Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very grateful for his intervention, because he is absolutely correct. What the Prime Minister said was grotesque, cowardly and dishonest and an insult to the one million Australians trapped in poverty and unemployment.

A first speech is an important occasion in the parliament. It's an opportunity to say what you really think, and it's an opportunity to say what the right course is for the country. I think it's worth returning to the Prime Minister's first speech, which he gave to the House of Representatives on 14 February, 2008, following his election in Cook. Incidentally, that was the very moment that he switched his support from the Sydney Roosters to the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks in another craven attempt to suck up to the people of Cook. Here is what he said:

From my faith I derive the values of loving-kindness, justice and righteousness, to act with compassion and kindness, acknowledging our common humanity and to consider the welfare of others…

He went on to quote Desmond Tutu, of all people. He said:

... we expect Christians ... to be those who stand up for the truth, to stand up for justice, to stand on the side of the poor and the hungry, the homeless and the naked, and when that happens, then Christians will be trustworthy believable witnesses.

He's happy to talk about compassion and welfare when it is easy, when it is rhetoric and when it doesn't mean anything to the one in 10 households that live in poverty, but, when it comes to the substantial business of taking care of the poor, he has only unfunded empathy. It's an appearance. It's a performance. It's a line for the cameras and for the radio. The Prime Minister is a hollow man with hollow words.

The Newstart rate of $40 a day is not dignity. It's destitution. It's pushing people further into poverty. It's actively preventing them from getting work. Seven hundred and twenty two thousand Australians and their families rely upon the Newstart rate. I've seen what this means for working people. Working people who've lost their jobs are on average on Newstart for three years. Workers that have been left behind by change in the economy deserve a bit of dignity.

Fifty thousand workers were left behind by the closure of the auto industry, as were thousands of workers in other manufacturing sectors. Of course, factory closures have been a feature of this government. The evidence shows that when a factory closes one-third of workers get another job, one-third of workers retire and one-third never work again. Twenty-five per cent of Newstart recipients are over 55—that's nearly 200,000 Australians. Council of The Ageing's CEO, Ian Yates, said:

There are more unemployed workers between 55 and 64 than any other group of Australians and they receive Newstart income support payments longer than any other group as well.

They're condemned for the rest of their working-age life to $40 a day and a regime of weekly, punitive interventions. Newstart is too low to allow these workers to rebuild their lives. It's too hard. Social security should deliver a measure of dignity to people, and a capacity to rebuild their lives and get into work.

For Australians in tough positions, facing $40-a-day Newstart makes their lives worse. Single parents who have been shifted off the single-parent benefit—the result, I have to say, of a decision by a previous government—are in a terrible position. They face the declining ability to pay for household expenses; the prospect of homelessness; insecurity; big challenges like finding shoes to put on their children's feet and finding clothes for them to go to school—the terrible stress that that presents to those families: no jobs, no support, $40 a day. It's a much tougher row to hoe for people in rural and regional Australia, who, apparently, some people on the other side still care about: $40 a day, no hope, no dignity, no job.