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

Tonight I rise to speak on the future of the JobSeeker payment, which is due to go back to $40 a day in the very near future. In fact, in just 44 days the JobSeeker COVID supplement will end, condemning over one million people on the JobSeeker payment to live on just $40 a day. The COVID supplement, first introduced at the rate of $550 a fortnight in March last year in the face of the COVID pandemic, transformed people's lives and lifted millions out of poverty. It was the first time in decades that the unemployment payment was at a rate above the poverty line. The supplement enabled people on the JobSeeker payment, the youth allowance and the parenting payment to afford nutritious food to improve their wellbeing with three meals a day, to fund school children's activities, to buy essential medications, to pay housing costs, to buy new clothes and shoes which, for some people, would enable them to participate in interviews with confidence, and to pay for heating and cooling. By introducing the supplement at that extra rate of $550 a fortnight in March, the government finally acknowledged what everybody else knew: that trying to survive on $40 a day was simply impossible. It was impossible to survive on that amount of money.

Although the government is now winding it back, they know that $40 a day is too low. When the government finally recognised in March that $40 a day was not enough, they knew, as I said, that $40 a day was not enough, but they couldn't stop their ideological campaign of stigmatising people who access the social security net. While thousands were accessing—and still continue to access—the social security net, for many of those people it was the first time in their lives that they'd had to do that. However, this government just cannot give up on myth making and myth spreading and attacking people on income support. They continue to air the old myths about people who are accessing income support payments and they invent excuse after excuse as to why, despite being a wealthy country, we have one of the lower unemployment payments in the world.

One of the government's favourite lines, and I have heard these lines and excuses being given by a number of ministers, is the plain old propaganda line that 'the jobs are there and people just aren't looking for them; they're not trying hard enough'. The government may have an unusual take on these numbers, but the numbers show that there simply are not enough jobs. Currently, there are around 1.3 million jobseekers, but only 129,000 vacancies were advertised in January. That number is not counting the number of people currently on JobKeeper who are working no hours and may lose their job when the program ends at the end of March, a couple of days before the end of the JobSeeker payment on the 31 March.

There is another old favourite, and that is that an income support payment above the poverty line is a disincentive to finding work. In fact, there's clear evidence that the opposite is true. Living in poverty is a barrier to finding work. We know that people living on $40 a day cannot afford the basics and find it hard to keep a roof over their heads, let alone afford transport to get to an interview or necessary training for work. They find it hard even to afford an internet connection to apply for jobs and to participate online in the jobseeking process, which is where the government is pushing so many people. They find it hard to afford to buy suitable clothes to attend a job interview. They can't afford their medication or to go to the dentist.

Labour market research shows that the increased level of JobSeeker has not impacted on the rates of people seeking employment or the time it takes for employers to fill job vacancies. The so-called anecdotal evidence given by some employers has been attributed by economists to regular difficulties filling certain positions at certain times of the year and particular difficulties with skill shortages and the requirement to relocate. People's lived experience should be understood by decision-makers in government. Decision-makers should understand people's need to make sure that they meet their family commitments and their caring commitments and that they have support networks available and that they have accommodation. All these are barriers to people relocating.

Our Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, also likes to tell us that the economy is recovering, so it's time to wind back support. Well, things are improving. They are improving in some areas and for some people, but not for others. We are still living through a pandemic and will be facing this situation for quite a long time, unfortunately. The government introduced tax cuts for millionaires, but now they're refusing to properly support the more than 1.3 million people who are out of work while this pandemic and the recession continue. With the big banks ending mortgage holidays and the state based eviction moratoriums lifting, thousands of Australians are also at risk of losing the roof over their heads or finding themselves unable to pay their rental debts, which have accumulated through no fault of their own. This is coming at the same time that JobKeeper is ending and the JobSeeker payment is going back to $40 a day. I think we have a moral and ethical responsibility to support jobseekers and to ensure that they are not condemned to live in poverty but, in fact, are able to live above the poverty line. There are also significant economic benefits for our broader community through supporting jobseekers at an adequate payment level above the poverty line.

What about that old line that the jobs are available, so why don't people pick fruit? Over the last couple of months I've heard that innumerable times—in fact, too many times to count. The government pushes the narrative of job snobs to further demonise people who access income support. This is casual, insecure work in areas where there's often a lack of accommodation, and support is not available for people who are moving there. This is not the way that we should be treating those people that are looking for work. It is not the way that we should be encouraging people to try to find meaningful employment. We are asking that the government raise the JobSeeker payment above the poverty line.

If they want people to relocate to the bush, they need to understand people's lived experience, not demonise them, not try to browbeat them. We are asking people, entire families, to uproot their lives for short-term job prospects in an industry that has notoriously low rates of pay and higher rates of exploitation, and that continues despite, I will acknowledge, the best efforts, or efforts, I should say—not necessarily the best efforts—by government to ensure that exploitation doesn't occur. But we hear time and time again how that's occurring. Many jobseekers are unable to keep up with the costs of running a vehicle due to the low rates of income support payments, and that will be particularly the case when the payment goes back to $40 a day, making relocation to regional areas even harder, because there's a lack of rental accommodation and a lack of reliable public transport.

Yes, we should be supporting jobseekers with more than $40 a day. Many people on the JobSeeker payment, we know, are on JobSeeker because they can't get access to the disability support pension because of the changed rules. So a high proportion, nearly 40 per cent, of those trying to survive on the JobSeeker payment are people who are sick and have a disability. That is never mentioned when the government says, 'There are all these jobs that are available out there; there are all these job snobs out there.' Well, there are not. There are people that are looking for work and need support to find work. Living on $40 a day, well below the poverty line, means going without food, going without your medication, making it more difficult to find work and putting work further and further out of reach. Increase permanently the JobSeeker rate so people aren't living in poverty.