Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023. This omnibus social services bill includes a range of measures that the government announced in its budget this year. The coalition have considered each of the proposals put forward by the government, and we will be supporting the expanded eligibility for assistance for single parents, the expansion of the higher rate of JobSeeker to those aged 55 as opposed to 60 at present and the increase in Commonwealth rental assistance of 15 per cent as announced. But we call on the government to support the coalition's policy on JobSeeker as outlined by the Leader of the Opposition in his budget reply speech. This relates to the government's measure to increase working-age payments such as JobSeeker by $40 a fortnight.

Currently we have a historically low rate of unemployment. We have 431,000 or thereabouts formal job vacancies and over 800,000 JobSeeker recipients across the nation, at a time when businesses are crying out for workers. I expect there would be few people in this chamber—indeed, few people in Australia—who have walked down a shopping strip and not seen a number of shops closed, with advertisements in the window asking people to apply for jobs within so that those businesses can reopen or extend their hours again. The tightness of the labour market right now is undeniable and is placing a huge, huge toll on hardworking Australians, who are having to work even harder due to these workforce shortages.

On top of that, under this Labor government we have seen the cost of living skyrocket. The average mortgage holder is paying $22,000 more than they were a year ago. They're spending more on their grocery bills, more at the bowser and more on power prices.

These are the millions of Australians who get up every day and are happy to pay their taxes and are happy to contribute to our social welfare system, but they do expect that people will avail themselves of the opportunity to work where the jobs are available and where they're able to do so. That's why the opposition leader, in his budget-in-reply speech, outlined a better way to provide additional support for people on JobSeeker. Our approach is to increase the income-free threshold by $150 a fortnight, giving those Australians the opportunity to work more before they lose a cent of their payment. We know it's good for the economy, we know it's vital for small and medium businesses that are looking for more workers and, most importantly, we know it is the best thing for the individual who is on JobSeeker. Encouraging a JobSeeker recipient by giving them financial incentives to take up more work, which we know is available, is a far better way in this current economic environment to provide support to JobSeeker recipients than simply increasing the amount of the JobSeeker payment that they receive with no incentive to work.

It goes without saying that increasing the income threshold by $150 a fortnight achieves each of the objectives that I expect fair-minded Australians would be seeking. It helps alleviate the labour shortages that are currently being faced throughout the economy—those 431,000 or so formal job vacancies. And we know there will be thousands and thousands more informal vacancies, such as the sign in the window that's not formally counted in those numbers.

Our policy will not only help businesses by encouraging more people to do more hours or to start working some hours—we know that 75 per cent jobseekers right now currently have no earnings—but will also help those people and families at the heart of small business. It helps those people who are creating jobs and creating wealth for our country. It also means that people are getting the vital skills that they need for meaningful long-term employment. We all know that the longer you're out of the workforce the harder it is to re-enter it. Again, it should be plainly obvious to everybody that the coalition's approach of incentivising work, not incentivising welfare, is the best approach to helping people. It's ultimately best for the wellbeing of the JobSeeker recipient too. We all know the dignity of work and the dignity of having a mission. For that reason, our approach is far superior to the one that has been put forward by the government, and we will continue to encourage the government to adopt our policy, which is in the best interest of just about everybody.

We give credit to the government. They've partially adopted the policy that we announced in our budget-in-reply speech in October in relation to senior Australians being able to work more hours. They did it begrudgingly, but in the end they saw the absolute common sense of our proposal. The current income-free areas can act as a deterrent for some people looking for more hours of work or looking for hours of work. Undoubtedly, the best way to facilitate people into meaningful work is to make that first step as easy as possible. How do you help them make the first step? The first thing you do is remove the barrier to making that first step: the financial disincentive of doing that extra hour of work, taking that job or taking on some part-time work. The evidence is clear: where you can facilitate someone who is unemployed into part-time work, it is often the pathway to meaningful full-time employment. In fact, we know that people who report earnings are twice as likely to move to full-time employment as those who do not report earnings. This is an outstanding dividend for that person, for our economy and for welfare costs. It is the trifecta.

We can compare that with what the Labor Party is proposing. The Labor Party, in this bill, is proposing $9.5 billion of spending over the forward estimates, which undoubtedly will put pressure on inflation. Every dollar the government spends at a time when the Reserve Bank is trying to remove money from the economy just means that the government and the Reserve Bank are working against each other. It means that inflation stays higher for longer, which means that mortgages stay higher for longer. What the government is proposing is simply to increase the JobSeeker payment and ask hardworking Australians to fund a little bit more—a little bit more of your tax while your cost of living skyrockets. Meanwhile, in material term terms, you're poorer now than when the Labor government was elected. That is going to impact your standard of living even further. Not only do they pay for social welfare out of one pocket; but they get smashed on the other side with higher costs of living.

The coalition's strong view is that we need to respect those people who get up every single day and work hard to contribute to our economy and fund Australia's social security system. There is widespread support for our approach of removing these disincentives to work and encouraging people to take up work. The wonderful thing about our policy, too, is that, if a jobseeker avails themselves of the opportunity to work, they will actually be significantly better off financially. They'll be personally better off, and that's without taking into account the other benefits of engaging in the workforce: your self-esteem, your morale and the benefits to your overall lifestyle.

We do support, and we will continue to support, the change for eligibility for assistance for single parents. It's worth noting, though, the quite disgraceful things that the government has said about the ParentsNext program. It's an astonishing attack on what we consider to be some of our most vulnerable Australians, and the government has confirmed it will abolish the ParentsNext program. This is a program that keeps young parents engaged with the workforce, and most of these people are young women. This will clearly punish some of our most vulnerable people and remove a very successful way of keeping them connected to the workforce. It's a vital program to help them maintain that connection while facilitating their parental responsibilities, and it shows Australians that this government has no understanding of mutual obligation.

We want to hear from the minister what the government proposes to do to keep parents connected to the workforce and to be job-ready when their children get older. When parents are able to work, and when they want to work, what practical and tangible assistance is this government going to offer when it takes away the ParentsNext program? Abolishing this program, we all know, is ideological, but even the government, through its ideological lens, must accept we have to do something to help parents remain connected to the workforce so that they can easily transition back into the workforce when their children get older.

We will also support the expansion of the higher rate of JobSeeker for those aged over 55. We will support the increase to Commonwealth rent assistance. We are to some extent drawn to the position of supporting CRA because of how badly this government has handled the housing portfolio and how desperate the situation is out there now. We have a government with no housing agenda. We have a government that is seeking to bring in 1.5 million migrants over the next five years with absolutely no plan about where they are going to live. The situation right now is absolutely dire, and the government doesn't have a solution. We saw in the budget in October the government with their 'Ruddesque' announcement of a million new homes over five years. What they failed to tell the Australian public was that a million new homes had been built over the previous five years. That was business as usual, to be frank. But everybody knows—every economist, the HIA, the MBA—that they will now fail to meet this target.

The increase to Commonwealth rent assistance will help a fairly small number of people. It will be very few people around the country. But we're drawn to supporting the measure because the Labor Party have trashed the housing portfolio so badly in just 12 months and we cannot, in good conscience, oppose this. However, we are asking the government to reconsider their approach to JobSeeker. We're asking them to adopt the far superior proposal from the coalition which has respect for taxpayers, which will not add to inflationary pressures and which will remove the disincentive for people to work either more hours or at all. That will help hundreds of thousands of businesses across the country, businesses that are struggling—people who are literally working themselves to the bone—by giving them an additional source of employees.

