Senate debates

Thursday, 18 October 2018

Bills

Social Services Legislation Amendment (Ending the Poverty Trap) Bill 2018; Second Reading

4:04 pm

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

I rise to speak on the Australian Greens' Social Services Legislation Amendment (Ending the Poverty Trap) Bill 2018. This week is Anti-Poverty Week, and we have seen many reports this week from a broad range of organisations that have been clearly articulating the rate, level and impacts of poverty in this country. We have seen that, despite economic growth, poverty levels have remained entrenched at high levels for many years now. This bill will provide additional financial assistance to single recipients of the basic rate of the Newstart allowance, Austudy, sickness allowance, special benefit, widow allowance, crisis payment and youth allowance, increasing them by $75 a week. The bill will provide additional financial assistance to single recipients of the maximum rate of away-from-home rates of youth allowance, again to the amount of $75 a week. The intention is for ABSTUDY to be increased in the amount of $75 a week as well. However, this payment is based in policy rather than in legislation. This bill will also change the indexation arrangements for these payments and other income support payments to bring them into line with the higher of the CPI—the consumer price index—or the pensioner and beneficiary living cost index—the PBLCI.

Newstart, youth allowance and the other abovementioned payments have not had a real increase in nearly 25 years. The last time they had a real increase was in 1994. We are increasing the indexation to bring it into line with the pension rate because one of the reasons why these payments have fallen so far behind the real cost of living is that their indexation is not the same as the pension indexation rate. The evidence is overwhelming and it is clear. An increase to these payments will assist in alleviating poverty, help reduce income inequality and help people who are studying and seeking employment.

There are three million people in this country living in poverty, and that is a great shame to this country. This figure includes over 730,000 children. In a wealthy nation like ours, this is simply not good enough. In this wealthy country, no-one should be left behind. All of us should be able to live a good life with access to social services regardless of our postcode, our parents or our bank balance. Today I hope that we can together do something tangible for our community, for children living in poverty, for families, for students, for disabled people and for single parents, to help them pay their bills, put food on the table and pay their rent.

All people should be able to fully participate in our society. At the moment, people can't, because when you're living in poverty you just can't fully participate in our community. Without a sufficient income or sufficient wealth, we do not have a fair, just or productive community. Recipients of these income support payments face barriers to being able to participate in our society and to cover basic living costs. Newstart and youth allowance don't cover the necessities—housing, food, transport, health care and utilities. People on income support are skipping meals. We've seen that in evidence from people that talk of their lived experience. They're going without medication, they're not filling their scripts, they avoid using their heaters because they cannot pay their bills, and they can't pay their rent. Income inequality creates significant barriers to an individual's physical and mental wellbeing, societal cohesion and stability, and economic growth and productivity—and we've heard that from many organisations.

ACOSS, the Australian Council of Social Service, and the University of New South Wales have just released their report on inequality, entitled Inequality in Australia 2018. This report highlighted that those living on Newstart have very limited incomes. Specifically, it found that 63 per cent of Newstart recipient households are in the lowest five per cent of incomes. The report also found, with regard to income inequality, that someone in the top one per cent of the income scale earns more in a fortnight than someone in the lowest five per cent earns in a year. A strong societal safety net is key to addressing income inequality. It ensures that, when people fall on hard times, there are supports in place to help them when they need it most. Allowance payments need to be increased as a matter of urgency so that people receiving unemployment and student payments have the support they need, as they are facing some of the highest rates of poverty.

The ACOSS report Poverty in Australia 2018 found there are more than three million people living below the poverty line—as I said, including over 739,000 children. The Salvation Army's national 2018 Economic and Social Impact Survey reported that, after paying for accommodation, Newstart recipients were left with only $17 a day to cover their other expenses. I've tried living on that $17 a day, and you can't.

A University of New South Wales report released in 2017, New minimum income for healthy living budget standards for low-paid and unemployed Australians, found that the long-term decline in the adequacy of income support payments is 'a major policy failure that needs to be redressed'. This report, which builds on previous Australian and recent international research to develop a set of budget standards for low-paid and unemployed Australians and their families, outlined just how far Newstart is falling behind. The report found that those out of work and reliant on Newstart and safety net provisions fall short of estimated budget standards by $96 a week for a single person.

