Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is shameful, as the member for Canberra says. It is shameful. We're here, staying in our nice little comfortable hotels or wherever it is that we're staying. We're free to eat our meals at the trough or to go and buy vegies at Coles and cook our own food. Let's stop and give a thought to the fact that, just today, each one of us is getting a travel allowance that is more than what people on JobSeeker are getting per week. Think about what it would be like if you had to make today's travel allowance last a week—with children. Then, on top of that, you have to fulfil your obligations to look for a job. Then, on top of that, you have to go to job interviews, using public transport—it might be $30, maybe $15 a day if you're lucky—or filling your car up with petrol. Then, on top of that, you have to put aside some money for your electricity bill, your rent, your gas bill and your water bill. Then, on top of that, if you've got school-age children, you've got to get them off to school every day, buy their school uniforms and fill their lunch boxes with the things that children want in their lunch boxes so that they don't stand out from the rest of the kids. Take a minute to imagine making today's travel allowance last a week.

That is what it's like for millions of Australians who, on 31 March, will have their JobSeeker allowance reduced to what we're given per day in travel allowance. We tell them, 'That's okay, because you're going to get a $3.57-a-day increase.' We couldn't survive on that. None of us here, I guarantee you, could survive on one day of travel allowance to last us a week. I guarantee you none of us could do that. Those of us who have had to do it are the ones who know exactly how hard it is, along with those of us who speak to our constituents who are doing it and who come to us and say: 'I've got a choice. Do I buy my food or do I buy my medication? Do I feed my kids or do I feed myself?'

I've been there. I've been the one who waits for her kids to finish eating so that she can have the leftovers, because you just can't afford to feed everyone. Just take a minute to imagine what that's like. I know that there are good people with good hearts in this place, and perhaps if we did that—perhaps if we cut through all the discourse and all the narrative and the rhetoric and all this crap about lifters and leaners and all of those people who are spending their Newstart allowance on drugs and are lazy—we could find the heart in this place to feel something more for the Australians who are left behind. Maybe we could find the heart in this place to find a little more generosity for those people who find themselves in situations not of their making, the victims of circumstance out there.

So, as I said, we're going to support this increase, because it's an increase. Three dollars fifty-seven might buy another Happy Meal as a treat for a kid every fortnight, might buy a cup of coffee, might buy a tin of dog food or might buy a pack of chewing gum. In fact, it just covers a pack of chewing gum a day. But I stand here and support this knowing full well that it is not enough. But I'm heartened by the fact that there are, at least on this side, enough people who understand that, and I'm heartened by the fact that, on the other side, there are some people who understand that too. I'm heartened by the fact that we can find the heart in this place. We can bring the heart to parliament. We can be more generous. We just need the political will.

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