Finally, we call on the government to support our proposal, as opposed to theirs, because it will materially improve the lives of people on JobSeeker. That is why, on behalf of the coalition, I will be moving an amendment as a request of the Senate to that effect. Because our policy will not only ensure that jobseekers have more money at the end of every fortnight, but they will also be incentivised to re-engage with the workforce in a way that we know will be the best thing for their lives, their morale and their self-esteem. It is a trifecta of good outcomes for the economy, small business and individuals, as opposed to the Labor Party's very lazy approach. I commend our amendment.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill. Before I get to the detail of this particular bill, I just want to start with some of the economic fundamentals because we do face a very challenging economy at the moment, and, sadly, we have a government that does not seem to have a clue as to how to deal with those economic challenges. The biggest challenge we face is of course inflation. Inflation is a destroyer of wealth. It is a destroyer of peoples livelihoods. It reduces an individual's ability to improve their lot in life. It crushes families. It crushes small business. Inflation is the biggest economic challenge we face.

In my home state—and I know this is replicated elsewhere as well—we see union demands for pay rises that will only exacerbate the inflationary challenge we face. In one case in Western Australia, a 25 per cent immediate pay rise is being demanded; in another case, it's 12 per cent over two years, including seven per cent immediately. If these sorts of pay rises were accepted by anyone in power, they would add to the inflationary pressure that's already in our economy and they would flow through to other sectors and risk a wage price spiral. That is not something that is completely out of the question, sadly. For those who are old enough to remember the last wage price spiral, which went from the early 1970s and into the 1980s, it was an extraordinarily destructive period for our economy. Getting inflation under control was extraordinarily difficult and something that caused untold harm to many families and businesses right across this country, including the farming business owned by my parents at the time. Probably the toughest period in their lives was when inflation got out of control and a heavily regulated labour market caused a wage price spiral. We see a recentralisation of the wages system under this government, so those risks are very much present again.

We should also not seek to put inflationary pressure into the system through our social security safety net. A safety net is just that. We need to take that seriously. We need to look at the general economic settings and understand the position Australia is in. Luckily, we have a historically very low unemployment rate at the moment. That is something that this government inherited from 10 years of coalition management of the economy. Those opposite blame absolutely everything on us, but they take full credit for the unemployment rate. How they justify that, even if their own minds, is beyond me.

The fact is that Australia does have a very strong employment rate, with very strong growth in employment. As I said, that is on the back of a decade of coalition management of the economy and on the back of the JobKeeper program, something that kept hundreds of thousands of Australian workers connected to their workplace throughout the global pandemic, which risked seeing businesses shut down. In other parts of the world, where businesses were forced to close down and where the connection between businesses and their employees was not maintained, the economic results were a lot more negative and significant.

The other thing that I always like to address at these opportunities is the myth that, in some way, the coalition government was not a friend of real wage increases. In actual fact the decade of coalition government saw real wage increases throughout that period—sustainable real wage increases, and this is the point. Real wage increases—wage rises above inflation—have to be based on productivity and on the needs of small and medium-sized businesses across Australia and their ability to pay. We can't see wage rises or social service payment rises come as a fiat from on high. That is where we will get into very real risks for our economy, including the risk of putting further upward pressure on inflation at a time when the Reserve Bank has done the heavy lifting, not helped by this Labor government. There does seem to be some downward movement in the inflation rate, but that is not something that can't be taken for granted, and the Reserve Bank may have to move again, particularly if they see continuing inaction from this government, as they saw in the last budget.

The Reserve Bank were sitting on their hands; they were waiting to see what the government did in the budget, and, following the budget, after having a look at what the government presented, the Reserve Bank were forced to raise rates again. Obviously, this government didn't tackle inflation, didn't know how to tackle inflation in its budget, and the Reserve Bank had to act. Because the Reserve Bank are the only sensible economic player through this period, when the government have completely failed to deal with what they themselves say is the biggest economic challenge at the moment; they say that inflation is the biggest economic challenge. They just don't do anything about it.

This bill will make a range of changes to our social security safety net, and we will be supporting aspects of this bill and we will not be supporting other aspects of this bill. The coalition believe that we have a better path forward, that we have a better approach. We will be supporting expanding the eligibility for assistance for single parents under schedule 1. We will be supporting expanding the higher rate of JobSeeker for those aged 55 in schedule 2. We will be supporting the increase in Commonwealth rent assistance under schedule 3. We will be opposing the increase of payments by $40 a fortnight. Instead, as I say, we will be demonstrating our path forward, our better way, which is moving amendments to increase relevant income thresholds by $150 and removing the government's proposed $40 increase to the bill, allowing those on social security to work more to earn more income before they lose benefits. As I said, we will look to increase JobSeeker and other income-free areas by $150 per fortnight across the payments under the social security safety net.

This bill will increase the base rate of payments by $40, but it fails to reduce barriers to work. There are currently 431,000 job vacancies in the Australian economy. The unemployment rate sits at a historic low, but Labor continues to fail jobseekers, businesses, communities and, importantly, taxpayers across the country by doing nothing to alleviate the entrenched disadvantage. We need to further incentivise jobseekers to take up those employment opportunities that do exist. There are 808,000 JobSeeker recipients of which more than 75 per cent had no reported earnings. We all know that creating jobs and getting people back into work is the best way of improving living standards, and it's also the best way of breaking intergenerational welfare traps. That's why, in his budget-in-reply speech Peter Dutton, the Leader of the Opposition, stated that increasing the amount that can be earned before benefits are reduced and thus incentivising jobseekers to take up employment opportunities is coalition policy. Increasing the amount that can be earned supports jobseekers and many small- to medium-sized businesses who are crying out for workers and who are being left stranded by the Labor government.

My colleagues in the chamber and I meet with those businesses—in my case, particularly in rural and regional Western Australia. We meet those businesses literally every time we are out and about. Increasing the amount that can be earned supports jobseekers and many small- and medium-sized businesses, as I said, which are crying out for workers. This is a preferable way of providing additional support to people on JobSeeker. Our approach has been to increase the income-free threshold from $150 to $300 a fortnight before taper rates of JobSeeker payments kick in, giving those people more opportunities to work. This is good for the economy, we know it's crucial for small- and medium-sized businesses looking for more workers and we know it is the best thing for JobSeeker recipients themselves. Breaking back into the workforce, particularly when you have been on social security support for a period of time, is the most important change you can make in your life, and it does change lives. I'm sure every single person in this room, no matter where you sit in the chamber, would have met many people who have been in that circumstance—who have been long-term unemployed and who have turned their lives around by being given an opportunity in the workforce.

Under our approach, income-free thresholds will also be increased by $150 for other related working-age payments such as youth allowance, parenting payment partnered, Austudy payments and the disability support pension youth. Encouraging a JobSeeker recipient by giving them that financial incentive to take up hours of work that we know are available or take up even further hours of work if they are already working is a far better way in this economic environment of providing support to those JobSeeker recipients, as opposed to simply increasing the amount of JobSeeker they are receiving for no work, with no requirement or incentive to do additional work or even some work at all. It helps alleviate labour shortages that are currently being faced throughout the economy.

As I've said, and I'll end on this, there are 431,000 formal job vacancies in Australia. There are many, many hundreds of thousands, as all of us would know, of informal job vacancies in the economy as well. You come across them every day if you are talking to small- and medium-sized businesses in Australia. I commend the coalition amendments to the chamber.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to this Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023. In doing so, I want to reflect briefly on the final report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, though I hope that we can have a much broader discussion on this in parliament in the months ahead.

What immediately struck me about the final report was Commissioner Holmes's reflection on how we speak about welfare recipients in this parliament and beyond. On the one hand, we can recognise that our family, our friends and our neighbours can fall on hard times and need our support to get back on their feet. We recognise that communities and that society has a duty to ensure that people don't go without food, that they don't go without shelter and that they don't go without the basic necessities of life. On the other hand, as Commissioner Holmes says, we can:

… regard those in receipt of social security benefits as a drag on the national economy, an entry on the debit side of the Budget to be reduced by any means available.

Too often the tired frame of taxpayer versus welfare recipient is dragged out not for any public policy benefit but as a means of demonising a group of people for political advantage. I saw just this morning on breakfast news, where the former deputy prime minister, a person who represents quite a lot of people on income payments, took an opportunity to tell the country that some people are undeserving of support.

