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

In the short time I have available before we adjourn tonight I'd like to contemplate how I, in my portfolio areas, would spend the $23 billion a year that the government is determined to thrust at the most wealthy in our country. I would start by increasing Newstart by at least $75 a week. In fact, with $23 billion I could make that increase much higher and people could reach some parity with the age pension. I would make sure that youth allowance is increased so that there's a liveable income for young people, who we know have the highest level of unemployment in this country and need that support. I would ensure that spending on mental health was brought up to what is called the parity of esteem—in other words, that the money we spent on mental health was equivalent to the percentage of the burden on our ill health that it is. It is far below that at this time. I would make sure that we paid reparations to the stolen generations, something that this government hasn't done and something that the Labor government, when they gave the apology, failed to do. I would make sure that funding for housing in remote communities met the needs of everybody in those communities and that people were not forced to live with up to 20 people to a house. I would make sure that we properly funded programs to address otitis media, which is at pandemic proportions in our remote communities. I would make sure we had properly funded hearing programs and programs to meet the early learning difficulties caused in Aboriginal communities by the burden of hearing loss, which delays learning development—