The National Sustainable Development Council, with the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, publish the Transforming Australia: SDG progress report, which outlines our progress towards meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The report found that, of our income support payments, only the pension is currently keeping up with the poverty line. It found that people on Newstart who would have been on the poverty line in the year 2000 were 20 per cent below the poverty line by 2014. Single recipients of the payment without dependants were worse off, being more than 25 per cent below the poverty line by 2014. The report attributes the difference between the pension and Newstart, as well as other allowances, mostly to indexation rules, which this bill seeks to rectify.

Research conducted by Relationships Australia entitled Is Australia experiencing an epidemic of loneliness? found that poverty and unemployment are significantly associated with loneliness, and that lonely people make greater use of the health system. Lack of employment and/or access to the social safety net is associated with a higher risk of loneliness for both men and women. Should it really come as any surprise that people living in poverty are experiencing loneliness and social isolation? Should it come as any surprise that people who can't get out and about in their community, due to a lack of resources, and who are unable to participate in the broader community because they are living below the poverty line are isolated? They can't get out with their friends or join the local sporting club or do many of the things that we take for granted. They are told again and again by this government that they should just go out and get a job, despite the fact that the jobs aren't there.

Imagine the impact of getting 20 rejections a month for jobs or sometimes not even getting a response to your application. I've lost count of the number of people who have told me they've put in an application and not even got a response or an acknowledgment. Older Australians have told me of applying for jobs and not getting a response and so they've rung up where they've applied. In one instance, it involved stacking shelves and they were told the job was gone. But then, days later, they saw online that the job was being advertised. So they were being actively discriminated against. The older gentleman who told me this story was devastated that he was unable to find work. He had been going above and beyond the requirements for seeking jobs. That has a distinct impact on your mental health.

The ACOSS and Jobs Australia report Faces of unemployment highlights exactly how difficult life is for people trying to find a job on Newstart. In May this year, figures showed—and these are believed to be conservative—that there were eight unemployed or underemployed people for every job vacancy and that 46 per cent of Newstart recipients are on the payment for over two years. This is not a transition payment any longer. Whenever we talk about this the government's response is that it's a 'transition payment'. Well, those figures demonstrate that it is simply not a transition payment. People are stuck living on it despite their best efforts to try to find work. Forty-six per cent are on the payment for over two years. I'll repeat: this is no longer a transition payment.

Living in poverty makes it harder and harder for those people to find work. I've asked time and again whether ministers in this government could live on $38 a day. Not once have we got an answer to say, 'Actually, I'd find it hard.' Not once. Not once have they responded that way when I've asked. They trot out the story that Newstart is supposed to be designed for transitioning into work. I've just highlighted how hard it is to live on $38 a day for over two years, and that's before you take out rent. It's because there are limited jobs available. People are living in poverty—dire poverty in many cases. This is the government gaslighting people. They are gaslighting people looking for work, telling them just to get a job and telling them that Newstart is just a transition payment when that is simply not true—and the figures bear that out.

This report highlights demographic groups stuck on Newstart and youth allowance payments long term and the failure of the current employment services to help particular and certain groups. People over 45 years old are the largest group of those in long-term unemployment. It is obvious the system is not supporting them. Those with disabilities are forced to live on Newstart long term. They're forced to prove they can't find work and live on Newstart and are not considered eligible for DSP. Of course, our First Nations people are disproportionately affected by this system that is simply not helping them to find work. In fact, as I was just referring to earlier in this chamber, they are discriminated against through the CDP program.

Faces of unemployment also shows how punitive and demeaning our employment framework is. We have one of the hardest compliance regimes and the harshest activity requirements for people looking for work, yet we spend less than half of the OECD average on employment assistance and services. Poverty undermines access to education and training, and educational outcomes are directly correlated with socioeconomic status. Poverty limits access to safe, secure and appropriate housing, transport, employment outcomes, child care and many other aspects of full participation in our society. Poverty has a devastating impact on children and their wellbeing. Children and young people deprived of food, clothes and other materials have reduced engagement with school, sometimes due to hunger, shame or being excluded or marginalised. It impacts children's development, education and, eventually, their long-term employment opportunities. Our social safety net should provide those unable to find paid work with a liveable income until they find employment. This is particularly important when finding work is difficult for many and poverty is a barrier to finding work. The government should not be adding to this stress by making it impossible for these people trying to survive on these payments, by making it more difficult for them to afford housing, food, transport and health care, among other things.

