Nick Champion (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The nation has certainly been on a roller-coaster ride since the coronavirus pandemic hit the world and the nation. We're all fixated, I think, on the negative things, but there have been some positive things, and I want to give the government a bit of a pat on the back, because they came out with the JobSeeker coronavirus supplement and lifted JobSeeker by $550 a fortnight. What that did was lift 425,000 people out of poverty in this country. Think about that. You would think about that every single government speaker would come into this room and brag about such an achievement, because it is an achievement. Unfortunately they can't quite bring themselves to do it, so what we've had is a roller-coaster back the other way.

What we've seen is the government walking away from what has been an historic achievement, I think. I've seen the effects in my own electorate. I'm certain other members, including particularly those members in regional areas, have seen the effective elimination of poverty—real poverty as we've known it—in this country. Instead, what we've seen is a set of Christmas cuts. Think about that. They halved it to $250,000. What that did was shunt 42,000 South Australians, including some 3,000 children, back into poverty. They undid the good work that they had achieved. We saw a further cut this week, just today in fact, down to $150 a fortnight, with the uncertainty continuing not just until Christmas but into March. You've got to wonder what is going on in the government's head. They had a situation where they had eliminated poverty. They had pumped money into the local economies at a very important time.

We now know, because the government tell us every question time, that the COVID-19 recession has not finished. We know that wages are flat. We know that international tourism has gone. We've seen that in South Australia. We know that universities and local economies have been devastated by the absence of international students. We've seen so much of what we've come to believe is the modern economy disintegrate before our eyes. Here was a real chance at a significant achievement, of lifting a whole group of people out of poverty and injecting money into local communities, particularly communities like Elizabeth and Salisbury, which have always done it tough, having been on the 'bleeding edge' of economic reform. It hasn't been just 10 years of economic reform, but 30 years of economic reform, as tariffs have come down and we've internationalised our economy. That's had a brutal effect on places like Elizabeth and Salisbury. Our economies have been far more affected than others, and the gains have gone elsewhere. That might be good for the country, but it's certainly been very tough for locals. We had a situation where, in the face of a recession and a worldwide pandemic, the government did the right thing in lifting the JobSeeker payment and lifting many people out of poverty—and not just in my electorate. Deputy Speaker Llew O'Brien, no doubt you've seen the effects across regional Australia as well.

I've been told anecdotally that many of the charities aren't seeing their usual clientele anymore. A different set of people are attending. I've been told by police officers that they've seen crime go down. I know, because I've been in the local shops, the local pubs and the local businesses, that it has had a real and lasting effect on our local economies. I ask the government to consider the transformative moment that they might have had if they had just looked at this as an achievement, rather than something to get away from, rather than something to cut, rather than something to free themselves of. It's not too late for the Prime Minister and the government to grasp this opportunity and to look at the JobSeeker payment as an economic mechanism.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:34