Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I've been absolutely relevant, Senator McKenzie, in pointing out the selective blindness of the government. We support the government in supporting farmers. The Greens support farmers. But there is selective blindness. There is inequity in the system. We are very happy to support the government in supporting farmers, but we call upon the government to support other people in our community who are doing it tough—people such as Alex Phillips, who can't afford margarine. The article continued:

He showered at the Salvos to save on water and heating and rather than use his washing machine for bed linen, he slept on his couch in an overcoat.

That is how over 700,000 people in Australia, in this richest country in the world, are being forced to live. Everybody in this chamber acknowledges that farmers are doing it tough and that they need support to weather times of drought or financial stress, but so are many, many more Australians. So why does the government give help to some people but not to others? It's baffling. We need an answer from the government. Why are you punishing some Australians while lifting others up? Didn't the Prime Minister declare that he was going to govern for all Australians? What happened to that? We have to stop treating income support payments like a political football. Newstart has not been increased in over 25 years. Both the government and Labor are ignoring people who are living in poverty. If we can afford to give those who are earning the highest incomes in the country a massive tax cut we can afford to increase Newstart as well as supporting our farmers.

While the Greens continued to be deeply concerned about this selective approach to income support, we will be supporting this bill today. Despite the consistent attacks of the government on the Greens for defending good governance and critical political rights and for providing opposition when it pushes its agenda to entrench power for the powerful, we will be supporting this bill, because it is absolutely critical that we provide timely relief for our farming community, particularly those dealing with the record-breaking drought. So I commend this bill to the Senate.