolete provisions. While Labor supports these changes, all Australians will never forget the government's dismal record when it comes to social security. The government has previously sought to make it very, very painful for people who are in receipt of social security, and to make it difficult for those Australians to access income support, in the hope that they just give up.

When it comes to compliance, no Australian can or will trust this government. For three long and anxious years the government pursued tens of thousands of Australians with false and inflated debts in what has now become known as the robodebt scheme. I still remember the many anxious Australians who contacted my office, seeking help and assistance during the early stages of this fiasco.

Scott Morrison, the present Prime Minister, was the Minister for Social Services when the massive robodebt system was launched in the 2015-16 budget. It was spruiked by the government as a more cost-effective and automatic way to cross-reference ATO payment summaries with Centrelink data. It had removed human checks and balances which had previously existed to protect people from unfair debts. I remember this very well because I was the shadow minister for human services at the time.

This government deliberately designed a system that was wrong and unfair and they applied it to hundreds of thousands of people who had access to Centrelink payment all the way back to 2010. This included expanding the system for vulnerable groups and drawing in people such as students who were very likely to have uneven earnings and for whom averaging was totally unsuitable. It counted on people's fears and anxieties in the hope that these false or inflated debts would not be challenged, that people would just give to the government out of fear of further legal cost.

This particular government has had a track record of demonising Australians who have lost work and had hours slashed. It has insulted millions of Australians in very hard circumstances by implying that they choose not to work. It has sought to find new ways to demonise and humiliate Australians doing it tough. It has sought to force older Australians who have lost their jobs—people like our parents and grandparents—to take humiliating drug tests and urine tests as a condition of receiving social security. It has sought to force Australians onto the cashless debit card, preventing them from purchasing basics and essentials at affordable prices. The social services minister has previously said that Australians receiving Newstart or JobSeeker spend their money on drugs and alcohol.

In closing, I want to take a brief moment to note in this place a number of developments we've learned through Senate estimates last week in relation to our social security system. We learned that the number of people on unemployment payments will surge to 1.8 million by December. This is an increase of 300,000 people from previous projections. In four years time that figure is expected to remain at almost one million. With so many Australians on unemployment support and more expected to lose their jobs, it's perplexing how the government plans to end the corona supplement on 31 September. They've now announced, of course, as I referred to earlier, that it will be continued at a lower rate until the end of March.

For all of this demonisation of social security recipients, the government forgets that they spend at local and small businesses. It means local and small businesses have more to spend on wages and jobs. Yet, when the social services minister was asked by Senate estimates how many jobs would be lost when the government ends the coronavirus supplement, she did not know. I suspect she still doesn't know. I want to reiterate from this side of the House that our call is for the government to provide certainty for Australians on unemployment support but also for local businesses by delivering a permanent increase to JobStart.

I finish my comments by moving:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes that:

(a) since the start of the recession, the number of people relying on unemployment payments has doubled;

(b) many pensioners—including those on the Age Pension, Disability Support Pension and Carer Payment—have faced increased costs during the pandemic; and

(c) the Minister has the power under the Social Security Act to extend the Coronavirus Supplement; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) extend the $250 per fortnight Coronavirus Supplement until March, in line with Jobkeeper;

(b) better support pensioners—including Age Pension, Disability Support Pension and Carer Payment recipients—facing increased costs in protecting their health because of the coronavirus pandemic; and

(c) announce a permanent increase to the base rate of the Jobseeker Payment".

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