Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying before, the government talk about being good economic managers as if Australians will just take it on faith that that's what they are, but Australians are really seeing through this charade. We're facing a period of record low wage growth. The Liberal government has doubled net debt, and gross debt has reached half a trillion dollars for the first time in history. The costs of household essentials, private health insurance, electricity and child care are going through the roof. Household living standards are going backwards. Real household median income is lower now than it was when the Liberals came to power. Household net debt has grown by $650 billion to a record high of 190 per cent of household income. Economic growth is the slowest it has been since the global financial crisis, and 1.9 million Australians are looking for work or for more work. Consumer confidence is down. Business investment and retail sales growth have fallen to their lowest levels since the 1990s recession. Under Labor, Australia was the eighth-fastest growing economy in the OECD. Under the Liberals we've fallen to 20th. Just last week the Reserve Bank downgraded its forecast for economic growth for the third time in six months. In its statement the RBA said:

… a defining feature of economic developments over the past several years has been very slow growth in household income.

…   …   …

… consumption has been significantly weaker than expected …

It has joined the IMF and the OECD in downgrading their forecasts for Australia's economic growth.

I ask those opposite: do all the facts I've just outlined paint a picture of the strong economy Mr Morrison keeps talking about? If you listened to those opposite, you'd think running a budget surplus is the be-all and end-all of economic management—not that those opposite have delivered a surplus. They are in their third term and their sixth budget and they are talking up a surplus, but what they have delivered is a forecast of a surplus at the end of the financial year. Even if those opposite deliver their promised surplus at the end of the year, it's by no means a cause for celebration, particularly when it's built on a $4.6 billion underspend in the NDIS, depriving some of Australia's most vulnerable people of the services they need to lead a dignified life. Running a surplus budget is not a proxy for good economic management. It doesn't, in and of itself, deliver on boosting the productive capacity of the economy. It doesn't help to build a national broadband network that uses 21st century technology and makes Australia competitive in the global digital economy. It doesn't reinstate the funding cut from TAFE, traineeships and apprenticeships to ensure Australians get the skills they need to participate in the labour market. It doesn't drive research, development and innovation. It doesn't help replace the $2.2 billion cut from Australia's universities, which will result in 200,000 young Australians missing out on university over the next decade.

Let's not forget that only recently those opposite were trying to convince us that the way to stimulate economic growth was to give a tax cut to multinationals and the big banks. If you believe that then you might as well believe in fairies and unicorns. While those opposite will regularly offer their gratuitous advice about economic management, they are the last people on earth I would be taking advice from. Even if we accepted the claim of those opposite, against the overwhelming weight of evidence to the contrary, that they are good economic managers, we should also recognise that economic management is not an end in itself. Ultimately, government is about improving the lives of the people you represent. The economy doesn't deliver this on its own, unless you subscribe to the outdated and discredited theory of trickle-down economics. While those opposite have successfully deluded themselves into thinking that they are superior economic managers, surely they can't be so brazen as to claim that they are making Australians' lives better. A budget surplus is nothing to celebrate when it's delivered at the expense of some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in Australia and when it's delivered through cuts to the essential services that Australians rely on for their quality of life.

A case in point is our aged-care system, which is falling apart. It's often said that the greatness of a nation is measured by how it treats its weakest or most vulnerable members. Older Australians in need of aged care are some of the most vulnerable people in our country, and, at the moment, they are being treated appallingly. While the aged-care royal commission has shone a light on many of these issues, it was known well before the commission that the aged-care system in Australia was in crisis. The Morrison government has failed to heed our call to combat the problems caused by its own mismanagement: the abuse that is occurring in residential aged-care facilities; the instances of providers spending just $6 a day to feed their residents; and the widespread overuse of chemical restraints. The government has 12 reports on the aged-care sector sitting on its desks, gathering dust.