Increasing Newstart and related payments and amending the indexation arrangements will help reduce poverty for hundreds of thousands of Australians. The money spent on increasing these payments will also go straight back into the economy as much-needed goods and services are bought. Deloitte Access Economics recently released research showing that increasing the Newstart payment by $75 a week would boost the Australian economy by over $4 billion as a result of extra spending, because there are so many people living in deprivation that that extra money would go straight into buying those essential goods and services.

The government keeps spouting the same old tired lines about the best form of welfare being a job, refusing to acknowledge that poverty is in itself a barrier to employment and that there are not enough jobs out there. Anglicare Australia's Jobs availability snapshot 2018, released again this week, because it's Anti-Poverty Week, shows that in May 2018 there were 110,735 jobseekers with barriers to work but only 14 per cent of the jobs advertised were entry level, or what they call level 5 jobs. In other words, there are between four and five people competing for each entry-level job across Australia. The snapshot is invaluable in bursting open the government's perpetuated myth that jobseekers could get a job if they tried hard. Well, there are not enough jobs, no matter how hard they try.

And it doesn't end there. The figures are actually worse when you look at the state and territory breakdowns. The ratio of disadvantaged jobseekers to entry-level vacancies was 11.86 in Tasmania, 8.48 in South Australia and 5.93 in Western Australia, my home state. Fifty-one per cent of the respondents to the Salvation Army's national Economic and Social Impact Survey 2018 recorded that finding employment or getting into education and training was their greatest challenge on a day-to-day basis.

It is time to raise the rate of Newstart. We have well and truly passed that point. I ask this place to support this bill. I beg this place to support this bill. People in this country cannot survive on Newstart. Young people cannot survive on youth allowance. It is well past time that we increased the rate of Newstart. Seventy-five dollars a day won't magically fix everything—I'm not naive enough to believe that—but it will significantly help those people who are struggling to find work, who are struggling to make ends meet, and it will help ensure that children are not living in deprivation in this country. It is to the shame of this nation that children live in poverty, that we are unwilling to increase the scandalously low income support payments for Australians. We are a wealthy nation. We can afford it. We need to increase Newstart and youth allowance and the other payments covered in this bill. I urge this chamber to support this bill.

4:24 pm

Photo of Jane HumeJane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

It's extraordinary, isn't it, when you travel overseas and you see the difference in the standard of living between Australia, our home, and other countries. Sometimes you'll go to a place and you'll think, 'Wow, this is wonderful,' but you scratch the surface and you see underneath it the devastating poverty that not just keeps people down, keeps their standards of living low, but actually affects the quality of their lives so profoundly that you know that they can never transform their lives; they will never get out of that trap.

It is quite moving: it's always when you travel and you come home that you realise just how extraordinarily lucky we are in this country to have the opportunities that we do, that we are such a prosperous and successful society and how important it is to maintain that prosperity and that success. One of the reasons I joined the Liberal Party was the fundamental belief that I hold dear, and that I know my party holds dear, that a civilised society is essentially defined by its ability to look after those who can't look after themselves. We have a responsibility there. Whether the people are disabled or whether they are going through a particularly difficult time for one reason or another—such as a marriage breakdown, a loss of employment, an accident or whatever it might be—when people are unable to look after themselves we must do so. It is so important. Everything that we do, as part of this government, takes that very, very seriously. It is our primary responsibility not just to see our economy grow, thrive and flourish but to make sure that those who cannot look after themselves are looked after.

This is a government that I believe takes poverty extremely seriously. We want all Australian families to enjoy the highest quality of life that we can possibly enable for them. That is why we are so focused on growth and on jobs. When we talk about growth and jobs, they're conceptual ideas. Why are we interested in growth and why are we interested in jobs? It's because jobs and growth provide an improved standard of living not just for those at high incomes and not even just for those at medium incomes but for everybody who can participate. For everybody who can get a job, their standard of living improves. We know that the best way to reduce poverty—just like the best form of welfare, Senator Siewert—is, in fact, a job. Getting people into work is vital in improving the standard of living for Australians and for their families. Getting a job is a transformative moment in every person's life.

