Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I flag that I will be moving Greens amendment (3) on sheet 7271, because the other amendments that I have are dependent upon the way the vote goes on that amendment. I would like to speak to this issue before I move amendment (3). I am going to play a little guessing game. Guess who said this in 2005 during the debate on the welfare to work bills of 2005:

… because Australia needs real welfare reform. After nine long years of talking about welfare reform, all we have here today is the Howard government legislating to import the worst of the American social security system. All the Howard government is doing today is creating a new army of working poor, vulnerable Australians who have no choices and very few chances to share in our nation’s wealth. This is the Americanisation of our social security system. It is not welfare reform. It is a fraud on the most vulnerable in our society.

The speech goes on to say:

All this bill will do is dump people from one welfare payment to a lower welfare payment. This is not the Australian way. Australians look out for each other when they are down on their luck. We give people a hand so that they can get back on their feet. That will not happen any more in Australia, as a result of these changes.

The speech went on to talk about breaching and penalty provisions, saying:

… amongst other things, an eight-week non-payment period for failing the activity test or the activity agreement three times in 12 months,

…   …   …

… the Howard government just repeating a mantra. It is the Howard government in a public policy rain dance. It cannot just say that it is moving people from welfare to work. It cannot just repeat its mantra over and over again. It cannot just do a rain dance and expect employment opportunities to shower down on people. It certainly cannot expect people’s job opportunities to improve when it is doing only one thing—and that is cutting people’s income support. Australia cannot have a government plagiarising America’s social failures. Australia needs real welfare reform.

…   …   …

Labor does believe that people who can work should work, but for those who cannot work we should provide care and respect. That certainly is not what is demonstrated in this legislation.

What Labor wants is real welfare reform that tackles the reasons why people are not working and delivers practical solutions. We support welfare reform that goes far beyond moving people from one welfare queue to another—the dole. That is what this bill will do. It will move people from one welfare queue to the dole. Real welfare reform would give people the chance to get the skills an employer needs and then get a job. Real welfare reform would make sure people get a fair reward for effort. When someone gets paid for working, their pay should not be eaten up by tax and the loss of welfare payments.

…   …   …

Real welfare reform understands that being a parent is an important job in itself and that work makes families more secure. Real welfare reform helps parents find the balance between supporting their family and raising their kids … But instead of real welfare reform, these welfare changes will just shuffle people from one Centrelink database to another. These changes will cut income support for the most vulnerable Australians and reduce the rewards from work. That is the real result of the legislation we are debating today. This legislation will cut income support to vulnerable Australians and reduce the rewards from work.

The government consistently ignores the impact of putting people on lower welfare payments. There is the immediate loss of money, but it also has a disastrous effect on people’s ability to work their way out of poverty.

And then the speech goes on to say how much will be cut from weekly payments, which is in 2005 figures. The speech goes on:

This means in plain and ordinary language that when this government dumps these people on the dole, they will get to keep less of every dollar they earn. What sort of welfare reform is it that says to people, ‘We’ll cut your payment and, when you get a job, you will keep less of what you are earning than you can keep now’?

The speech goes on for quite a bit talking about the Howard government's Welfare to Work legislation.

That speech was made by the now Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Minister Macklin. You probably thought that was me giving a speech in 2005. It wasn't; it was one of the ministers overseeing the further implementation of Welfare to Work. What a difference seven years makes. So did she not mean the words that she said then or does she not believe in what this government is doing now? Because exactly the same things apply seven years later—in fact, the figures are bigger. The impact on single parents has now grown. They are closer to living in poverty and are living in poverty even more than they were. This is talking about that cohort of people that further in the speech they talk about at least having been grandfathered. Now they are applying the same thing to these grandfathered people.

The Greens continue to oppose these measures, just as we did in 2005. It is a shame Minister Macklin no longer believes what she said in this speech, because everything she said here is still true—sending people into poverty is another barrier to employment. It is not fair for people to lose money when they are working and trying to balance supporting their family and their children. Those very same things apply, the same as they will apply next year and in 10 years time. We are talking about parents that are caring for future generations. We hear a lot about ending the cycle of poverty and breaking the poverty cycle. What this does is entrench it. That is why we will be opposing this schedule.

The amendment that I am about to move opposes the whole of schedule 1, which implements these parenting payment transition arrangements. What the government has done with this particular bill is a cute little trick: they have put in cutting parenting payments to single parents and to parenting payment partnered, but along with that have put the positive in there, which is, obviously, changing the liquid assets test, which is something that we all support. In other words, they are making it much more difficult and complicated for people to understand that you cannot just oppose this bill outright. We do not want to, obviously, oppose the changes to the liquid assets test. But the government will turn around and say, 'They don't even want to support the liquid assets test,' when it is something that we got them to put in the GFC package. We advocated for it. I stood up in this very chamber, asked questions about it and spoke about the need to maintain the new levels for the liquid assets test. We are moving to oppose this particular schedule so that the chamber can vote on this and express its opinion and then it can vote on the changes to the liquid assets test and express its opinion.

This is not good legislation. It is not the way to support and care for the most vulnerable in our community. I am sure that many of you in this chamber and a lot of people listening would have seen the Four Corners report a couple of weeks ago about the impact of poverty and about children growing up in poverty. I am sure many people actually shed a tear watching that. This bill is condemning children to further poverty and restricting their options for the future, because children growing up in poverty and parents trying to struggle to support their children in poverty helps entrench intergenerational poverty. It will not encourage parents into work because it will be another barrier. In fact, it acts as a disincentive because the income-free area decreases. You make it harder to cope when you are struggling to raise children on little money. I have not had a parent yet who does not want to give their children the best advantages they can.

It is actually even further demonising and denigrating single parents to imply that they need these sorts of incentives to try to find work, because they want to support their kids. Single parents have spoken to me about feeling despair and isolation, and being demonised because they think the government thinks they need to do this to encourage them into work when they are trying their hardest—cycling in and out of employment, not being able to look after their kids on holidays because they are subject to child unfriendly workplaces. You have one last chance, senators. I beg you to think again about this legislation. Vote with the Greens to oppose this schedule. Support the liquid assets test but vote with us to remove this schedule. I move Greens amendment (3) on sheet 7271:

(3) Schedule 1, page 3 (lines 1 to 22), TO BE OPPOSED.