After ripping billions of dollars out of aged care, the Morrison government needs to take responsibility for its contribution to the crisis. It needs to take responsibility for the 120,000 Australians who are sitting on a waiting list to receive the home care packages they've already been approved for. It needs to take responsibility for the fact that those on the waiting list with the highest care needs are languishing for up to two years before receiving their package. Sadly, 16,000 older Australians died before receiving the home care packages they had been approved for, while another 14,000 who would have stayed in their homes had they received the support they had been approved for went into residential care. If the government cannot fix the crisis now, then I shudder to think what is yet to come. It is estimated that Australia will need a workforce of a million aged-care workers to meet the demand for aged care in 2050, yet this government can't even address the current demand.

Another vulnerable group of Australians is people with disability. To prop up its budget surplus, this government has underspent on the National Disability Insurance Scheme by $4.6 billion this financial year. It has done this at a time when NDIS participants are waiting months to receive plans or have their plans reviewed. As I've mentioned before in this place, I recently attended a forum with the shadow minister for the NDIS, Bill Shorten, and the Tasmanian shadow minister for disability, Jo Siejka, where we spoke with NDIS participants and their families and carers. This system is failing many of them. There is universal agreement among families and carers that the concept of the NDIS, introduced by the previous Labor government, was an important and necessary reform—one with the potential to make the lives of people with disability, their families and their carers a whole lot better. However, due to this government's poor management, we have a system that is bogged down in bureaucracy where people are not getting the support they need. Even when they are, it's being delivered far too late.

When a child is born needing immediate assistance from the NDIS, they should not have to wait until they are six months old to get a plan approved. When a person with disability has a six-month plan in place, their families and carers should not have to immediately start work on the review of that plan just to make sure it gets done in time before the current plan expires. There really should be a way to ensure that every person who is eligible for the NDIS can get the support they need. In my home state of Tasmania, only 6,500 people are participating in the NDIS when an estimated 11,000 are eligible.

Those opposite are responsible for the mess that has been made of the NDIS, and they need to fix it now. Did the government really think it could underspend on the NDIS by $4.6 billion and there wouldn't be any consequences? Budgets are all about choice. I would argue that the government could still have its surplus without having to target some of the most vulnerable people in Australia. I remind those opposite that, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Labor found over $250 billion in savings without targeting disadvantaged and vulnerable Australians the way that the Liberals zealously do time and time again. Even if they are too lazy or incompetent to find those savings, I'm sure most Australians would agree that underspending on the NDIS by $4.6 billion to prop up the government's surplus is just downright cruel.

There are many other examples of the government's cruelty. Another case in point is their steadfast refusal to increase Newstart Allowance. In my home state of Tasmania, there is a housing and homelessness crisis fed by a saturated rental market. Median rents in Hobart have reached $464 a week—the third highest of the capital cities, overtaking Melbourne. If the median rent in Hobart is $464 a week, it's no wonder people on Newstart struggle to find housing on an income of $280 a week. It's hard enough paying rent on Newstart without meeting other basic living expenses, as well as all the expenses associated with finding a job, such as travelling to interviews, wearing presentable clothes and printing copies of your resume. We keep getting told by Liberal frontbenchers that Newstart is a transitional payment, but there's nothing transitional about a payment that jobseekers live on for an average of three years.

If those opposite will not listen to Newstart recipients themselves, will not listen to the evidence that has been furnished in Senate inquiries, and will not listen to welfare agencies or their peak bodies, like ACOSS, who work with people living in poverty on a daily basis, then perhaps they will listen to the Liberal Premier of Tasmania, Will Hodgman. On ABC Radio, only last week, when asked about his views on increasing Newstart, Mr Hodgman said:

… certainly in Tasmania we have a higher proportion – share on Newstart and other social security benefits. So, of course, we would welcome any increase to support to those Tasmanians.

When further pressed on it, Mr Hodgman said:

… it would be a good thing to see those on low incomes and those who do depend on social security benefits to have an increase to reduce that pressure in their lives … And of course if the Commonwealth government can do that, we'd welcome it.

