Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I rise to speak to this so-called strengthening the safety net bill. This bill, the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023, is not strengthening the safety net. As one of the witnesses to the inquiry into this bill said:

… I wouldn't call it a safety net, I would call it a parachute with holes. If you are on JobSeeker, you are going to hit the bottom at some point.

This bill is putting a tiny patch on that parachute with holes. It is not going to lift people out of poverty. It is going to leave people in dire poverty, leave people who are on JobSeeker, on youth allowance, on student allowance in dire poverty. That is a choice that this government is making. Poverty is a political choice the Liberal Party made in their decade in power. They slashed income support payments, they tore holes in the safety net that was already inadequate and they made life harder for people who were doing it the worst.

We welcomed the changes that were made during the COVID pandemic, including both the COVID supplement and the increases to the income free area, and we opposed their removal. They were temporary changes but they were positive. Doubling the amount jobseekers were allowed to earn lifted people above the poverty line. It lifted people out of poverty. It enabled people to live a modest life of dignity. It enabled people to get back into the workforce. It enabled people to repair their car. It enabled people to repair their washing machine so they had clean clothes for job interviews. The evidence shows very clearly that, during the COVID pandemic, when people were lifted out of poverty, more people were able to enter the workforce and other people who were not able to work were able to at least get by and not be in the shameful position of not being able to live, to put food on the table, to pay the rent, to pay for their medicines.

When those temporary COVID changes were reversed, however, there was still some hope with the change of government. There was hope from progressive voters and from people across the country: what were Labor going to do in government if they were elected? They thought the election of a Labor government would mean a change for people on JobSeeker. But, sadly, we have seen this government join the Liberals in choosing to ignore the urgent calls for action to undertake a meaningful increase in the rate of JobSeeker.

We have seen evidence mount since the election for urgent action. As chair of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee inquiry into poverty in Australia, I have travelled the country. We've been holding hearings in most states and territories. We've heard from people with direct experience, community organisations, economists and the national peak bodies, and there has been a single, clear, unified call from dozens of witnesses, across all the people we've spoken to. They've called for the government to increase the rate of JobSeeker so people are no longer living in poverty.

Since the election we've seen the work of the government's own hand-picked Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. That committee was chaired by a former Labor minister, and it made a clear finding that the rate of JobSeeker was seriously inadequate. It also made clear, in its very first recommendation, that it recommended:

The Government commit to a substantial increase in the base rates of JobSeeker Payment and related working age payments as a first priority.

Even after that report, however, the government refused to commit to an increase in JobSeeker.

There was an open letter that was signed by the Greens, Labor backbenchers and other members of parliament. They also called for an urgent increase. At the same time we have seen rental costs skyrocketing, increasing in double digits. In the last quarter we have seen the largest increase in rents across the country in the last 35 years. A new wave of people are facing a cost-of-living crisis and are facing a housing crisis due to rental increases. Rental increases put incredible increased pressure on the safety net—one that is already inadequate.

In the face of mounting evidence on the seriously inadequate rate of JobSeeker, in the face of a rental crisis, our Labor government made a choice. Sadly, they have not chosen to side with the people on JobSeeker. They chose an absolutely paltry increase of $2.85 a day, or $40 a fortnight—not even enough to pay for half a loaf of bread, not enough to pay for a coffee. It's less than the increase the Liberals had in place when they removed the coronavirus supplement. I know that in the last couple of days the government has been saying that the application of indexation on top of the JobSeeker increase will mean an increase of $56 a fortnight. Okay. That makes it $4 a day rather than $2.86. It is hardly even going to be able to allow people to provide a piece of fruit in their kid's lunch box. That's the increase that is being made. That increase of $4 a day still leaves people on payments well below the poverty line, which Labor's own expert Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee said was seriously inadequate.

As for claiming that it's a win because they are increasing the amount by CPI, governments on both sides increased JobSeeker by CPI. It was a standard thing to do. That's setting aside the fact that the cost of living for people on JobSeeker is actually outstripping CPI. Rents have gone up massively more than CPI. Food costs have gone up massively more than CPI. Even that indexation is not keeping pace with the increased cost of living, and the people who are on JobSeeker are those who are having to face the hardest impact of that increase in the cost of living.

The fundamental reality is that Labor have made a choice. They have chosen $300 billion in the stage 3 tax cuts. They have chosen the $368 billion for the AUKUS submarines. They have chosen to have a $20 billion surplus rather than implementing a meaningful rate of increase for JobSeeker. And all three of these things—the AUKUS submarines, the stage 3 tax cuts and the budget surplus—were also the Liberal Party's priorities. It is tragic to see a Labor government, after a decade in opposition, come into government and clearly signal through its budget priorities that it is refusing to diverge from the settings of the appalling, atrocious decade of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government. Poverty is a political choice. We know that. I am heartbroken that, despite the calls from across the community, there hasn't been an answer from this Labor government, who claim that they are leaving no-one behind. They are leaving everyone who is on JobSeeker well behind. I am heartbroken that this Labor government has not answered those calls and put into place a meaningful increase to the rate of JobSeeker.