Robodebt was an illegal scheme and it thrived in conditions where social security recipients were treated as numbers to reconcile rather than as people in our communities. How we speak about our social security safety net matters. It's my hope that the royal commission's findings are treated with the gravity they deserve and that we all heed the message that we, the people in this room, need to change the narrative. It is unworthy of this parliament to speak about anyone as not being deserving of society's support. In particular, it's time we end the argument that there should be no souls on JobSeeker when there are jobs available. Jobs are not available everywhere in Australia. Many people don't have the financial resources to move to get a job. People may not be qualified for the jobs that are being advertised. Some people only have a partial capacity to work. Others are living with a disability but are not able to apply for the disability support pension. We need to stop thinking about people as numbers and need to start thinking of people as individuals, who may come to unemployment for a range of reasons, which cannot be boiled down to a simple statistic or category.

I'd like to talk about the substantive elements of this bill. I watched the inquiry with great interest and I want to thank everyone who contributed, particularly those who are living on income support or the disability support pension and who donate their time to helping to improve the system for others who use it. Something that stood out to me was a quote by a young person on income support living here in the ACT—and I know Senator Rice mentioned this in her speech. This young person says—and I'm paraphrasing a little bit: 'Our safety net is more like a parachute with holes. It will slow your descent to the bottom, but you will eventually hit the bottom.' This is what our current safety net does to people. It drains them of any financial resources and it leaves people without the basic necessities of life. The net result is people who become increasingly marginalised, stigmatised and excluded from our economy. The simple fact is: if you can't afford rent, food and things like deodorant, a haircut, public transport, heating or even the basic privilege of a replacement light bulb, you are not in the best position to find a job.

Our safety net is a net that traps people in unemployment. This was the first finding of the expert Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and it is why they recommended a substantial increase in working-age payments—to remove the inherent barriers to work and better set people up for success. They recommended increasing working-age payments to 90 per cent of the age pension for a number of reasons, chief among them that this is the only payment that has been reviewed in recent years and adjusted to ensure people can afford the basic necessities of life—though, given the huge cost-of-living pressures existing today, I'm sure you would find it hard to find a pensioner who agrees that living on the age pension is an easy life. The committee found that the current rate of JobSeeker is actually an impediment to getting into the workforce. We've just heard a lot about how unemployed people need to get a job. Well, we've currently got our social security set up in a way that actually acts as a barrier to them getting out and finding jobs, filling those positions that we hear so much about.

Despite what was recommended, what has been received is a fairly miserly increase of just $2.85 a day before indexation. It's $4 a day after CPI is applied, but, given grocery prices have risen by seven per cent, indexation of two per cent is cold comfort. Let's be very clear. This bill will not lift people out of poverty. It will not break entrenched disadvantage in communities across the nation. While any increase is welcome, $2.85 is just not going to be enough to ensure people can eat fresh food whilst also heating their home through winter. The government say—and I'm sure we'll hear it many times today—that they have carefully calibrated the budget to pay down the debt and control inflation, whilst also supporting those most in need. This is a pretty difficult pill to swallow when you read about the huge profits that the supermarkets and banks are reporting while people struggle to afford their grocery bills. It's an even harder pill to swallow when you read in leaked documents that the Treasurer ignored the advice of his own department and chose the weakest reform option for the petroleum resource rent tax. We've got a government that talk about revenue issues, the deficit, and then when they are presented by the Treasury with options to actually get more money from companies that are making record profits from our own resources, the Treasurer goes for the option that's not going to bring in that much—doesn't want to upset the gas industry.

Last estimates, we confirmed with the Treasury that not a single offshore gas project has paid a single cent in petroleum resource rent tax, and yet the government is cowering to the gas industry. That is our gas that they are selling off for record profits. Australians deserve a fairer cut of that. We should be able to actually put that to use for people in our communities who need it. We should be able to use that to pay down the debt that we hear so much about from both sides of this chamber.

Our safety net is greater than just JobSeeker and youth allowance. It also extends to the Child Care Subsidy, and I just want to pick up on a recommendation made by both the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce. The activity test does not work. Both committees recommended it be scrapped, the EIAC stating that it was an example where the social security system reduces rather than enhances economic inclusion, especially for women, and causes additional hardship and disadvantage for children. Yet the government chose not to scrap the activity test in the most recent budget, despite this compelling advice that it is limiting access to early childhood education as people are not able to pick up extra shifts as work. The activity test disproportionally impacts First Nations families, non-English speaking families and low-income families. It is bad policy. It means children don't get the benefit of early childhood education, and it leaves people separated from work for longer. It makes no sense that the government did not act early on the recommendations to scrap it.

This bill does not provide a strong safety net for Australians. It may patch a few holes in the parachute, but it will ultimately leave people descending to the bottom. And yet we know what it would take to fix this. We have the expert advice and we have the analysis. All we need is the political will to do right by our family, our friends, our neighbours, our community. We can do so much better, and I urge the government to stand up for Australians who desperately need our support. I move the amendment circulated in my name:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) the expert Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee (EIAC) found that the rates of social security payments for working age Australians are seriously inadequate and are creating barriers to paid work,

(ii) the EIAC recommended the JobSeeker Payment, Youth Allowance and other related payments be raised to 90% of the aged pension to restore a previous relativity between the payments, reduce financial stress in the community and improve the wellbeing and security of the most vulnerable Australians,

(iii) the Albanese Government has rejected the expert advice of the EIAC and has chosen to raise the rates of income support by just $2.85 a day, before the payments are indexed,

(iv) the Albanese Government has decided not to remove the activity test for the Child Care Subsidy, despite recommendations to do so by the EIAC and the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce, given findings that it is perversely reducing economic inclusion, especially for women, and causing hardship for children,

(v) the Albanese Government has chosen not to raise the age of eligibility for Parenting Payment (Single) to when a parent's youngest child turns 16 years-of-age, leaving over 18,000 single parents without access to the payment,

(vi) by the time changes to Parenting Payment (Single) commence, over 5,000 single parents will have been needlessly removed from the payment and will need to reapply,

(vii) we are in a housing affordability crisis and the EIAC found the current rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) to be inadequate,

(viii) at a time of rapidly rising rents, the 1.3 million Australian households receiving CRA are at greater risk of financial stress and poverty,

(ix) the EIAC recommended the Government commit to increase CRA and reform its indexation to better reflect rent paid, and

(x) the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme reported that politicians need to 'lead a change in social attitudes to people receiving welfare payments' and change the narrative of 'taxpayer versus welfare recipient'; and

(b) is of the opinion that the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 will not do enough to reduce poverty in the community and provide all Australians with a strong social safety net; and

(c) calls on the Albanese Government to:

(i) change eligibility for Parenting Payment (Single) to support parents to continue on the payment until their youngest child turns 16,

(ii) raise the rates of working age payments to at least 90% of the aged care pension, as recommended by the EIAC,

(iii) scrap the activity test for the Child Care Subsidy,

(iv) significantly increase Commonwealth Rent Assistance, and

(v) commit to the development of a modern measure of poverty in Australia to guide future policy making in social services".

Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence) | Link to this | Hansard source

I start my contribution to the debate on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 with a quote:

Employment advances the wellbeing of individuals and their families, grows community capability, and enables employers and the economy to be more productive.

This statement from the 2023-24 report to government by the Interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, a committee comprising social security and economics experts and leaders from the community sector, advocacy, organisations, unions, business and philanthropy, illustrates an important point: we need to do all we can to get people into jobs. It is good for the individual, good for the family, good for the community and good for the economy. On this we should all agree: a strong workforce supports economic growth and our nation. This is at the very heart of the coalition's opposition to an increase in JobSeeker and related work-age payments by $40 a fortnight. Why? It's simple: we want people working. We want to use all the incentives we can to assist people into jobs. We want jobseekers, including those who will have several attempts for various reasons before securing sustainable work, to at least have a crack, knowing the safety net of JobSeeker is there but the expectation of work remains constant.

