Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm going to start by attempting to use the chamber as it's meant to be used, as a debating chamber. Unfortunately the member for Bowman has left, but I want to respond to some of the comments that he made in his stream of consciousness, including a challenge, as I understood it, to Labor members of the parliament to find a jobseeker unhappy with the COVID supplement. It's a strange challenge because of course we accept that people who are on JobSeeker are happy that there is a COVID supplement for two reasons. One is that people who were on JobSeeker—or Newstart, as it was previously known—before COVID now have enough money to live something more like a life of dignity above the poverty line. Of course they're happy about the COVID supplement. The second point is that those people who were employed before COVID hit but who lost their jobs—some of whom have never been on unemployment benefits in their lives—are happy that there is a COVID supplement because they're getting a rate of unemployment benefit that allows them to live a life of dignity above the poverty line. No-one on this side of the chamber is saying that the COVID supplement hasn't been successful, or that some of the measures that the government have put in place during this time haven't been successful. We argued for them. We negotiated them. We got them extended to people who had initially been left out by this government. The member for Bowman should know that, given he's been in this parliament during this year.

He also asked if we'd ever spoken to a taxpayer. I speak to taxpayers in my electorate all the time, and I'll tell you who I'm speaking to: people in my electorate who have been taxpayers their entire life and, because of the global pandemic, have found their family business has been smashed or have lost their job. I speak to people like Mark from my electorate, who is in a wheelchair and who after many years of unemployment found a job that he loved and was good at. He held it for 18 months and earned 40 per cent of the household's income. He was retrenched at the start of COVID and can't find another job. He's petrified that at the age of 56 he will never be employed again. He doesn't want to go on the disability support pension. He doesn't want to have to go on JobSeeker, be it at $40 a day or with the COVID supplement. He wants to work, but he doesn't qualify for the wage subsidy that the government introduced in the budget, and the Restart wage subsidy, which the Treasurer has tried to say is looking after older workers, has been an unmitigated failure, as we found out through estimates. Mark wants to work. He is an example of the people I am talking to. I am talking to people in my electorate of Dunkley who are feeling desperately the impact of the fact that in January of this year we had 4,572 people who were receiving Newstart and 459 young people on youth allowance and in October of this year we have 10,277 people on JobSeeker, what was Newstart—more than double. We've got 1,085 young people on youth allowance—more than double. They're the people I'm talking to. I can tell the member for Bowman and this chamber that the people I am talking to cannot believe that, if they cannot find a job in a jobs market where there are at least seven applicants for every available job, they are facing the prospect of the JobSeeker allowance reverting in March of next year to the base rate of $40 a day.

It's easy for people on the other side of the chamber to take cheap shots at us on the Labor side because we are standing up for people who need help. It's easy for the member for Bowman to call us opportunistic because, right now, at the time of almost the greatest need in Australia in a century, with a recession and a global pandemic, we are standing up and saying that this is the opportunity to increase allowances for people so that they can live above the poverty line, so that they can live a life of dignity and so that they can feed their family, pay their rent, afford to get on public transport to go and apply for a job or go to a job interview, put petrol in their car or go and buy a second-hand suit so they can go to a job interview. This debate shouldn't be ideological, because it's about people. It shouldn't be ideological, because we know that many of the groups that previously have said, 'Don't increase the rate of unemployment benefits, because it's a disincentive to work,' are now joining with the groups looking at it from the social welfare side and saying, 'Increase it so that people can live lives of dignity,' and saying to this government that the base rate of unemployment payments is not good enough. Yet this piece of legislation gets rid of the COVID supplement that the member for Bowman was rightly praising because it has worked. Apparently that is a reason to get rid of it in March next year, when no-one thinks we will be out of this recession. The RBA, the Business Council of Australia, the Retailers Association, community groups and economists across the spectrum support an increase in the base rate of unemployment payments. Yet we have before us a piece of legislation that in some respects holds unemployed people hostage because it allows COVID supplements and other improvements to the social security system that this government has brought in during the year, which are positives, at the same time as saying, 'Unemployed people will lose the COVID supplement and go back to $40 a day.' If you vote against the legislation, some people will miss out. If you vote for the legislation, other people will miss out. What a government! What a government to do that to the people who are most vulnerable in their time of need! Those are the people it should be representing. So don't accuse us of playing politics. Don't accuse us of being opportunistic. This government wrote the book on those things!