In Australia, we have a very comprehensive and targeted welfare system that is there to assist those who are doing it tough. At the same time, we have to be fair to taxpayers as well as to welfare recipients, because we have to understand that every dollar that is spent on welfare is a contribution from the taxpayer. There is no magic pudding; the money has to come from somewhere. We want a fair go for taxpayers. That's why our welfare system needs to be targeted to those who need it, not those who would like to have it. It needs to be targeted, sustainable and in line with community expectations.

In order to help people who are doing it tough in the future, it is the responsibility of the government of today to ensure that the welfare system is sustainable. The Morrison government's economic management is so very important to ensuring that we have a social safety net that we can rely on so that it can continue to provide into the future that support that those most in need depend upon. The government wants a welfare system that supports our most vulnerable and encourages those who are capable of work or study to do so. Most importantly, it reduces intergenerational welfare dependency. We also need to ensure that the system is sustainable into the future.

At the very core of our government's social services agenda is a drive to support people to move from welfare to work and to achieve the positive life outcomes that come not just from the additional income but from the dignity of work itself and from the feeling that you are making a contribution and that that contribution is valued. The government wants to bring about a relentless focus on work and create opportunities for those most vulnerable people whereas the opposition simply want to pay and then walk away. That's not what we're here to do.

The best form of welfare, as I have said—as everybody on this side of the chamber has said, over and over again—is a job. And this government has seen the largest increase in jobs for at least a decade, since the global financial crisis. More than 1.1 million jobs have been created in the last five years alone since the coalition came into power, around 400,000 of those in the last 12 months, and 100,000 of them went to young people. That's the highest rate of youth employment in decades. In fact, I think it might be a record. The female participation rate is higher than it's ever been before. There were 230,000 fewer working-age recipients on income support payments between June 2014 and June 2018. That's 230,000 lives that have been transformed—off the welfare wagon and into work and the dignity that work provides.

The proportion of working-age Australians now dependent on welfare has fallen to 15.1 per cent, and that is the lowest level in 25 years, something I'm particularly proud of. Prominent labour market economist Professor Mark Wooden, who is the director of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics survey—the HILDA survey, which you may have heard of before—says that growth in wages has far outstripped inflation over the last decade. And over the last decade, to June 2018, wages have in fact risen by 31 per cent whereas inflation has risen by 22 per cent in that same period. That's how we measure increases in the standard of living. Accordingly, Australians have in fact all experienced real gains in their standard of living. The Productivity Commission's recent report on rising inequality, which had a question mark at the end of its title, shows that those who are most at risk of poverty are jobless households. So, employment is the first and major indicator of risk of poverty. That's why this government focuses on the most disadvantaged in our society, to help them change their circumstances, get them into study, get them into training, get them a job and help them transform their lives and the lives of their families.

The government remains focused on jobs growth and committed to a range of programs, such as the very innovative Try, Test and Learn Fund, which supports disadvantaged individuals, families and communities, which ultimately breaks the cycle of intergenerational welfare dependence. The Try, Test and Learn Fund was based on the New Zealand experience, which I think is a fascinating one. It was about early investment into a particularly vulnerable cohort, whether it was unwed teenage mothers, for instance—I'm just pulling an example off the top of my head. You might say that that particular cohort of 300 people will cost the government purse $1 million each over their lifetime. That's what they tend to do, on average. Wouldn't it be better to invest in those people early on—to invest in their study, invest in their training, make sure that they have appropriate living accommodation, make sure that they have appropriate childcare arrangements, to give them the best opportunity to become contributing members of society rather than dependent members of society? I think this is a really fascinating project that they have done in New Zealand, with great effect, and I'm really pleased to see the Australian government taking on these types of programs in Australia as well. They are not without their risks. They're not a panacea. But they can transform lives, even if it's only one life at a time. I think it's a fantastic initiative.

So, we are moving in the right direction, but there is still so much to do. We have a very strong social safety net here in Australia to help those who are doing it tough, and the government is committing to assisting those who need help with that social safety net and encouraging those who can work to do so. We can provide the essential services that Australians rely on only because our economic management is so good. Without that strong economic management we wouldn't be able to afford essential services like Medicare, like the PBS, like the NDIS and like quality education—good, solid economic management, growing the pie, raising living standards for all. We wouldn't be able to afford those essential services.