I've shared my logic on why I am supporting most of the bill but not the JobSeeker increase. We all must remember that every single dollar spent by the government is a dollar someone else has earned. As I expressed in my maiden speech and have continued to advocate and repeat, we absolutely need to have greater transparency, accountability and outcomes for every taxpayer dollar spent.

Not only does employment underpin the economic output of our nation and enable people to support themselves, their families and their communities; it is also connected to physical and mental health and is a key factor for overall wellbeing. A simple look at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report confirms that.

In my home state of South Australia, the employment-to-population ratio is sitting at 61.8 per cent. That is 952,000 employed. South Australia's unemployment rate of four per cent sits higher than the national June figure of 3.5 per cent. When compared to the nation's underemployment rate of 6.4 per cent, South Australia again sits higher at 7.1 per cent.

Incentivising people to work is the way to increase opportunities for sustainable work, rather than incentivising them to stay on 'sit-down money', as I often hear it called. That's a devastating term. I hear it often where welfare is the expected destination in contrast to work. As I travel around South Australia and speak to businesses, from small to medium to large, they are all looking to hire more staff. It is like it is on repeat—'We're looking for workers. We're looking for workers. We can't find them.' But, despite looking for workers, they are finding it hard to find them—in hospitality, in health and even in volunteer organisations.

Last week in Adelaide I visited a vibrant family business in Melrose Park. The owner of the business, Alicia, expressed to me her frustration in not being able to find workers. Advertising for a shop assistant to serve her customers, Alicia recently received 70 applications, but only two of those applicants accepted the opportunity for an interview. She expressed her concern that it seemed that none of the applicants were really interested in the job but were more interested in being able to tick a box so they could continue to receive their benefits. Another example is a family owned electrical and mechanical engineering business in Dudley Park which has been searching for extra staff for more than a year. Their advertisements on Seek and other forums get a lot of box tickers—those who want to meet their mutual obligation requirements but really don't have a desire for paid work. The hidden part of this equation is that this process costs those small family businesses money and time. Revenue is not being generated while they are genuinely interviewing people or reading applications from those who really don't want a job.

We know the work is there. Just a one-minute search of Seek jobs website last week found over 9,000 jobs available in Adelaide alone. Looking nationally, there were 432,000 job vacancies in May. Job vacancies remain high—around 89 per cent higher in May 2023 than before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Again batting above the statistics, my home state of South Australia recorded the largest growth in job vacancies, up nine per cent for the quarter.

Just as the coalition has repeatedly stated in policy, it is well known that the best form of welfare is a job. More should be done to help those on JobSeeker get the training and confidence needed to enter the workforce. This would benefit all Australians. I can attest to that, having previously worked in tourism and hospitality as the chief people and performance officer for more than 1,000 staff, many of whom were beginning their first jobs either as young people or as long-term unemployed. We knew that for them to succeed we needed to put in place responses that allowed for their development and confidence. We added training and engaged service providers to help with numeracy and literacy or medical care where they needed it and we set up social networks for those who were a long way from home. These were just some of the steps we took. These steps helped staff wellbeing, but, importantly for the business, retention levels rose. That support was only temporary, tailored and not permanent, recognising expectations were the same as every other employee. Low expectations kill expectations and diminish potential. If you can work, you should.

In being opposed to the proposed increased JobSeeker and related working-age payments by $40 a fortnight, the coalition is highlighting the need to provide the right incentive to ensure we are getting people into the workforce. With this particular increase in the indexation changes over the past year, since May 2022, the base rate of the JobSeeker payment will have increased 14 per cent. That's a 14 per cent increase. What other part of the Australian workforce has had a 14 per cent pay increase in the past 12 months?

True to its record, since gaining office the Albanese government has not done an appropriate level of modelling on increasing the income-free threshold from $150 a week. The Albanese government reluctantly implemented a coalition recommendation in 2022 to increase the amount jobseekers could earn before their income support payments are affected, and there is room for further increases in this threshold to encourage people to remain connected to work and to transition to work and off support payments.

With disciplined economic management during its time in government, the coalition was able to deliver the largest permanent increase to the JobSeeker income support payment. In the past three decades no government has done more for Australians doing it tough than the former coalition government. Under the Albanese government life is certainly harder for every Australian with rising costs of living, exorbitant energy costs—South Australia is one of the worst—and spare change in the hip pocket becoming a rarity for most Australians, let alone the growing line of standing behind people at teller machines when there's not enough money in there.

In summary, I join my coalition colleagues in supporting expanding eligibility for assistance for single parents, expanding the higher rate of JobSeeker to those aged 55 and an increase in Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent. But I will not support an increase to JobSeeker and related working-age payments by $40 a fortnight because those who can work should be incentivised to do so. Work readiness is not at the centre of these reforms and leaves a policy gap that will have a disproportionate impact on those already disadvantaged in entering and remaining in the workforce. That's why the JobSeeker and related working-age payment income thresholds must be increased by $150 a fortnight, and the government not be able to proceed with the $40 increase per fortnight. Those on JobSeeker are on that payment because they are supposed to be looking for work and there is an expectation they will work. We need to help them and incentivise them to do that.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023. At the outset, I confirm that the Greens will not stand in the way of people getting this tiny, tiny increase that is so not enough. It is an insult. This bill would increase the JobSeeker rate by $2.85 a day and after you add indexation it works out to be about $4 a day, which is woefully inadequate in a cost-of-living crisis and in a housing crisis. This so-called safety net bill reinforces what we already knew: Australia's social security system is not fit for purpose. Centrelink payments are not a real safety net. People can't afford food, rent, medicine and this bill doesn't change that.

The Albanese government is spending $313 billion on tax cuts for the wealthy, but it's claiming it's too poor to increase JobSeeker above the poverty line. In a wealthy country like ours, there is absolutely no excuse for keeping the income support below the poverty line. It certainly doesn't help people get jobs, and it condemns them to a life of poverty. There is no excuse for keeping the most vulnerable in poverty while offering tax cuts to the wealthiest Australians. Where are your priorities? I thought we had a change of government. We were expecting a change of policy. Labor promised in opposition that no-one would be left behind. But this bill leaves people behind—young people, students, renters, disabled people, women and people relying on income support. It leaves them so far behind. Labor has the power to help people but it's choosing not to.

One in eight people in Australia live in poverty, according to the latest figures from the Australian Council of Social Service, or ACOSS, and more than one in six children. Households where women are the main income earner experience twice the level of poverty as those where a male is the main income earner. There are 300,000 single mums who rely on Centrelink as their main source of income. We know that women make up more than 60 per cent of those relying on the lowest income support payments. We also know that women and girls made up more than 60 per cent of clients of homelessness services this year and last year. We know that rental prices are skyrocketing; we've just seen the biggest quarterly increase in rents in 35 years. And we know the fastest-growing group of people at risk of homelessness is women over the age of 45; it used to be women over the age of 55, before COVID, but now it's women over the age of 45. Across the country people are living in tents and cars, if they have one—children living in tents and cars.

As the women spokesperson for the Greens, I know these risks are compounded for women and children trying to leave abusive relationships. Women are given an impossible choice: stay in an unsafe home, or leave and put themselves and their kids at the mercy of a system of inadequate support, stretched DV services, housing shortages and punitive income tests. Professor Anne Summers undertook one of the most comprehensive studies on the interrelationship of poverty and violence, and found that a lack of money and financial support was a significant reason why women were unable to leave their violent partner. Condemning women to stay in violent relationships because of a lack of a decent rate of income support and a lack of investment in housing is indefensible. It risks the continuation and possible escalation of violence, social stigma, the loss of independence and agency, and the very life of the woman. That study by Professor Summers also found that many women who temporarily left violent relationships returned because they had no money. Painfully, returning to their violent partner seemed a better choice than being homeless and trying to survive in poverty.

