Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Hansard source

This bill, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Income Support) Bill 2021, increases the base rate of working age payments, most notably the JobSeeker payment, by $50 a fortnight, or about $3.57 a day, from the end of this month. But, in practical terms, people who are relying on social security will face a $100-per-fortnight cut to their household budgets. That's because the coronavirus supplement, which is currently $150 a fortnight, will come to an end at the same time.

For some years now, this has been a vexed issue in Australia. The Labor Party has recognised that the current rate of JobSeeker is way too low and deliberately leaves Australians living in poverty. There's been a chorus of Australians—leaders, former prime ministers, the Reserve Bank governor—who've called for an increase in the rate of the JobSeeker payment. Labor will not stand in the way of this increase, as modest as it is. But the reality is that $3.57 a day will not cut it for most Australians who will be forced to live on this payment for a period of time. The reality is that people will still be living in poverty. Under this government, if this increase goes through, they will still be living below the defined, official level of the Henderson poverty line. That is a cruel reality for many Australians who are trying to make ends meet at one of their most vulnerable times. It's simply not enough.

The other reality is that the only way you're going to get a decent payment from JobSeeker is if there is a Labor government elected in Australia, because it's only Labor that inquires into this and ensures that there are decent increases in social security payments for some of the most vulnerable Australians at their most difficult times, to ensure that they and their families are not deliberately forced to live in poverty. So Labor is calling on the government to use the power of the Treasury benches, to use the power of government, to do the right thing. This really is about fairness and decency for Australian people and about growing the Australian economy and creating jobs, because there's an economic benefit from ensuring that people aren't living in poverty and that social security payments are adequate for people to be able to participate in society.

Too often, discussions about social security do not put the people affected front and centre. Living in poverty or getting by on very little must be incredibly tough. Over the past couple of months, I've met with a number of people in the community that I represent who have lost their jobs because of the recession and are on JobKeeper—even with the supplement—and are telling me about their struggles. I've met historically with people who've been on JobSeeker for many years, pre-COVID, who relayed to me their struggles just to survive and feed themselves and their families, let alone try and find work. It's been the reality for too many Australians for too long.

In a country like Australia, where we have relatively high living standards and are relatively wealthy, people should not deliberately be left living in poverty, but that is the outcome of this government's approach to welfare payments and, in particular, of this change to the JobSeeker payment. It's a full-time job, being poor. That's basically what a few people have told me—negotiating payment plans, hunting down the cheapest options, dealing with inadequate and slow public transport, and explaining to people why you can't come along to events or participate, simply because you can't afford it. And that's to say nothing of the stress or the worry that comes from knowing that bills are due, that a lease is up or that you won't be getting enough hours, because those hours that you may get will only be casual hours. It's hard to be in the best position to secure a job, if and when one comes along, when all your money, time and energy is taken up in just getting by. A haircut, decent clothes, training and transport—all of this is simply out of reach for too many people who are forced to try and survive on this payment. It's hard to have a go when you can't even get a start.

Labor have, for a long time, been calling for an increase in the rate of unemployment payments in Australia, as have many others. They include the Governor of the Reserve Bank, the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Retailers Association, academics and experts, and the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia—just to name a few. Even former Prime Minister John Howard and others from the Liberal side of politics have called for an adequate increase to the JobSeeker payment. I want to point to the words of the Reserve Bank governor, who recently said:

For me, it's not really a macroeconomic management issue. It's kind of a fairness issue on what's the appropriate level of support we should provide to people who are unemployed.

He also warned:

… there is still quite a way to go before we reach our goals of full employment and inflation consistent with the target.

This is due, he said, to 'substantial spare capacity'.

Increasing the rate of JobKeeper to ensure that you try and get people out of poverty is not only the fair and right thing to do; it's also good economic policy, because we all know that people who are on low incomes spend a higher proportion of that income on the necessities of life, if they are given a boost in that income, as we have seen with the coronavirus supplement—which was specifically targeted by this government at ensuring that we were boosting spending in the economy to support investment and to support businesses and to support jobs—and you provide them with a livable supplement. But this struggles to do that.

