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

I also take note of the response that the minister just tabled. You've got to ask yourself why the government isn't providing this information. Why won't the government tell us when they were first briefed by the CMO? What conclusion can you draw other than that there's something that they are hiding, something they don't want to tell the broader community? I'm a member of this committee, and the committee has been very diligent in its work. We've been holding two hearings a week basically since the committee started. So it's been very diligent about its work. It's a pity the government isn't being as diligent about providing the information that we ask for—also about the levels of accountability that it is requiring of itself and the people on the COVID-19 Coordination Commission, which the government set up, who aren't properly declaring their conflicts of interests and certainly aren't making those public. This is a commission with not only a large number of people from the fossil fuel industry but also people who have ongoing interests in the fossil fuel industry. They will not release publicly their conflicts of interest, and that directly relates to the work that our committee does—so that we can have a full understanding of just what is driving some of the recommendations that appear to be coming out of that commission.

In the hearing that the COVID commission appeared before the committee, the second one, when I asked for their final interim report, it wasn't available. I asked when it would be publicly released—not available. So just when is this vital information about our so-called recovery going to be made public?

That takes me to the issue of where the government is at with jobseeker. Yesterday we heard the minister not tell us precisely, which answered my question very clearly. She waffled around. Will it go back to $40 a day? It was obvious from the waffly answer that the government intended it to go back to $40 a day. Overnight, two media outlets—not just one but two—just happened to run the same story about a permanent increase in jobseeker, which quite clearly the government had released, because it stretches the bounds of credibility that two different outlets would run stories on a permanent increase to jobseeker without having been tipped off.

It makes me wonder if the government is worried that it is coming under a lot of pressure because Australians know that jobseeker is ending at the end of September. That means they won't be able to pay their mortgage, they won't be able to pay their rent and they won't be able to pay their essential services bills like electricity and water, let alone buy food. We know from lots of research—and also from the committee telling us—that, when you're trying to survive on $40 a day, food is discretionary, so that's often at the bottom of the list, and people go hungry. So the government wants to make it seem like there will perhaps be an increase in the jobseeker payment.

That's why I asked that of the minister today—for the community members and people who have lost their jobs and are staring down the barrel of that cliff at the end of September. They clearly want to muddy the waters out there by putting out a story that jobseeker may be increased—and then, when they were asked, they said, 'Don't believe what you read in the media.' Quite clearly, what the community should take from that is that the government is still intending to drop them down to $40 a day at the end of September. I say to the community: if you think that sucks, get onto the government, get onto your local members, get onto your local senators and tell them that it sucks and that it is simply untenable to live on $40 a day.

Question agreed to.