The Albanese government policy, through the current National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, is meant to be to encourage and support women to leave violent relationships. But continuing welfare measures that are below the poverty line ensures that as many as half the women who are able to choose to leave violent relationships end up in poverty. The consequences of the Albanese government's choice to not stop poverty are very stark for women who are seeking to escape domestic and family violence.

I want to move to the single parent payment, which this bill also addresses. My wonderful colleague and our portfolio holder Senator Rice has already flagged we will move amendments to raise the single parenting payment cut-off threshold to when the youngest child turns not 14 but 16 years old, as well as amendments to raise income support to $88 a day so people aren't forced to live below the poverty line, which condemns them to a cycle of poverty and joblessness. Single mums are particularly vulnerable. They make sacrifices every single day—skipping meals so their kids can eat, skipping a doctor's appointment so they can pay rent, putting off dental care or not getting it at all so they can buy their kids school uniforms. Since the Gillard government's cruel decision a decade ago to drop the eligibility for the single parent payment from 16 to eight years old, single parents are losing about $100 every week once their youngest child turns eight. There's no logic to that. There's certainly no heart to that. This is an arbitrary cut-off that makes life harder for single mums and their kids. It's a change that can tip people into homelessness, and governments must act to properly fix it.

In the budget, now operationalised through this bill, the government lifted that age threshold from eight to 14, but I note that the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce, another government body whose advice the government is sadly ignoring when it comes to matters of poverty and need, said it should be 16. They said it should revert to what it was before then Prime Minister Gillard dropped it from 16 to eight. It is an arbitrary cut-off that fails to recognise the costs that single parents face when they're raising young adults. The government contended that, by age 14, children are reasonably settled into high school, but there was no rigorous analysis of the expense involved in raising high school children. There was no rationale. There was certainly no consideration of the 23 per cent rent increase in private rentals in my home town of Meanjin—or Brisbane, as it's known—in the last 12 months. The government said it was 'responsible budgeting'. I don't think it is responsible to condemn single parents to poverty and to fail to reverse that abominable change, which damaged so many families.

Many single-parent families remain stretched beyond capacity. Advocates like Anti-Poverty Week and the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children have urged the Albanese government to reconsider this. The government should support the Greens amendment, which would raise the age to 16, not 14, as the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce recommended and as single parents, and single mums in particular, around the country are begging for.

I also note that the government has been ignoring correspondence from Senator Rice and me and also, I believe, from the crossbench. It has failed to provide for families that fall through the gap—if their child turned eight after 30 June but before September, when the changes to lift it to 14 kick in. For those families, that's now up to three months of being dropped down to a payment that is clearly inadequate to meet their needs. It's three months in which they will struggle even more to put food on the table, to buy school uniforms and to pay the rent. The government must do something to support these families and prevent them from falling into poverty and homelessness. Why are you not fixing that? You can't expect people to be $100 worse every week for three months, in this cost-of-living and inflation crisis, just because you can't be bothered to change the commencement date on a provision. At the stroke of a pen you could fix this situation. I urge the government to support the amendment to close that three-month gap.

Labor's so-called safety net bill does not do enough for those who most need the safety net. Anglicare's 2023 rental affordability snapshot of over 45,000 rentals found that zero per cent of rentals were affordable for a single person on JobSeeker, and the tiny increase in the base rate and Commonwealth rent assistance that this bill will provide will do nothing to change that situation. In fact, Anglicare found that it would make one additional home, across the whole country, affordable for a person on JobSeeker—one additional home.

I'm incredulous that the government can be so wilfully blind to the real peril that so many people on JobSeeker and single mums are facing. Those opposite have the ability to fix it and choose not to. Poverty is a political choice, as Senator Rice so eloquently reminds this government every time she speaks. When you've got $313 billion that you're prepared to give to the wealthiest Australians and billions more for nuclear submarines, and you've got a $20 billion surplus, how dare you not spend that on lifting people out of poverty! How dare you have that as your priorities! We changed the government; we expected the policies to change. The Australian people are incredulous at the underdelivery of this limp new government. How dare you condemn people to stay in poverty when you've got the ability to fix it!

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

Budgets are all about political choices and priorities, so let's have a look at what the recent Albanese Labor government's priorities were in the recent budget. There was $368 billion on nuclear submarines, and I bet it ends up being a lot more than that—if those submarines are ever delivered; $313 billion for stage 3 tax cuts for billionaires and for politicians like us; $10 billion a year to the fossil fuel cartel to keep boiling the planet; and $7 billion a year to property moguls in subsidies, supercharging inequality and the housing crisis.

Let's talk a little bit more about priorities and tough choices. Labor says that they have to make tough choices in government. Any government does. But, when we look at their priorities and what they are spending the money on, what they are doing is forcing the rest of us to make tough choices. Poverty is a political choice. With the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023, Labor are saying that people on JobSeeker should be grateful for a $40 a fortnight increase in payment and a $16 a fortnight increase due to regular indexation. As my excellent colleagues have said in here today, that equates to $2.85 per day, and, if you add the indexation, to around $4 a day. How many of us seriously think that would make an improvement to our lives? It is not even the price of a coffee from your local barista.

This still leaves people on payments well below the poverty line. Labor's own expert committee said this was seriously inadequate. According to the ACOSS 2023 poverty report, 3.3 million people in Australia, or one in eight people, live in poverty. More than one in six Australian children live in poverty. A survey of 449 people living on Centrelink payments found that 62 per cent of people are eating less than they should be or are being forced to skip meals. Is $2.85 a day really going to help someone eat healthy food and keep them safe? With these budget changes, Labor is making the choice to keep hundreds of thousands of Australians living in poverty. These are the choices we are about to vote on in this bill.

Nowhere is more affected by growing inequality and poverty than my home state of Tasmania. It's no secret that battlers in Tasmania are doing it tough in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. Inflation has been supercharged by corporate profiteering, and it is our most vulnerable who are paying the biggest price. In Tasmania, 47,000 households are currently experiencing energy poverty and 120,000 Tasmanians are living below the poverty line. That's nearly 20 per cent. Rents in Tasmania have exploded, and Tasmanians who rely on our government to help them just can't keep up. Anglicare data released in April this year showed that rents in Tasmania are rising up to ten times faster than income support payments. The same report showed that single Tasmanians on the age pension can only afford a room in a share house. This is no way for any Australian, especially older Australians, to be living. Living alone without flatmates is not possible for people in Tasmania, unless they go into rental stress. Single people on JobSeeker or youth allowance cannot afford to rent any property in Tasmania and must consider shared living. This is not acceptable in a country like Australia, the so-called lucky country.

Taking a national perspective, an analysis of over 45,000 rental listings in 2023 found that zero per cent of rentals—no rentals—were affordable for a single person on JobSeeker. Poverty in Australia is not inevitable; governments choose to make it so by their policy and budget decisions, and that is exactly what we will be doing today.

Labor promised in opposition that no-one would be left behind, but the budget delivered in May leaves young people, students, renters, disabled people and people relying on income support behind. The government just announced last week the expected surplus was bigger than expected—$20 billion. This could do so much good at a time when people are hurting and being pushed to the brink but, instead, our Treasurer decided to bank it—and gave himself a pat on the back. Instead of using that surplus for good, we have a parade of Labor MPs in here today and in press conferences in recent days lining up to tell us that a $2.85-a-day JobSeeker and $1.12 rent assistance increase will make a difference to people's lives. Who are you trying to kid? We need to lift JobSeeker and all income support payments above the poverty line—absolutely black and white. The Greens won't stand in the way of this increase today.

I would also like to acknowledge my colleague former Senator Rachel Siewert for all the work she did for many years before she handed over to Senator Rice, who has continued her Herculean efforts to continue to push all governments to take a reasonable and humanitarian stand for those most in need. We know there is money in the federal budget for all the things we need to do to lift people out of poverty. But what will the most vulnerable people in this country get? Scraps, not enough to lift them out of poverty. The people who need our government to step up and help them as they suffer in the midst of an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis are being at best offered a cup of coffee a day by the Labor Party.