There are four measures in this bill. There's the inadequate $40 a fortnight increase that Labor has brought forward—a complete failure to respond to the unanimous calls from across the community. There is the change that will enable people who are long-term unemployed to access a higher rate of JobSeeker when they are 55 rather than 60 years old. There's the change to enable single principal carers to receive the parenting payment single until their youngest child turns 14 rather than eight, as was legislated by former Prime Minister Howard. There's also a 15 per cent increase to the rate of Commonwealth rent assistance. That is an absolute drop in the bucket—a drop in the ocean—given the rental increases that are being experienced by people.

Obviously, we as Greens are not going to stand in the way of the tiny increases that are being put forward in this bill, but we will be absolutely clear that they are not enough. I will foreshadow, given they are not enough, that we, having listened to the calls from the community, are going to be putting forward a number of amendments to this bill. We will have amendments to lift the base rate of JobSeeker and other income support payments to $88 a day—above the poverty line. If Labor and the Liberals choose to vote together to vote these amendments down, that is going to be on their heads. But then we will have other amendments that would lift the base rate of JobSeeker to $68 a day, in line with the recommendations of the government's own hand-picked Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. You would hope—however, I am sadly not expecting it—that the government would actually be listening to their own hand-picked committee Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and support that amendment.

We also have amendments to lift the rate of Commonwealth rent assistance. Again, we hope that Labor won't join with the Liberals to vote down those amendments. We will have an amendment to change the age at which people are able to stay on parenting payment single to implement in full the changes proposed by—again—the government's own Women's Economic Equality Taskforce so that single principal carers are able to receive the parenting payment single until their youngest child turns 16. And importantly, we would want to see those changes implemented as soon as possible, on royal assent, to help the thousands of single parents who have been forced off the payment due to the delay in implementing the budget measures.

The Greens have an amendment to increase the income-free area for most payments to $300 a fortnight, because, yes, allowing jobseekers to earn more is important; it needs to be in addition to increasing the base rate of payments. It was a change that we supported during the COVID-19 pandemic and it is a change that we have in our election platform. We also have an amendment to implement recommendation 18.2 of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme. There has been extensive in-depth examination of the robodebt scheme and its harmful impacts, and one of the recommendations for a clear, simple change was reinstating measures that were abandoned in 2016 by the Abbott government that enabled charging for debts more than six years old, which contributed to the cruelty of robodebt. That recommendation identified specific clauses in legislation and could be implemented quickly through this bill, and we think that is an appropriate step. We think these are important amendments. They are amendments that would improve the conditions of hundreds of thousands of people in our community and they are constructive. We call upon the government and the Liberal Party to support them because they would make a real difference in people's lives.

I have spoken about the support across the community for an increase in the rate of jobseeker. The most important voices that I want to bring into this place are the calls from those with direct experience of living on income support. I want to share some of the direct evidence we have heard during the inquiry into poverty. Joe said, 'I am 58 years old. I have been waiting for a total hip replacement for 14 months. I get $683.40 per fortnight on JobSeeker. It should be more than that, but Centrelink has not recognised my new lease that I have uploaded three times, or answered my calls. I am going to lose this tooth because I can't afford to see a dentist.' Rebecca said, 'When you are on it, the indignity of being on Centrelink and the hold that people have over you. Literally, if you miss a call for some reason, say you run to the toilet and in the five minutes you have gone to the toilet they call you in the hour period of time that they are supposed to call you, they cut off your payment.' Jennifer said, 'I spent nearly eight years living in my car because I could not find anywhere suitable to live. The longer I went without anywhere to live, without an address, the harder it became for me to find anywhere suitable to live.'

I think of the evidence that we have heard about families—homeless, children living in cars, children living in tents. You can't have a dignified life like that, but that is what being on jobseeker payments is confining people to. It is destroying their lives, and for children in those families it is having a major impact. It is bad for them. It is bad for the country. We know what needs to happen. The evidence is so very clear. It is overwhelmingly clear, and I just call on this government to listen to it. We must raise the rates of income support. We must raise income support above the poverty line. We must raise the rate to at least $88 a day.

So for all of those out in the community who are fighting for a meaningful increase to the rate of jobseeker, we will keep fighting, we will keep pushing, until we get that success. The evidence is clear: we must raise the rate. We will listen to you and we will be working with you until we achieve that outcome.