Australia's tax and transfer system consistently reduces income inequality and alleviates poverty. We have one of the most targeted and efficient welfare transfer systems in the world. It's means tested and has a much greater proportion of payments than in any other country in the OECD. The government spends more than a third of its Commonwealth budget on social services and welfare. The bottom 20 per cent of households by income receive by far the highest amount of social assistance benefits in cash—$517 per week on average—with the highest 20 per cent of households by income receiving by far the least at only $28 per week. So the wellbeing of vulnerable Australians remains a high priority for the Australian government, and this year the Department of Social Services will provide around $2 billion in grants to more than 2,500 organisations that are specifically set up to help our most vulnerable Australians.

One of the leading indicators of poverty is housing, and that is particularly so for housing stresses most commonly seen in sole-parent families. It is an economic indicator of financial security, particularly for women, older women in particular. This government has a plan to improve housing outcomes for Australians across the housing spectrum by unlocking supply of housing, creating the right incentives and improving outcomes for those most in need. We're not talking about first home buyer grants or anything like that. That is not what we are dealing with. We are not talking about giving kids who have just finished university a wad of cash so that they can go and put their deposit down on their first home in Woollahra. This is more important than that. We are talking about things like providing $1.5 billion annually through the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, the NHHA, to states and territories so that they can provide community and social housing. We have a $1 billion National Housing Infrastructure Facility. There is a First Home Super Saver Scheme, which, rather than a wad of cash given to you by the government, is an incentive whereby first home buyers can invest more in their superannuation in a tax-friendly environment and then access that excess savings above and beyond the retirement savings that are compulsory in that tax-affected vehicle to help them make that first deposit on their first home. There is also a $6 million investment to support the Homes for Homes initiative, which is $10 million to develop social impact investments to help young people most at risk of homelessness. There are some very interesting projects that are also being done at state levels here, and I tip my hat at this point to the Sacred Heart Mission in Victoria, who, in conjunction with the Victorian government, have done the first social impact bond for homeless people to try to lift them out of that poverty trap, lift them out of homelessness, get them into work and give them productive and contributive lives.

Newstart is what Senator Siewert is most concerned about here. As I said, the coalition knows that a job is by far the best form of a welfare. The government wants a sustainable welfare system that supports the most vulnerable but encourages those who are capable to work and study to do so and reduces that intergenerational welfare dependency. Newstart is primarily a payment designed to assist people in transition to the labour market. It is not supposed to be a sustainable lifestyle choice. For this reason, Newstart recipients must earn income from work or other sources before their payment is affected. Around two-thirds of those who are granted Newstart exit income support within 12 months. Over 99 per cent of Newstart recipients receive more than just the base rate of Newstart. Their payments might include the energy supplement. They might include rent assistance for those in the private rental market. They also may get the family tax benefit, if they are raising children. The government remains committed to ensuring that there are social security payments and that they are well targeted and sustainable into the future.

Those opposite have a policy to undertake a root-and-branch review of Newstart and other allowances, but it is clearly a commitment to do exactly nothing. The only difference between Labor and the coalition on Newstart payments is that the coalition are able to maintain the sustainability of the welfare system into the future because of our strong budgetary management and the work that we've done in reforming and rebalancing our tax-transfer system. The Productivity Commission's research paper that I mentioned earlier, Rising inequality? A stocktake of the evidence, was released on 28 August this year. It showed that households across the entire income distribution have in fact benefited greatly from Australia's 27-year period of uninterrupted economic growth.

This 27-year period of uninterrupted economic growth has delivered income growth for the average Australian household in every single income decile and has led to improved living standards. The report also shows that in recent years income inequality has remained relatively stable. One reason for that is our highly targeted tax-transfer system that reduces inequality. The commission found that, over nearly three decades, income inequality had risen only slightly in Australia. In 2015-16, analysis from the ABS, the Survey of income and housing, found that Australia's level of inequality, which is measured by something called the Gini coefficient, was 0.32. Let's not go into the intricacies of the Gini coefficient, but what we can say is that Australia's level of inequality is close to the OECD country average. In fact, most OECD countries have experienced rising income inequality in recent decades at a much faster pace than Australia.