I appreciate Premier Hodgman's honesty on this issue because he knows it's impossible to live on $40 a day. I'm sure those opposite know it too, even if they cannot bring themselves to admit it. I often hear those on the other side of the chamber dodge questions about whether they could live on $40 a day. Of course they couldn't. One or two of them complained, in fact, that they can't even live on their parliamentary salaries. For heaven's sake! Everyone in this place knows that Newstart needs to be increased. Those opposite know it but they just won't admit it. It's bad enough that they won't admit it without comments like those of the Minister for Families and Social Services, who said that any increase will just end up in pubs and in the hands of drug dealers. What an outrageous statement to make about some of Australia's most disadvantaged social security recipients.

Another form of cruelty this government is inflicting on our most vulnerable people is the debacle of the automated debt recovery system. This government has been at the helm of the robo-debt system, which has been described as extortion. These aren't Labor words; they are the words of the retired Administrative Appeals Tribunal member, Terry Carney, and 'extortion' is a very apt description. What else would you call it when you accuse someone of having a debt and then put the onus on them to produce the evidence to prove otherwise? Given the cuts the government has made to Centrelink services, the difficulty Australians are having accessing face-to-face services, and the horrendous wait times that are experienced on the phone to Centrelink, I wonder how many recipients of a robo-debt notice actually don't owe the debt but have simply given up fighting it. Every time a robo-debt case has been advanced to the AAT—guess what—the government has settled. It means there's never been an opportunity to test the legality of the system. Yet the government still can't admit that they got this wrong.

A cruel system like robo-debt, the government's refusal to increase Newstart, the underspend on the NDIS and the cruel cuts to aged care are all indications of the rotten black heart at the core of this government. It is at the core of Liberal philosophy that whenever there is a buck to be saved by targeting the most desperate, most disadvantaged and the most vulnerable people in the community, those opposite will take it. Looking after the most vulnerable people in the community is surely what government should be about. But not this government.

The Morrison government is also asleep at the wheel when it comes to the challenge of taking serious action on climate change. When the government's lack of a plan to tackle carbon pollution is exposed, they twist the facts to suit themselves. Mr Morrison keeps claiming the government will meet their Paris Agreement targets 'in a canter'. Well, I tell you, the reality is this: the government isn't cantering towards their Paris targets; they're galloping in the opposite direction. Whatever weasel words the Morrison government uses to pretend they're on track to meet their Paris targets, the undeniable truth is that emissions were falling year on year under Labor and they have risen every year under the coalition. They are projected to continue to rise, according to the government's own figures, every year until 2030. Ten industry associations recently signed an open letter which points the finger squarely at the Morrison government's inadequate policy for this failure, and the letter, whose signatories include the Australian Industry Group and the National Farmers Federation, says the government's policy will not reduce the emissions economy-wide due to:

… the cost and complexity of engaging with the ERF; the shallow and monopolistic market for credits; and the lack of clear long term ambition.

This is hardly a resounding endorsement of the government's policy.

Nothing in the government's budget seriously addresses climate change because the government isn't doing anything serious. This are a government that pretends to act on climate change because they know Australian voters are overwhelmingly concerned and calling for action. At the same time, they do nothing because they are ruled by climate change deniers. The policy they have now is from the Abbott era, dreamt up by a man who said he was unconvinced by the science on climate change and was voted out of parliament on a wave of enthusiasm for action on climate change. If you ask the question, 'What is this government about?' it's hard to figure out exactly what they are setting out to achieve. Tony Abbott once famously described the Turnbull government as being in office but not in power. Now we have a government that's in power but not governing. It's a government that is overseeing a tanking economy but has no plan to turn it around. It's a government facing a climate emergency but has no plan to take real action on climate change. It's a government that has no plans to address the crisis in aged or disability care or to address the growing levels of poverty and inequality faced by Australians. They have no plans, no ideas, no agenda, and many Australians are left scratching their heads and thinking: what is the point of the Morrison government? With 2½ years left of this third-term, do-nothing government, it's high time it actually started governing.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to use this speech to ask the government to start governing. Where's the vision in this government? What about Australia's productive capacity in the future? Governance has three parts. Firstly, there's trusteeship, which is looking after the values of the country—the principles. Secondly, there's stewardship, which is about managing. And, thirdly, there's governorship, which is about making sure that the country has a future.