Economic inequality is at a 70-year high. Almost half the private wealth of this country—to remind senators in here today—is held by the top 10 per cent of Australians. One per cent of taxpayers own nearly one-quarter of all property investments in this country, and that hasn't happened by accident. That has happened because of structural shifts in policies over many decades giving unfair subsidies to the wealthiest Australians to keep buying investment properties at the expense of young and low-income Australians who would dearly love to own their own homes. We know the cost-of-living crisis has hit those on JobSeeker hardest, and rent hikes are at record highs, which is why it is so critical we raise the rate to $88 a day and implement a freeze and cap on rent increases.

In the year in which will be voting on a historic referendum to enshrine a First Nations Voice to Parliament in our Constitution, it is critical we also highlight the unacceptable reality that right now 31 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live in poverty, and poverty amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is twice as high in very remote communities as it is in major cities. If Labor are serious about helping people on JobSeeker and ending poverty, they should back the Greens' demands and the amendment to lift the base rate to $88 a day. We need a strong social safety net for everyone who needs it and we can afford it. Unlimited rent increases should be illegal, and Centrelink payments should be above the poverty line.

I want to finish with one point today reflecting the cost-of-living crisis that so many Australians are facing. We heard Mr Albanese last week talk about a potential double dissolution if the Greens don't pass his very inadequate Housing Australia Future Fund bill, saying that he can't control the states or dissolve the states or tell the states what to do. But we know that this parliament was recalled in December last year—many of us were brought back—to legislate the energy crisis relief plan, which essentially capped power prices for many vulnerable Australians. That was leadership by the government, and will I recognise that—good on them. They worked across party lines to do this. They worked with the National Cabinet and the states, and they achieved that. It wasn't perfect, but it was something. How is it that the Prime Minister can do that to energy and power prices to help struggling Australians but can't do it for rents? It just doesn't make sense. What we need from the Prime Minister is, again, for him to show leadership and for the Labor Party to show leadership. With the exception of Tasmania, all the states have Labor premiers. We know that the Victorian Labor government was talking about rent freezes. We know we did it during COVID, with the states and the National Cabinet working under the previous COAG system so that the nation was federated and working together on these issues. The Prime Minister simply needs to show the same level of leadership. Listen to the Australian people—the one in three Australians who are renters and are suffering terrible rent hikes. Do something for them. We can do it. I'm sure the Prime Minister can do it if he puts his mind to it. Stop playing political games and grinding your axe against the Greens, which you've done now for many decades. Actually work with us, and let's get on with helping struggling Australians by capping rent hikes, putting in place rent freezes and making a serious commitment to invest in public housing in this country.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to associate myself with the comments particularly of Senator Janet Rice, whose work on delivering welfare payments above the poverty line has been strong, consistent and constant for so many years. Of course, my other Senate colleagues have contributed so powerfully to this debate. We must raise the welfare rate. We must lift people out of poverty. How we treat those who need our help says a lot about the values of a society. Do we prioritise dignity, equity and giving everyone a fair go? Or do we keep payments so low that people have to skip meals, can't pay their rent and can't turn the power on, with medical and dental care impossibly out of reach? Are we satisfied that, after this bill, the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023, is passed, kids will still go to bed hungry? As an institution, this parliament would rather pay hundreds of billions for nuclear subs and forgo hundreds of billions of dollars more to give stage 3 tax cuts to the already wealthy than give a kid a meal or fix someone's teeth. They're the choices that this institution is constantly making. Because of the institutional agreement between parties that call themselves parties of government—Labor and the coalition—every time, it's the subs, the weapons and the wealthy who seem to get the largesse from this chamber. Kids? They can just go hungry.

Let's be clear: a vote of this place could literally end poverty in Australia. That's what we could do if we came together. We could end poverty in the country. It's a choice not to have that on the table today. In fact, to hear the coalition opposing even a $40 a fortnight increase—to hear that being said by people in such privileged positions, on the incomes that they are on—is a deep, deep insult to millions of Australians. It's a choice to make the welfare system impossibly complex, deeply punitive and degrading. It's a political choice to spend billions policing poverty rather than lifting people out of poverty. This government, in just the last week, have jumped out and promised a $20 billion budget surplus—and still they tell us they can't raise the rate of welfare above poverty. It's not that they can't raise the rate above poverty; it's that the Albanese Labor government won't raise the rate above poverty. Labor promised in opposition that no-one would be left behind. Does anybody remember that? We heard the Albanese cry, 'No-one will be left behind; vote for Labor—yadda yadda yadda.' That's what we heard when they were in opposition. But, of course, Labor in opposition and Labor in government are two totally different animals. We see it time after time after time. In opposition, they want your vote and they make promises. In government, they govern for the status quo. That's the Labor Party. That's actually it's job, it seems, in Australian politics—to back in the status quo with a smile and a well-meaning message. It's like the coalition with a good social media platform.

I call on Labor today to tell us how they'll deliver on that promise of no-one being left behind. How will they raise the rate, remove punitive mutual obligations and actually invest in committees? This bill does expand parenting payments for single principal carers whose youngest child is 14, up from eight years old. In actual fact, it's reversing a previous noxious policy put in by Labor. But I'll give credit where credit is due: that should be reversed, and it's good to see it being reversed. That's a meaningful change, but it's a meaningful change we need because Labor did that rotten deal to make the problem in the first place. Again, Labor in government compared to Labor in opposition.

Eight years old was never an appropriate limit for parenting payments. While we're heartened that the change is being made today, it's important to reflect on why it had to be made at all. The choice to save public money by cutting welfare payments is a cynical and damaging political choice, and it's a choice that has been made by both Labor and the coalition when in government. Both of them are willing to play the politics of punching down against people on welfare, punching down against single mums, punching down against people with mental health problems who are struggling to get by, punching down against people who can't get a job in a system that's designed to create structural unemployment. We saw from the robodebt royal commission how that punching down by both Labor and the coalition hurts so many. It hurts the most vulnerable.

This bill is a kind of light punching down, by pretending a $40 a fortnight rise is about addressing poverty. When you hear, if you're struggling to get by, that this government, which was voted for change, is giving a cup of coffee a day—maybe a cup of coffee a day—and celebrating it as no-one being left behind you know it's cynical, damaging and plain wrong. The last budget increased those payments by $40 a fortnight, or $2.80 a day, at a time when it's not unusual for rents to increase $100 a week, and when groceries and bills are spiralling out of control. That's what's been promised. It's an embarrassing increase for this government to be trumpeting.

If we want to talk about closing the gap for First Nations people across this country that needs to include raising the rate. We know that the rate of First Nations people in poverty is far too high. Data from ACOSS that's been given to everyone in this place—ACOSS reached out to all of us, gave us the data, gave us the information—estimates that almost a third of First Nations people live in poverty, sometimes entrenched poverty. And the rate is almost twice as high in very remote communities. How does anyone pretend that $40 a fortnight is going to lift people in remote communities out of poverty when we know that just going to the grocery store can be a heart-stopping experience, where sometimes the basic staples are two or three times what is required to be paid in capital cities?

I remember once going with community to the one store in Wilcannia in north-west New South Wales. The town is majority First Nations people, and the store is run by a white storekeeper, who I have very little time for. I remember going in and seeing a kilo of Black & Gold flour for something like $3. That's something you can buy in a Sydney store for about one third of that—a dollar or less. I remember also seeing in the freezer section so many pet bones, food for pets, which wasn't explained by the number of pets in Wilcannia, and the prices of every item. I thought, 'How could you possibly survive in this town on the kinds of payments that the government gives?' The answer is: you bloody well can't, not with dignity. Is $40 a fortnight going to address that? It absolutely will not.

