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

Well, God help those on low and middle incomes in Australia if they are relying on the coalition to look after them. That is all I can say, Senator O'Sullivan—through you, Madam Acting Deputy President—because there is absolutely no doubt that low- and middle-income Australians are continuing to lose out under the Turnbull government.

Let's look at the social security amendment legislation that went through this place last week, where they froze indexation on family tax benefit payment. Low- and middle-income families will clearly lose out on payments. Let's look at the freezing of the income-free area on Newstart, which means low-income Australians will have less money in their pockets over the next couple of years as that freeze starts to take effect. Let's look at what the government has been doing with the Centrelink autodebt process, where low- and middle-income Australians, but particularly low-income Australians, have been hit so hard with this incorrect, flawed process. The government could care less, quite frankly, about the impact of the incorrect debt notices that have been going out so heartlessly to Australians—20,000 Australians at a time through that process. What does the government say? 'It's working. We're going to pursue this.' Very wealthy Australians get to negotiate their million-dollar debts with the tax office. What do the government do to low- and middle-income Australians? They send around the debt collectors. In some instances, when it first started, the first thing some people knew about it was when they had the debt collectors knock at the door, because apparently the government could not find their address to send them the debt notices.

Then, of course, we go back to when the coalition first came in, to that horror budget. Who can forget Tony Abbott's first horror budget, where they clearly purposely, cruelly, unfairly targeted low-income Australians? Who can forget that cruel attempt to kick young people off income support for six months? Then they clearly saw that Australians did not support that and overwhelmingly rejected it. But so intent are they on still trying to save money on young people that they are now still attempting to do so, because there is still a bill on the books to kick young people off income support for an extra four weeks—in other words, kicking them off for five weeks. This ignores all the evidence that shows that living in poverty is a barrier to finding employment but, more importantly, that the jobs just are not there.

They keep having a bash. They keep trying to demonise those on Newstart or income support, saying they cannot find employment. They cannot find employment because the jobs are not there, but the value of Newstart is going down when we know that the value of youth allowance is going down, and we will make young people live on thin air for four weeks. But do not worry. They actually know that that is going to have an impact, because they are going to put a little bit of extra money, $8 million, into emergency relief. So people have to then go to emergency relief and ask for enough money to be able to eat that night. That is not good for low- and middle-income Australians, and it is not a good start for young people trying to find jobs. What do you think it does to their mental health and their self-esteem, let alone their physical health?

Inequality in this country is rising—wealth inequality and income inequality. The government clearly, in every budget, tries every time to take money off the most vulnerable members of our community. Let's look at the omnibus bill. That still has some horror measures in it. The government will still keep pursuing those cuts, we are told.

Then, of course, there are issues around penalty rates. Who do you think that is going to hit? Young people, the same people that they are telling to go and get a job. Once they get a job, we are actually going to make sure you have less money in your pocket, because we are going to cut penalty rates. That is, of course, assuming that people have been able to find housing and are not homeless. This government fails low- and middle-income Australians.