Minister Littleproud was asked about water storage some time ago. In response to finding out that water storage is depleting and that, in fact, storage per person will have reduced by 30 per cent by 2030—a critical infrastructure feature and something that Australians, humans in general, must have: water—he said it was 'a lack of planning'. He said that there have only been 20 dams built since 2003 and 16 of them have been built in Tasmania and four in the rest of the country. 'It's time for the eastern states to do their job,' he said. They have done 'three-fifths of bugger all', he said. 'It is time for them to start planning and building,' he said. 'There is no reason to stop; now is the time to do it—when it's dry—to start digging the holes.' Again, he said: 'Let's release some of the figures on the water storage state by state. In Queensland'—his home state—'it's gone from 2.78 gigalitres per person to 1.75'. That shows that there's been 'no planning'—this is Minister Littleproud talking—'no thinking. If we continue to get a population increase, which we will—we're naturally getting that through migration—we have to have the state governments have water, which is a source of life for all of us.' So the minister knows—he is the minister for water—that water is the source of life, but he admits there is no plan for the productive future of this country.

This government is reacting and building facades, and that's bringing this government undone. We dodged a bullet when we fortunately did not have Mr Shorten elected as Prime Minister, but this government thinks that putting on a farmer's shirt and a baseball cap or a high-vis vest, a hard hat and safety glasses is governing and leadership. It's not. So I ask Mr Morrison: where the bloody hell are ya?

Look at energy and the prices skyrocketing. We went from having the lowest electricity prices in the world and a stable and secure supply to now the highest prices in the world. We have the same basic resource for generating electricity, yet our prices have increased, while our competitors, like China, take our coal and use it to provide cheap, clean, affordable, reliable and environmentally responsible electricity.

Quantities of water are drying up. The price of water is skyrocketing. As for property rights, farmers can no longer manage their land because the bureaucrats are managing it. They've had their property rights stolen from them. We say to those farmers: 'We will keep pushing for the restoration of your property rights that were stolen by the John Howard government in collusion with Labor Party premiers and National Party premiers in the states of Queensland and New South Wales. We will seek restoration or compensation.' We have a natural drought that is a part of Australia's cycle of climate, but we have a man-made water crisis. We have free trade agreements that are undermining Australian industry. We have a taxation system that lets multinationals get away with paying no tax or little tax, and that's been the case since 1953, thanks to a Liberal prime minister in Sir Robert Menzies.

A lot of these policies are underpinned by the climate scam. Never has there been any empirical evidence proving that human-caused carbon dioxide affects climate. The Greens continue—they're on day 63—of being unable to provide that. They continue to avoid that, yet we have these policies, a lack of property rights, energy prices that are skyrocketing, a lack of water and high prices for water. There's one area not based on climate, and that is the banks. The four major banks are enabled by both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party to have a go at every Aussie. So Aussies are not being given a fair go. I've seen companies fail, I've rescued companies, I established a pioneering world-class project that led its way internationally and certainly in Australia, and I know that the solution to this country's problems is having a government with a long-term focus that wants to restore Australia's productive capacity—a government that makes decisions based on solid data, calmly makes decisions on facts and has a proactive approach with a plan. That's leadership: understanding and meeting people's needs cohesively, holistically and consistently, and driving to a vision.

Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything, and that's exactly what we're seeing in the governance of this country under both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party, under their duopoly. Right now we are witnessing the disintegration of a government. People are waking up. They were certainly terrified at the thought of Mr Shorten as Prime Minister, but now they're realising that Mr Morrison is just a facade builder and a marketing man. So where the bloody hell are ya?

By the way, the ABC is now inciting violence, yet the government want to fund the ABC further. I say, and One Nation says: close the ABC or sell it. They recently revealed in Senate estimates, under questioning from me and Senator Hanson, that they got the Al Jazeera tapes—which were a fabrication—in January, and put them to air five months later, just before an election. That's interfering. The government is paying for the ABC to interfere and enable a foreign power to interfere in our government and in our political system. That's why we are questioning the government's lack of vision, philosophy and values. Where the bloody hell are ya? This bill highlights the piecemeal approach that's poor governance. Australians want, and Australia needs, a vision, strategies and plans based on objective data, and we need to start doing that by starting to restore property rights for farmers and restoration or compensation. We will be supporting these appropriation bills, but we highlight the fact that these bills are exposing the government's failure to manage this country and govern this country.

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

I rise to make a contribution on the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2019-2020, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2019-2020 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2019-2020 and funding for some of the annual services of government. I argue now that some of those funds are misspent on poor services, the funds could be better spent and the services do not provide value for money, do not deliver outcomes and are hurting many Australians.

Over the past decade, Australia's social security system has increasingly become more and more based on conditionality and compliance. Under this government, punitive programs have become the cornerstone of Australia's social support system. Rather than helping people and truly supporting people, it is a hindrance to people. We need to look no further than compulsory income management, which has proven to not be successful—jobactive, the Community Development Program, Work for the Dole, ParentsNext and Centrelink's debt recovery program. Our government hides behind phrases like 'mutual obligation requirements' and 'targeted compliance framework'. These phrases are an attempt to gloss over the harsh, damaging and perverse outcomes of increase compliance arrangements.

Make no mistake: the targeted compliance framework is designed to punish people, and that is exactly what it is doing. Under jobactive, people face financial penalties and payment suspensions. People are forced to navigate compliance activities and jobseeker errors or are accused of making errors when it is actually the system that is making the errors. They get accused of not attending and get non-attendance failures; no show, no pay failures; and serious failures. This system is clearly not fit for purpose, yet the government wants it to go through to 2022 before any attempt at reform of the broader system is made. One of the biggest failures is that employment service providers design job plans that have errors or are inappropriate, and you only need to look at the targeted compliance framework figures to see that.

Jobactive participants pay the price for these errors, with around 48,500 jobactive participants having their three demerit points wiped because of inappropriate or wrong job plans. That is actually at a very strong emotional cost for those people who have to try to wrangle the system. These compliance arrangements seek to control and punish people instead of supporting and encouraging them. It is clearly not enough for this government to keep people in poverty by refusing to lift the rates of Newstart and Youth Allowance—and I will come back to that. This system is hurting people. It is keeping people in poverty. It is a barrier to trying to find work. They are paying $1 billion year for a system that does not work and that is keeping people in poverty and provides barriers to employment.

Through Senate inquiries into various programs and policies, we are starting to unravel some of the devastating consequences of the government's punitive approach to the provision of social security and the jobactive program. We are hearing evidence that a large number of people could be disengaging from the social security system because of its punitive and discriminatory nature.

First I want to turn to the Community Development Program. At the Senate inquiry last year, we heard of almost 6,000 people missing from or no longer in the Community Development Program. These numbers cannot be explained away by the government—as it attempts to do—by saying people have got work. It is highly likely that one of the reasons that thousands of people are disengaging from the CDP is because of the punitive conditions attached to the program. The recent review into the CDP—and this is the government's own review—found that CDP participants are the most penalised group of social security recipients. First Nations participants are 25 times more likely to be penalised then non-remote jobseekers and 50 times more likely to have a penalty imposed on them for so-called persistent noncompliance. Under that program, income suspensions last for an average of 23 days. CDP was meant to be helping people in remote communities into work. By focusing on compliance and punishment, the system is clearly missing the mark and failing to meet its objectives. Recently there were some changes—that do not go far enough—and some of those penalties for First Nations peoples have come down. However, the government should not mistakenly think that the program is now working, because First Nations peoples are still vastly disproportionately penalised compared to other Australians in other programs.