Last week, I held the second Dunkley community question time, where I asked members of my community to email me, Facebook me or otherwise contact me with the questions that they would like asked in the parliament if only they could get them asked. Deb from Seaford would like to know: why does the government not consider that people on JobSeeker over 64 who are not likely to find consistent work again after being made redundant need support? Deb has said: 'It's quite demoralising to be in this position at this time of life. There was support for under-35s in the budget, but more thought and care should be invested in looking out for the over-60s who've been made redundant and face greater challenges in finding employment again.' Deb is absolutely right. I've spoken about this in this parliament before and I will continue to speak about it until this government looks at employment programs for workers over the age of 50 that actually help them get back into employment. We know, if you lose your job when you're over the age of 50, it is nigh on impossible to find another one, and it is harder for women than for men. But this year's budget did nothing to help that, and this piece of legislation will do nothing to help that.

Marilyn wrote to me and said she would like to know: how do we get politicians to be accountable for their policies that do harm to the public? Well, if anyone has been following the absolute scandal of robodebt—unlawful debt notices being issued to the most vulnerable in our society and the government having to make a $1.2 billion payout to avoid going to trial and being exposed for exactly how culpable they are—they will know it's pretty hard at the moment to keep government politicians accountable for their policies that do harm to the public. Marilyn also wanted to know: how do we get JobSeeker raised to a livable level? Vote Labor, Marilyn, because it's not going to happen in a permanent way under this government when you listen to the contributions that are made on the other side of the chamber, when you hear someone describing cutting unemployment benefits back to $40 a day as 'tapering'. It's not going to happen under this government—having a proper increase to the base rate of unemployment benefits so that people can afford to look for a job. Vote Labor.

One in five people in Dunkley are on a pension—disability support pensioners; age pensioners; and carers, people who are spending their lives working to look after their friends and their family who can't care for themselves—and they have been abandoned by this government. I have had constituents say to me that the government's $250 payment before Christmas and another $250 payment after Christmas for aged-care pensioners feel like a slap in the face. It's almost an insult. Don't they know what electricity costs? Don't they know how hard it is to pay your rent or your mortgage when you're on a pension? Don't they know how much private health insurance is and how much food costs? It would seem that they don't. The member for Bowman invited us to talk to our constituents. I invite him to talk to his constituents. Perhaps he'll give another speech next time when he does.

A number of my Labor colleagues will talk about the evidence that has been presented to the Senate inquiry into this legislation and others that debunks the idea that increasing the base rate of unemployment benefits from $40 a day is somehow or another a disincentive to work. It's really important, so I'm going to talk about it as well. Professor Borland told that Senate committee:

Even before COVID, I would have thought, as many others have expressed, that there were strong arguments for making a permanent increase in the Newstart, now JobSeeker, payment.

…   …   …

… what COVID has done is give us a stronger evidentiary base for thinking that you could make that permanent increase without having significant adverse effects on the incentives to find work.

The research he has done has made a couple of main findings. They are:

One is that you could have a substantial increase in JobSeeker without adversely affecting incentives to take up paid work. Secondly, with the COVID-19 supplement to JobSeeker, we have had, in 2020, an experiment, if you like, on what the effect on incentives to find work would be of a higher rate of JobSeeker, and my evaluation of the evidence is that there is no evidence that the higher level of JobSeeker during 2020, with the COVID-19 supplement, has had any appreciable effect on incentives to take up paid work for the people who are receiving JobSeeker.

The Australian Retailers Association, which it's fair to say is not known as a leftie socialist organisation, said to the committee:

Social security recipients spend an estimated 58 per cent of their payments on retail goods or services at supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies … merchandise stores and … small businesses.

…   …   …

… the scheduled end of the JobSeeker payment will take the equivalent of $8½ billion per year from the retail sector. The equivalent of 130,000 Australian retail jobs are also on the line if we return the rate of the JobSeeker payment to its old base rate.

Next time any member of the Morrison government talks about their focus on jobs and their focus on the economy, you should remember that evidence—$8½ billion per year from the retail sector and the equivalent of 130,000 Australian retail jobs on the line. It's good for people and it's good for the economy. Raise the base rate of the unemployment benefit.

I'd like to finish my contribution by saying something on behalf of and to the amazing public servants who have worked at Centrelink for many years. They have written to me. A constituent has said, 'We all feel that we are also owed an apology.' Staff spoke up in the first instance about robodebt. They didn't believe it was right and they were told that it was going to happen and that, if they didn't like it, they should leave and find other employment. When I say 'first instance', I mean under this government, not the 1994 fairytale that the minister talked about in question time. Centrelink staff have dealt with anger, desperation, despair and frustration. They know why—because they were forced to implement decisions that weren't right and weren't accurate. They deserve an apology. I can't give them an apology on behalf of this government, but I can say, 'Thank you. We appreciate you.' (Time expired)

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