So we know that people who are on lower incomes, who are struggling to make ends meet, will spend a higher proportion of their income on their needs in the economy. And that's good for jobs. If we're talking about a recovery from this recession, then that is good for jobs. There have been numerous economic analyses which demonstrate that improved income support and improvements in the rate of JobSeeker and unemployment payments will basically pay for themselves over time. The analysis that was done by Deloitte came to a similar conclusion: if you provide an adequate increase in the rate of JobSeeker, it pays for itself in the increased economic activity that's generated from the increased spending, the jobs growth and the income taxation that's generated by that—it's good for everyone. Yet this government can't get past the ideological obsession, which they often have, and their belief that everyone on a JobSeeker payment or something like it is a dole bludger and is gaming the system.

There are simply not enough jobs in Australia for everyone who needs one. There are almost twice as many people relying on unemployment benefits as there were before the pandemic. We know that there could be up to 143 job applicants for every job vacancy when the government's mutual obligation requirements increase. The Senate committee that looked into this particular bill said that, as part of the increase, Australians on JobKeeper were required to apply for 20 jobs per month from 1 July as part of their mutual obligations.

When Labor senators asked officials from the Department of Social Services who fronted the committee whether they were aware how many job applications are expected for each vacancy when the 20-applications-per-month-rule returns, those officials were unable to provide advice and took the question on notice. But there were 192,000 job advertisements in February, based on the Internet Vacancy Index, and 1.38 million people on unemployment benefits, based on DSS data. That means that there could be up to 27 million applications each month, or 143 applications per job vacancy, if this was applied in that particular month. We're calling on the government to explain how it's reasonable to require Australians who are going to be struggling to make ends meet to look for work and to make those 20 job applications per month, particularly given the number of vacancies that we know exist.

The government's also gone further with this. Again, this goes to the ideology of this government and those opposite about people who are receiving supplements such as this. The government's now introducing a hotline for employers to report people who haven't agreed to a job, regardless of the reason. They're really showing the hallmarks of their ideology with this reform. I'm in full support of the amendment that's been moved by the member for Barton asking that this requirement be removed. Of all the bizarre things to emerge from this government, a hotline to report people for an interview has to be near the top of the list. It's not a plan for jobs. It's not a plan to get people back to work. This is a bizarre hotline that will inevitably see the government hound people looking for work, rather than assist them to get into employment. The philosophy of this, as I said, is about automatically seeing people who are receiving this supplement as welfare cheats and people who are trying to game the system, rather than people who have genuinely lost their jobs, are struggling to make ends meet and are trying to get back into the workforce.

The other point to make about JobSeeker recipients is that, in non-COVID times, the majority of people that were receiving the JobSeeker supplement aren't your stereotypical—in the eyes of the Liberal Party—welfare cheat. They're not young people who look like hippies that the government think are enjoying a good time being on JobSeeker. They are people who are over 45 and have lost their job. In non-COVID times, for men it's about 45 per cent and for women it's almost 55 per cent who make up those numbers of people who are over the age of 45 and are receiving job-seeking payments. So this ideological notion that all people are welfare cheats and they need to be punished by a hotline is simply wrong.

All it's doing is demonising older workers and making it harder for them to get back into the workforce and making them feel like they're not supported by this government and like they've been thrown on the scrapheap and that they don't matter anymore because of their age. That is completely unacceptable, particularly on the back of a recession, when people, in many respects, lost their jobs because of government regulations to keep people safe, to maintain safe borders and to ensure that we reduce the impact of the spread of the pandemic. So it's not fair for this government to have that approach and to try and implement changes such as this. That's why it's important that this parliament should consider supporting the amendment—the very sensible amendment that's been moved by the member for Barton—to remove that punitive and ideological approach of punishing people, the majority of whom are older workers trying to get back into the workforce, rather than supporting them, as Labor would do.

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