At the recent Senate inquiry into the cashless debit card, we also heard that a lot of First Nations people are disengaging from the income support system for a variety of other reasons, as well. To access the income support system, you need to navigate a complex and bureaucratic system. It also requires having access to the internet, a phone, computer literacy and strong English language skills. This means that many First Nations peoples in remote communities are shut out from the very beginning of the process, and that was part of the evidence to our inquiry just 10 days ago.

At Senate estimates in October, I asked the Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business about people who disengage from Centrelink after a payment suspension. They told me that, between July 2018, when the TCF started, and August 2019, 104,480 people did not re-engage with Centrelink after a payment suspension. The department did not have clear answers, on that day, about what happened to these people. They said they presumed they moved into jobs. But, with this group of people, it is unlikely that many of them moved into jobs, particularly when you consider that 42 per cent of people on Newstart have a partial capacity to work, and only 14.5 per cent of them had reported earnings in the last quarter. In other words, it's highly unlikely that those people have moved into work.

The point here is that, for all the money we're spending on these services, the government cannot tell us, the government doesn't know, what's happened to those people. And it sounds, quite frankly, as if the government doesn't care. That's because those people are not on welfare, as the government calls it; they have dropped out of our income support system, and—guess what?—that's a goal of this government. It's a goal of this government to try and reduce the number of people on income support. You can do that by helping them into work, but we've just heard that the jobactive system is failing; it's not helping them into work. There's a growing list of people who are long-term unemployed, particularly older and younger people, who are not being helped into work. So it's highly unlikely that all those people got work. But it's okay! They've dropped off the income support system, so, tick, the government has achieved one of its aims!

The minister today couldn't or wouldn't answer the question about what has happened to those people. One of the biggest problems around the question of people missing off income support is that we don't have a clear picture of the situation through any data or research, and, therefore, it's impossible to find out. As the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress Corporation said at the Alice Springs hearing of the committee inquiry into Newstart the week before last:

… the system does not really want to know the real answers, otherwise the research would be done.

I am urging the government to better capture this data and find out just what is happening to people who are not re-engaging with Centrelink, who are clearly dropping out of the system and who are still highly likely to be eligible for social security. We desperately need consistent research and data on the different cohorts of people engaging with the system.

Given the number of people facing payment suspensions, and given that's growing under jobactive, I'm very concerned that we will see more and more people disengaging from Centrelink—people who have the right to social security. Australians are being locked out of and excluded from their basic right to social security, as a result of the punitive compliance arrangements. We know this, when 104,840 people have dropped out of the system and have not re-engaged. We know this, when we look at the way that the TCF is operating and the fact that there are also so many people whose vulnerabilities are not being picked up. They're having to suffer through the process of trying to meet their jobactive plans, although their jobactive plans are not meeting their needs and have been proved, by the system, to be inappropriate or wrong. We know these people aren't getting the support they need from the system. We're spending $1 billion a year on this system, when it's plainly failing people who need the support to find work.

As I said, the government sees fewer people on income support payments as a win. It doesn't matter what's happened to them; they're off the system. I think this is a very, very dangerous approach to the way that we support some of the most vulnerable members of our community.

