Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present three ministerial statements, relating to the future of ABC Learning childcare centres; pension reform; and Zimbabwe.

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

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document on pension reform.

I am concerned that, throughout the ministerial statement today on delivering pension reform, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs continues to refer simply to pensioners. This might be taken to imply that all pensioners were included in these changes, when this of course is not the case. There is one very important group of pensioners who were deliberately excluded from these reforms: single parent pensioners. The Australian Greens welcomed the move to increase the base rate of the age pension and a range of other pensions by $32.49 per week for singles and $10.14 for couples. The Greens have been campaigning for a number of years on the inadequacy of pension payments in the face of the rising cost of living and other costs and welcomed the increase in the pension rate as an important step in the right direction.

The increase announced by the minister to the base pension rate includes some, but not all, disability support pensions as well as carers pensions and veteran widows and wives pensions. It does not include the single parent pension and it also excludes disability support pensioners who are under 21 and do not have dependent children. That these groups were excluded from an increase in the base pension rate, which was designed to deal with the rising cost of living, makes absolutely no sense to us as these groups face exactly the same cost of living pressures—greater pressures, in fact, in the case of single parents, who have several mouths to feed and growing children. It does not extend to those on unemployment benefits, which includes those single parent families with school age children, who were forced onto Newstart under the previous government’s punitive Welfare to Work regime.

In the ministerial statement, the minister shared with us a heartbreaking story about an age pensioner living on vegetable scraps and noodle soup. While increasing the base rate of the age pension may now help out this particular pensioner, which of course we are very pleased about, you have to wonder: are unemployed Australians struggling to get by with even less income support, now to the tune of around $106 less per week, any less deserving than these age pensioners? What about the plight of children growing up in single parent families who are excluded from the increase in the rates of the other pensions? Not only will they suffer poor nutrition, which of course will impact their health and wellbeing in exactly the same way as it does age pensioners; they will also suffer long-term developmental impacts, reducing their prospects in life and increasing the risk of chronic long-term health problems. The Greens remain extremely concerned that these groups have been excluded from the pension rise for no valid reason and that the disparity in the different types of income support payments continues to grow.

This measure arguably represents one of the most significant changes to Australia’s social security safety net since the Whitlam era. For the first time in our history, we have a Labor government deliberately making a distinction between types of pensioners. On the one hand, we have a group, including those on the age pension, who are finally receiving a deserved significant increase. On the other hand, we have those on the single parent pension and younger disability support pensioners who will not receive this increase. There is no credible rationale at all for this distinction. On the face of it, the only reason could be that perhaps we have the deserving poor and then another group of undeserving poor. No evidence has been presented that the impacts of the cost of living are greater for one group than for another—none. There is no justification for why one group gets it and one does not.

If current pension rates cannot adequately sustain a single age pensioner, which, of course, they clearly do not, how is it that the government thinks that those on sole pensions trying to raise children or unemployed people will be able to get by on even less? The minister uses quite legitimate examples to show what impacts the costs of living have on age pensioners, but it seems those costs of living do not apply to those trying to raise children on a single pension. I suspect and I hope that some of my colleagues in the government can see and are uneasy about this one-sided reform. I know that many people in society share our concern about these inequitable changes to pensions.

I will say it again so no-one is under any illusions: the Greens strongly support and always have supported the increase in the age pension. But we absolutely reject any justification for the fact that that increase was not delivered to single parents, who are raising the next generation of Australians. You will have nearly one million people living in poverty because they have not been granted that increase. Then you will have the people trying to survive on Newstart who are struggling on even less than single parents receive. How is that fair in a so-called equitable and fair society? It is not. A lot more work needs to be done to improve our income support and pension system. We need ongoing pension reform so that those left behind in these last increases are included in further reforms. These reforms represent the introduction of significant structural changes and we need further reforms.

The government has attempted to argue that there was an opportunity for consultation around these increases—or an increase in one case and not in another. There was no consultation in that process. There was no consultation on the issue of only delivering the pension reforms to one group of people and not another. The government claims that that was done through the Harmer pension review and the Henry review of retirement incomes and that these reforms were based on the findings of those inquiries. However, both of those inquiries had narrow terms of reference. They did not include the social security system as a whole, so the government cannot use those reviews to justify the fact that whole groups of people were left out of the reform process. It did not look at the impacts of the cost-of-living pressures on other groups on income support, including single parents and unemployed people.

We are now seeing a significant change to our social security system where, as I said, we are moving away from the base rate of pension being delivered to all pensioners and towards an approach where there is a deserving group and an undeserving group. Not only did the government not increase the pension for single parents; they also changed the family tax benefit A and B rates, which also have a significant impact on single parents trying to raise children.

These people need our support. These children who will be growing up in poverty need the support of a just and equitable society. Unfortunately, they are not getting it. The Greens are extremely concerned about the plight of the 600,000 or more children growing up in 360,000 single parent homes. As I said, that is nearly one million people who will be living in poverty and moving further down the poverty ladder because they simply cannot meet the increasing cost of living.

At least 20,000 other single-parent families have been moved onto the Newstart allowance under Welfare to Work. These people have also been excluded from these pension increases. I ask the government: how do they think this policy is consistent with their policy agenda of social inclusion? It is complete anathema to social inclusion.

Then there are the issues around Newstart, which, as I said, is now $106 less per week than the single age pension. This was designed as a short-term payment for unemployed people to support and encourage them in transitioning into the workforce; it was not designed as long-term support to families. However, that is exactly what is happening, as an increasing number of people, unfortunately, are becoming unemployed. People are not helped by living in poverty, even on a short-term basis. We know that social science shows us that, if people remain in poverty, they become involved in a poverty trap and that it is a downward spiral; they do not easily come out of that.

If you only look at this from an economic perspective, leaving aside the social perspective, you know that the social science shows is that it is better to support people, not drive them into poverty. It is much better from a societal point of view to assist people out of poverty, not to condemn them to poverty. That is what this government’s approach did—it condemned a million people in this country to poverty, and it is not good enough. These people deserve a rise, the same as any other pensioner. The government has let these families down, and I urge them to reconsider their position. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.