Of course, this bill really isn't about lifting people out of poverty. This bill is about doing the bare minimum for Labor in government. It's nothing courageous. It's nothing generous. It's nothing to crow about. That's the Albanese government all over—nothing generous, just the bare minimum to satisfy a media release, to satisfy a vague promise in opposition on the way to the election but never to change the status quo, because that's Labor in government. They back in the status quo. They back in structural unfairness. And then they tell us about their surplus.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023. Of all the ridiculous pieces of spin we've seen come out of the Liberal and National parties, I don't think anything compares to the Leader of the Opposition saying earlier this year that the Liberals and the Nationals are the parties for the working class. These are the parties that have voted against lowering energy prices, voted against a $10 billion investment in social and affordable housing and voted against laws for secure jobs and better pay. And, today, when Labor has come to Canberra to pass laws that will increase JobSeeker, youth allowance, parenting payments, Austudy, Abstudy, the youth disability support pension and Commonwealth rent assistance, delivering real cost-of-living relief for the most vulnerable in our community, the Liberals and Nationals are saying that they oppose this.

It was reported in the Australian today: 'The opposition leader on Monday will commit to scrapping Labor's $40 a fortnight increase to the JobSeeker rate.' How out of touch can you be, to cut $40 from the most vulnerable people in our community? They aren't there throwing parties with the money. They aren't there using the money to fly in fancy au pairs. People depend on this money to pay for their rent, heating and food. That is what Mr Dutton is proposing to take away from people—rent, food and heating. Which one of these things should people cut if Mr Dutton cuts their payment? Should they save money on rent by sleeping in their car? Should they save money on food by only having dinner every second night? Should they stop using heating or turning the lights on in the evenings? These are the decisions that Mr Dutton and those opposite will force people to make if these payments are cut.

Here I was thinking that we had all agreed, many decades ago, that all people deserve these basic human rights. But clearly those opposite feel differently. But fortunately Mr Dutton is not the Prime Minister, and those opposite are not in government. On this side, the Labor government are here to fight for a stronger safety net. The Liberals and Nationals oppose that. We're here to create more secure jobs and increase wages. The Liberals and Nationals oppose that. We're here to fight for more affordable housing. The Liberals and Nationals, and the Greens, oppose that. We're here to protect Medicare and the NDIS. The Liberals and Nationals want to tear them down. We're here to deliver cost-of-living support for Australians doing it tough. And the Liberals and Nationals oppose it.

This $40 per fortnight increase will support 1.1 million people. Together with the other measures in this bill, like the increase to Commonwealth rent assistance, this bill provides urgent cost-of-living support for two million people across the country. To those two million people I say that Labor is here to fight for you. A Senate community affairs committee inquiry into this bill said that antipoverty campaigners supported a strong increase to working-age and student payments. Many said the increase needed to be higher, and I understand those calls. But who agreed with Mr Dutton's opinion that the rate shouldn't be increased? The only organisation the Liberals and Nationals could find to support their view was the Institute of Public Affairs, an organisation that exists to promote the selfish interests of Gina Rinehart and a select number of other billionaires at the expense of everyone else. What did they say about the $40 a fortnight increase? They said it's 'unlikely to succeed because it will disincentivise social security recipients from seeking the best form of welfare—a job.'

That's the position of the IPA and those opposite: if you're poor and you're doing it tough, it's your own fault; get a better job. The Liberals' and Nationals' party line is that, if you don't have a job, it's because you are not destitute enough yet. Their party line is that every unemployed person needs to be crushed and ground down by abject poverty, and then miraculously they will find a job. It's a ridiculous position that is not supported by any evidence or reason. It's a position that is rooted in a sneering sense of self-superiority. Mr Dutton's looked at those in poverty and said, 'It's your own fault.' Many Liberals and Nationals look at people who live in poverty and think to themselves that it could never happen to them. They are too brilliant, too clever, too hard-working. The reality is that any person—it doesn't matter how clever or brilliant you think you are—can find themselves living in poverty. It's a question of luck and circumstances.

How can anyone look at people doing it tough and think to themselves that they deserve to live in poverty? It's a disgusting worldview. Between the increases in this bill and the indexation changes under this government, the JobSeeker rate has increased by 14 per cent over the last year. That's $90 more per fortnight or over $2,300 per year. It is a meaningful increase, and my hope is that we will continue to do more. I'll never share the worldview that people who are unemployed, who are studying or who are on a disability pension deserve to live poverty. I oppose that view with every bone in my body. Working people deserve a living wage, and those unable to secure work deserve a fair standard of living that does not leave them in abject poverty. Mr Dutton's promise to cut $40 a fortnight from welfare recipients is a disgrace, but sadly it's what we've come to expect from the Liberals and Nationals since the Howard era. When the most vulnerable people are used as a political punching bag, that is something I will never support.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023, and I want to add to the chorus of my Greens colleagues who have spoken today and echo some of their comments in relation to what this bill represents. It legislates the four income support measures that were contained within the 2023-24 budget, the first one being allowing single parents with children up to the age of 14 to access the single parent payment. The others are increasing the rate of working-age and student payments such as JobSeeker, youth allowance and the partnered parenting payment, Austudy and the youth disability support pension to a measly $56 a fortnight; reducing the qualifying age for a higher rate of JobSeeker from 60 to 50 years, and increasing the maximum rate of Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent. I'll be very clear from the start of this speech that these increases are not enough. An additional $56 a fortnight is not enough.

The Greens will not stand in the way of this increase today. We were pleased to see it increased over the weekend, but it's still not enough. This bill ignores all the evidence from the countless inquiries, all the advocacy from organisations, the testimonies of lived experience of Australians on these payments and calls from the members of their own parties to do better. Under this legislation, JobSeeker payments will still keep Australians below the poverty line while this government will persist with nuclear submarines and stage 3 tax cuts for billionaires. The government had an amazing opportunity to make a real difference. They absolutely did. Yet they chose not to. They made a political choice not to.

The Greens have long called for the base rate of all income support to be lifted to $88 a day. We believe that everyone has the right to access adequate high-quality resources to enable them to participate fully in society, and this includes the additional targeted services and supports that people need. It's about meeting people where they're at. It's very, very simple. People should have those resources that they need to live a fulsome and dignified life, and that should in fact not be a controversial statement to make in this country.

I would like to also acknowledge the work of my predecessor, former senator Rachel Siewert from Western Australia, who did an amazing amount of work in this place. After Rachel left, her incredible work has been picked up by Senator Rice, who has helped expose the true centre-right agenda of this government which in fact presents itself as progressive. It's beyond my comprehension how they can actually do that.

This bill is far from the ambition and compassion that people on welfare payments deserve to be shown. Under these changes, people will still be forced to make a choice between paying their rent, paying their bills, buying their medication and buying food. They're the choices they have. A survey was conducted of people living on Centrelink payments. It found that 62 per cent of those respondents, so over half, were eating less food or in fact skipping meals altogether. They're making a choice, that they've been forced into, between rent, bills, food and medication. People in this place and the other place have gone on record saying that they couldn't possibly live on these payments, and yet they expect millions of Australians in this country—the Lucky Country we call it—to live on these payments. What an absolute joke.

For those folks who are watching out there, those in the gallery, politicians in this place will say, 'We couldn't possibly survive on that,' but we expect Australians to. And the sick joke is that, on their comfortable salaries, politicians will say: 'This is all we had to offer. This is a choice we made in this budget. We were being responsible.' On the weekend we heard the minister, Minister Rishworth from the other place, go on national TV and say, 'This is what we had to offer in the budget, and we dished it up.' With an estimated surplus of $20 billion, this is all they have to offer Australians.

One in eight, or 3.3 million, people in Australia live in poverty right now. More than one in six of our children live in poverty. Poverty is in fact that political choice. This government and previous governments—the coalition can't escape from this—made their choice to keep people in poverty in this country. Being on income support is not a personal failing. It's not bad budgeting. It's not laziness or some of the other excuses that you've heard people use to talk about those who are on income support. It is the decisions that are being made right here in this building that are keeping people—women, children and our families—in poverty. Make no mistake, these are not just numbers—we can bandy those numbers around and talk about those; these are very real human people at the core of this issue. They are people that are isolated. They are crushed by the poverty that this government has now left them in.