When measuring income inequality using consumption rather than income, the commission found that Australia's overall inequality is around 30 per cent lower than that for disposable household income, and that's because consumption is a far more expansive measure and picks up on other in-kind transfers—things like health, education, childcare subsidies and government housing,—rather than the more basic measures of inequality that we tend to call upon for political convenience. The commission found that the risk of economic disadvantage is, in fact, becoming entrenched. This is one of the government's key concerns. It's particularly pronounced for children who are living in jobless households. For us, that confirms the soundness of the government's approach to addressing poverty and disadvantage and to maximising access to as many opportunities to get out of the welfare trap as possible.

Social security welfare is estimated to cost over $176 billion in 2018-19. That represents more than one in three dollars, or 36 per cent, of all spending by the Australian government. Under Labor, social security and welfare were growing at an average of 6.2 per cent per year—much faster than total tax revenues, which were growing at 3.3 per cent per year. That was clearly an unsustainable position. Under the coalition, social security and welfare have been growing, on average, at 2.9 per cent per year, which is lower than the growth in total tax revenues of 5.3 per cent per year. That is sustainable, and it actually includes expenditure on the NDIS. That's why we are so determined to make sure that our economy continues to grow and that we continue to thrive and to prosper as a nation—because it grows the pie for all. When the pie grows for all, it means standards of living increase and there is more money to spend on essential services like the NDIS, the health system, Medicare, the PBS and the pension. To make sure Australian families, pensioners and those in need get the support that they need when they need it, we have to ensure our welfare system is, most importantly, sustainable.

The ACOSS report on poverty that was referred to by Senator Siewert shows that the rate of relative income poverty in fact declined by more than one percentage point from 14.4 per cent in 2007-08 to 13.2 per cent in 2015-16. While the government welcome that improvement, we understand that the problem with many income poverty measures, including ACOSS's, is that they don't reflect people's actual living standards, and what matters is, in fact, living standards. We know that, over the decade to June 2018, wages have risen by 31 per cent whereas inflation has risen by only 22 per cent. That's a rise in living standards. Accordingly, Australians have experienced real gains in their living standards, reducing poverty. When we talk about reducing poverty, we want to put policies in place that will transform lives and that will allow individuals a chance to grow, experience the dignity of work, thrive and flourish.

4:44 pm

Photo of Murray WattMurray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I will ultimately be speaking against this bill, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Ending the Poverty Trap) Bill 2018, but I do want to take the opportunity to outline my very real concerns and those of the opposition as to the need for an increase in the Newstart rate. I want to make very clear at the outset that there is no disagreement whatsoever from the federal opposition that the current Newstart rate is too low. However, for reasons that I will explain over the course of this contribution, we don't believe that the bill that the Greens are putting forward here is the way to deal with the very real issues that people receiving Newstart face.

There have already been some contributions in this debate which have acknowledged the rising level of inequality that we see in Australia. While that rising level of inequality is obviously very disturbing, what is good is to see a growing acknowledgement of that across the community. This is something that many people on our side of politics have been trying to draw to the attention of the community, the media and the government for many years now, and it's only in recent times, I think, that there has been wide recognition that growing inequality is a very real problem in Australia.

Even if you are fortunate enough to be in work in this country, too many working Australians are faced with the risk of their position becoming more unequal in society, and that is largely as a result of the stagnant wage growth that we have seen in this country in recent years. This is something that I have spoken about on a number of occasions, as have my colleagues. What is really remarkable about the Australian economy in recent years is that, while it does continue to grow in an overall sense, the average Australian working person is not getting to share in that growth by way of increased wages. Someone is benefiting from the increased economic growth that we're experiencing in this country and the increased profits that companies are recording, but it's not working people, who are obviously doing so much to contribute to those profits. The increased growth that we're seeing in this country is increasingly going to shareholders and the top end of income earners and not to average working people, let alone those who are unable to find work.

