Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Through you, Chair, on the point of order, I draw your attention to the preamble to Senator Pratt's question, where she made reference to the fact of the increase in the payment because of the coronavirus supplement. I was just trying to explain to her why that had been put in place, and provide the explanation around the $550. It was for an extraordinary set of circumstances. Before you took a point of order on me, I was about to acknowledge the fact that those opposite were absolutely 100 per cent behind the actions of the government to be able to put in place all of those measures that were put in place to help us when, as a country, we found ourselves in that situation. I want to acknowledge the bipartisan support that was provided to the government through the management of the early stages of the pandemic. I think all Australians appreciated the fact we worked together to do that. But, as I said, it recognised the fact that the jobs market closed overnight: there were no jobs, and hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs. That was the reason that we put it in place, along with the JobKeeper payments, which very successfully sought to help people maintain their engagement with their employer.

In reference to some of the further commentary in Senator Pratt's questions, some of the things that she was insinuating that I have been implying in my commentary are not necessarily correct. If she refers to my previous response to Senator Siewert, I've made it very, very clear that the government still considers what we're doing to be in a very temporary space, and we're looking at what we might need to do to respond to the economic conditions in the labour market, particularly what's currently before us.

That's why, Senator Pratt, we made the decision for the measures that are before us today in this bill. But, most particularly and clearly, the most important component of that is the extension of the coronavirus supplement post 31 December, which will provide an additional $3.2 billion over that three-month period in payments to Australians who find themselves on working age payments, so that they continue to have that elevated level of support, recognising that we are still in a COVID-19 affected world, a COVID-19 affected economy and a COVID-19 affected jobs market. That is where we are at the moment, and we will continue to work to make sure that we monitor the situation. But I also remind Senator Pratt that, with the constantly used '$40 a day', we always fail to recognise that very few people are on the base payment. In fact, I'm sure next to nobody is.

Senator Siewert interjecting—

It's not just the comments that we're getting from the other end of the chamber from Senator Siewert. Australia has one of the most comprehensive, targeted social safety net systems in the world. It is created as a safety net; it's not created as a wage replacement. It is targeted, and, as part of that targeting mechanism in our system, we actually look at the individual circumstances of people. If someone has children, they are supported through the family tax benefit system. If people are in a situation where they are renting, there's Commonwealth rent assistance available to them. If people are on low incomes—it's not just people on working-age payments, but people more generally who are on lower incomes—there are many subsidised and often free services for them in relation to being able to get access to pharmaceuticals, health care et cetera, and Australia does have a general healthcare system and an education system. So we have a very comprehensive welfare system, and it is very, very targeted. The constant references to '$40 a day' fail to recognise all of those other things that are associated—not just payments, but access to other services that would otherwise be required to be paid for, in, for instance, pharmaceutical allowances and supports and healthcare.