Sitting suspended from 18:30 to 19:30

When we went to the dinner break, I was saying that people are coming off the income support system and we don't know where they are going and that that is not a satisfactory way to be providing services and an income support system in this country. People who disengage from our social security system actually don't just disappear if they haven't found work—and my very deep concern is that a lot of those people won't have found work, particularly when you look at the cohorts that are turning up very significantly. For example, over 50 per cent of those 104,480 people are young people. I'm deeply concerned that the system isn't meeting young people's needs. In fact, that's consistent with evidence we've been given in the Newstart inquiry, and with what people talk to me about personally. They're depending on an already overstretched community sector. They're relying on programs and services run by non-government and not-for-profit organisations. And we know that, for organisations like Foodbank, each year the calls on their services are increasing, so the government is outsourcing support programs to the not-for-profit sector and to the community, and also to family and friends and other community members. In some instances, they may well be people who are also receiving income support. In other words, that money is stretching further and further, and people are being pushed further and further into poverty. And there will be some—for example, those who are homeless—who don't have friends to rely on. What is happening to them?

The harsh compliance arrangements attached to our social security system have flow-on effects for the entire system. Deliberately punishing people in exchange for income support does not work and should be abolished. Our current regime is pushing people further into poverty. The last week we sat was Anti-Poverty Week, and we heard example after example of how that is happening—hence my argument that the system that we are currently funding is not producing the outcomes for the amount that we spend on it. Many people argue that we should in fact be spending more on, for example, our employment system to produce a really quality employment system. But my argument is that the money that we're investing now is not producing the outcomes—and the government knows that. They are trialling a new system in two small areas, but that system is not going to be rolled out, if it is proved to be effective, until 2022. We know, from the inquiry into jobactive, that the system is not fit for purpose these days.

The other thing that should be included in these appropriations is an increase to Newstart. Overwhelmingly, we know that Newstart does not meet people's needs. It hasn't had an increase for 25 years—25 years! Last time it was increased, I didn't even have a mobile phone. Most people wouldn't have had a mobile phone, or they would have had one of those bricks. The interweb wasn't a thing. Social media wasn't a thing. But, most importantly, what you can afford to buy, with the current rate of Newstart, means that people are having to choose: 'Do I buy my medication, or do I buy food?'

People are consistently eating one meal a day or going without. They can't afford public transport. It's a barrier to employment, which is what the government says it wants, but it does not give people dignity and equality of life. It is absolutely shameful that the government will not invest in the people in this community, and that investment is increasing Newstart. If people got $75 a week, not only might it enable them to afford to not make the decision to go without insulin, which is happening, and to instead make the decision to actually stay well, eat and pay a few bills rather than going without in that way but it is also a good investment in our economy. We know it will invest over $4 billion into the economy and create 12,000 jobs, many in regional communities, which are absolutely essential. We need to be investing in Newstart for the sake of the community and also, I'd argue, for our economy.

The government runs the argument that we need to be lowering dependence on social security and welfare and that Newstart is only a temporary repayment, ignoring the fact that the average length of time people are in receipt of it is 156 weeks—in other words, just below three years. The government runs the line that it's such a drain on the public purse and imply that the Newstart program and youth allowance are a major proportion of the social security and welfare budget. We spend $67½ billion on assistance to the aged. It's a very good investment. I'm not arguing here that we shouldn't be investing the money. We spend a significant portion of our money supporting people with disabilities: $44 billion. Again, it's a good investment. These are all good investments, as is the investment of $10½ billion on those that are unemployed or ill. That is a good investment. Why argue that the unemployed make up a significant proportion of the amount we spend on our social security system when investing in the health of the Australian community is one of the key things the government needs to be doing? Income support is an investment in Australians. That's what our social security system is. Why isn't an increase to Newstart included in this budget and this appropriation? It should be. We also need to make sure the money we are investing directly into things like employment services is well targeted in meeting people's needs and is not just lining the pockets of providers. It's not meeting people's needs. The system is demonising people and not supporting them into work. We need to improve that situation. We need to raise Newstart and make sure the services that are supposed to help people actually do help people and don't further complicate their lives and become yet another barrier to work.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all senators for their contributions to the debate on these bills and I commend the bills to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.