Beyond the issue of stagnant wages, we also see inequality hitting working people in the form of the rising level of insecure work that we find in the economy. I know this is something that the government is sensitive about and that they don't like being told about facts and figures which demonstrate this. They want to have an argument about whether casualisation has increased or not. But, if you look at the various different categories of insecure work that exist these days—whether it be casual work, part-time work undertaken when someone doesn't really want part-time work, labour hire or short-term contracts—statistics that have come out over the course of this year, particularly from the Centre for Future Work, indicate that, for the first time in Australia's recorded history, we now have greater than 50 per cent of the Australian working population working in a form that does not provide them with full-time work with guaranteed leave benefits. Again, if you break that down, it might be that they're casuals, it might be that they're labour hire, it might be that they're short-term contractors or it might be that people are working part time when they want full-time work. But, when you pool all of that together, for the very first time in Australian recorded history, there are more people working in some form of insecure employment in this country than those who are fortunate enough to have full-time, permanent, secure work. That is a crisis that is affecting many working people in Australia, and it is undoubtedly contributing to the fact that wages in this country are just not growing under this government.

Even over the course of the last few days, we've seen this government not content to allow the independent umpire to reach a decision about casualisation of work. There has been a recent decision by the independent umpire in the WorkPac and Skene case, which found that particular workers were not validly described as casual. If you looked at the way that they worked and the terms and conditions of their employment, they shouldn't have been treated as casual and they should have been entitled to other additional benefits, particularly in the form of leave. Rather than accepting that there are Australians who are being employed in a manner which is not casual, as their employer claims, the government have just announced, I think today, that they are going to intervene in the appeal that has been undertaken in that case. They want to join with big business in keeping more people stuck in a casual form of employment—without job security, without leave benefits, without all of the other benefits of permanent employment—instead of actually standing on the side of working people and guaranteeing them some level of security. It is extremely disappointing to see this government take that position.

Pleasingly, the unemployment figures that came out today did show a small decrease in the overall number of unemployed people, from 5.3 per cent to five per cent. But what the government wasn't as keen to talk about was that some of that decrease, if not all of it, is due to the fact that the participation rate, the number of people who are actively looking for work, has also fallen, from 65.7 per cent last month to 65.4 per cent this month. So it's no surprise that the number of people who are unemployed in this country has fallen, when there are a greater number of people who have given up even bothering to look for work because they're so despondent about their chances. That is the sort of thing that the government needs to be fixing.

To this day, we continue to have over a million Australians who are underemployed—who are not able to find the amount of work they are looking for. They might be getting five hours, 10 hours or 20 hours a week and they want to work more, but they are unable to because the work isn't there. The government needs to be careful about crowing about its unemployment statistics when in fact so many people have given up the effort of looking for work, because they can't find it, and when over one million people want more work than they are able to find. These people can't be described as dole bludgers; they are actively looking for work and cannot find the amount of work they are after.

I noticed another report that came out today that is relevant to this topic, and that was a report released by Anglicare. Now, not all unemployed people are looking for entry-level positions or low-skilled positions. Obviously there are people with a high level of skills who go through a period of unemployment from time to time, but, equally, there are a large number of people who are unemployed for a long period of time and are looking for an entry-level job simply to break into the workforce. It was very concerning to see this Anglicare report today, which showed that the latest figures are that, in Australia, there are four jobseekers for every entry-level job that exists. I'm not going to get these figures exactly right, but, from memory, the current figures show that there are about 25,000 vacant entry-level jobs in Australia and there are over 100,000 jobseekers who are looking for entry-level positions and are unable to find them. So, even if we accepted the argument that we sometimes hear from conservative commentators and members of this government, that unemployed people just aren't trying hard enough to find work, the facts show that that is clearly not the case: 25,000 or so entry-level jobs for 100,000 people looking for an entry-level position. People are sincerely trying to find work, and the jobs are just not there, because under this government the economy is not strong enough to produce those jobs.

Undoubtedly, inequality remains a genuine problem in this country, whether we're talking about working people whose wages are not rising or who are facing insecure work, or whether we're talking about people who are unable to find work—and, no doubt, they are the people in our community who are the most disadvantaged and most in need of the support of a government that is on their side. Unfortunately, they don't have a government on their side with this government.

As I said, the federal opposition absolutely recognises that the rate of Newstart is too low. I will just give you a couple of case studies that I found in a recent SBS online article. A woman by the name of Judy, 62 years of age, who has been on Newstart for nearly a year, says that she often has cereal as a meal for dinner, and she basically just hibernates because she has so little money to live a decent life. She is surviving on less than $300 a week and she says:

… it's frightening to think anybody can live like that when you've got to pay the mortgage, your utilities and incidentals …

A student in Canberra, Jarryd, said that he'd only recently started working in a supermarket and, as a result of getting some earnings, has lost some of his Newstart—and we understand that's how the system works. He says that his Newstart 'pays rent for the fortnight and doesn't do much more than that'. He had to eat $5 McDonald's meals for about a week because he couldn't afford anything else.

I don't think that anyone in this overall very wealthy country that we have the good fortune to live in wants to see other Australians live in those conditions. Again, it can't simply be dismissed—as so often occurs—as these people just not trying to look for work, when I'm able to show those figures that have come through from Anglicare, showing that so many more people are looking for entry-level jobs than there are jobs for them to go into. So it's those sorts of case studies that show that we need to increase the rate of Newstart and that the current rate is too low.

Having said that, the opposition does not support this bill, and I have to say we think that putting it forward is nothing more than a stunt from the Greens. I have no reason to disbelieve Senator Siewert's good intentions about the need to increase the rate of Newstart, but the Greens know very well that this bill has absolutely no prospect of getting through the House of Representatives. I'm not aware of them having made any attempt to negotiate with the government to see what is possible and what the government will agree to. So, however many speeches we hear from Greens senators over the course of this debate about the need for this bill to go through, there is zero prospect of it happening. A much better idea would be to work with the opposition and with government senators to see what can actually be done in reality, rather than just plonking a bill in here that has no chance of being accepted.

As I say, the opposition absolutely acknowledges the need for the rate of Newstart to increase and that it is too low, but we think that it is important to do a proper review of the Newstart payment to see not only what is the right rate for it to be increased by but also, most importantly, how that should be paid for. That is, of course, one of the things that you will always see that are different between the Labor Party and the Greens party. As a party that aspires to be in government, we acknowledge that, if you're going to increase expenditure, you've got to pay for it in some way. It's one of the luxuries of being a minor party, as the Greens are, that you never have to really be accountable for your decisions. You can come in here and put forward all sorts of bills that will spend all sorts of amounts of money, and it's never your problem to find out how that should be paid for. Labor is actually serious about it. Labor does want to increase the rate of Newstart, but we also want to see how it can be paid for.

Most importantly, there are many more issues with the current Newstart system than simply the amount of payment that is made. We could increase the rate of payment by the amount that the Greens are putting forward here and still not deal with some of the fundamental problems that exist with the Newstart payment. In the remaining couple of minutes that I have, I might just make a couple of points that we made in the recent future of work inquiry that I chaired and that a number of other senators participated in.

One of the really interesting things that came out of that inquiry, I think, was that, as well as thinking about the future of work in terms of what the influence of technology and automation is going to be on jobs and what jobs will go and what jobs will stay, we also need to be thinking about what kind of social security system we need in an environment where more people are juggling multiple part-time, insecure jobs. There are a range of things that we talked about in that report that we should do to change the laws to reduce the number of people who are facing insecure employment. But, for those people who do face situations where they come in and out of casual or part-time work, with a few hours here and a few hours there, it is very clear from the work that we did in that inquiry that the current Newstart system does not give enough acknowledgement to current circumstances.

The current Newstart system and payment were created in a world long ago where most people worked on a full-time permanent basis. As I've already said in my speech, we're now living in a world where, shockingly, more than 50 per cent of the Australian workforce does not work in full-time permanent work. So, if the world has changed, we also need to look at how our Newstart system works to make sure that it is coping and is designed in a way that acknowledges that people are working in different manners. We need to make sure that it responds to a world where someone might be working 40 hours one week and five hours the next week. We should be trying to eliminate situations where people end up racking up massive overpayments because the system hasn't been flexible enough to respond to the fact that some people are working lots of hours one week and not so many the next week. We need a system which acknowledges that some people gain a lot more work on a casual basis over the Christmas period, whether it be in retail or in other areas.

Photo of Barry O'SullivanBarry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

The time for the debate has expired. Do you want to be in continuation?

Photo of Murray WattMurray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Yes, please. I seek leave to be in continuation.

Leave granted; debate interrupted.