I am going to talk to some of the quotes they shared during the Senate inquiry into the extent and the nature of poverty in Australia. One of them said:

To be on income support and have no money is very dispiriting. It is crushing. It is soul destroying. You become socially isolated.

Another said:

… I have seen how this country treats poor people. I've been on the receiving end of it long enough to have had a gutful, and it regularly—

I want to emphasise the word 'regularly' in the evidence this person has provided—

makes me think, 'Hey, maybe death might not be such a bad idea.'

During the inquiry into this bill, one witness also stated:

… this increase doesn't recognise how close I am to homelessness. It doesn't recognise how close many of my friends are to homelessness. It doesn't recognise the people who already are out of a place to live and how it's impossible for them to find anything.

…    …    …

I wouldn't call it a safety net; I call it a parachute with holes. If you're on JobSeeker, you're going to hit the bottom at some point. I do think ending up on JobSeeker puts you into a state of poverty, and it makes it much harder to get out of that.

These stories are absolutely heartbreaking. We must never forget about the real human impact that the development of legislation and laws in this country around welfare has.

This government has been very averse to breaking election promises regarding the stage 3 tax cuts, but it has never been more happy breaking promises that, as others have said today, were about leaving no-one behind. How many times did we hear that during the election campaign? Labor said they would leave no-one behind, but what have they done? In this bill they have left people behind, and they continue to do it. Young people, students, renters, disabled people and First Nations people are all being left behind.

So often it is the case that the impact of these decisions will be felt disproportionately, particularly by my people. In fact, 31 per cent of First Nations people across this country already live in poverty and over half of the First Nations people in very remote communities also live in poverty. At a time when we are talking about last week's report from the Productivity Commission about closing the gap and only four of the 19 targets being 'on track', we know that First Nations people are poorer, get sicker and die earlier. We all know these stories. I sit here and listen to people on both sides of this chamber say to me, 'We've been out to these communities.' Well, the pretty picture you're trying to paint when you do that for your own purpose is not the pretty picture here. Communities are not given the support they need, and that extends to the matters contained in this bill. The intersectional issues of poverty cannot be ignored. However, that also means no-one should be living in poverty. Regardless of age, race, gender or postcode, it is utterly shameful that millions of people in this country—a wealthy country like ours—are forced to live in poverty because of the political decisions of the government.

I would like to finish up with just a few statistics that might bring some understanding to this. Information that was talked about on Insiders yesterday shows that we've had increases to food and beverages of 7.5 percent and increases to rent. In a time when we in the Greens, along with the coalition, are being blamed for stopping the housing bill, rents in this country have gone up 6.7 percent, and everyone is deaf to that. This is particularly impacting upon people on income support. Electricity has gone up 10.2 percent and gas has gone up 22.2 percent in this country. It is unacceptable that we should sit here and talk about that $56 a fortnight that we're so-called giving to people to get them closer to getting out of poverty.

The quote that I want to finish with is from the Antipoverty Centre's submission to the Senate inquiry on the extent and nature of poverty in Australia. It says:

We reject the ideological underpinnings and framing of poverty as a "wicked problem" lending itself to intergenerational cycles of disadvantage that cannot be helped by simply giving people money.

This narrative serves the interests of the architects of the poverty machine and those who perpetuate it. It is the reason why, despite endless cycles of consultation, targeted programs, and "place-based" experiments there are more of us in poverty, not less.

Supports and services can never fulfil their aims while trying to counter the effects of having insufficient resources. The idea that people need enough money to live should not be a radical one.

The biggest barrier to escaping the poverty trap isn't inherent human flaws, it's poverty itself.

We must continue to understand and work to bring forward those stories of the human element of the impact of what's happening across this country. It is our job. The reason that we have been elected to this parliament is to make sure that we hear what the Australian public are telling us, and what they are telling us is that this is insufficient. This is not enough and we are not listening. This government is not listening. Over on this side, we are listening and, as I've said, the work that Senator Rice has done as the chair of this inquiry has been amazing. It continues to raise these issues, and we must never forget the stories of that impact.

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought I might rise to make some brief remarks in regard to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 and make very clear what the coalition's position is. We have heard some contributions from government senators which tell half the story, so I'm keen this afternoon to make sure that people understand exactly what the full story is and why the coalition's amendments should be supported and why they concur or align with some comments that were made by the Secretary of the Treasury earlier this year.

To reiterate, the coalition will support expanding the eligibility for assistance for single parents, which is contained at schedule 1 of the bill. It will also support expanding the higher rate of JobSeeker for those aged 55, which is contained at schedule 2. It will support the increase in Commonwealth rent assistance, which is detailed at schedule 3. It will oppose increasing payments by $40 per fortnight; instead, we will move amendments this afternoon or tomorrow to increase the relevant income-free threshold by $150 and remove the government's proposed $40 increase from the bill. Fundamental to this is the idea that, in a period of very low unemployment such as we're experience in Australia now, where job opportunities are at their greatest and at a historic high, we must use this unique set of economic circumstances to give people the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of work. We know that when Australians have the benefit of employment their state of mind improves, they are happier and they are able to make a much greater contribution to our community. That's a view that is reflected in the HILDA report. It's not a guess; it's not an idea. It is something that is supported by the evidence in the HILDA review.

I want to turn particularly to some comments that the Secretary to the Department of the Treasury made in April this year in an address to the Policy Research Conference. At that conference, which was hosted by the Treasury, the secretary made some very important remarks, I think, when commenting on the white paper on employment, which is expected to be released soon. The secretary made some observations with regard to income support recipients—exactly the sorts of people that we are talking about this afternoon. He made these remarks in trying to draw to people's attention some of the disincentives in our current system that deny people the opportunity to work more. I think these comments are very illustrative of why the coalition's forward-thinking amendments deserve to be supported, amendments that are about using the unique set of very positive circumstances in our employment situation to deliver better outcomes for people who are on JobSeeker.

In his 3 April address to the Policy Research Conference, the secretary said:

Income support recipients, those people receiving payments such as unemployment benefits and pensions, can also experience work disincentives resulting from the tax-transfer system. I will focus on the JobSeeker Payment as it is most directly linked to the labour market.

He goes on to say:

Conversations around JobSeeker often assume that recipients are unemployed. This leads to an analysis of benefit rates relative to the minimum wage. The reality is far more complex. Around one-quarter of JobSeeker Payment recipients had some form of earnings in the previous fortnight, with many employed in part-time, entry level jobs. Indeed, reforms like the Working Credit, which allows JobSeeker recipients to accumulate credits while not working that can be drawn down to reduce withdrawal rates when working, have sought to incentivise part-time work as a stepping stone to full-time employment and self-sufficiency.

This is the most important paragraph, I think. He goes on to say:

Given this complexity as people move from unemployment into work, it is useful to think about the effective marginal tax rates, or EMTRs, to measure financial disincentives for income support recipients. It is the proportion of each additional dollar earned that is lost through increasing tax and decreasing transfer payments.

What he means is that when people on JobSeeker are earning some additional income, which they are free to do, there comes a point where it becomes a disincentive to work to earn additional income, in addition to the JobSeeker payment, because the effective marginal tax rate starts to eat into every extra dollar earned.

The coalition's amendment seeks to remove or change that disincentive. What we're proposing is that people will have an opportunity to earn $150 a fortnight, in addition to the $150 per fortnight they can currently earn, without it impacting their JobSeeker payment. This is very, very important, because it will encourage people who are on JobSeeker to take up the opportunities that exist in the market already for extra work. We know that those opportunities exist because we have small and medium enterprises in Australia crying out for more workers. We have people who are interested in taking up the opportunity to work some extra hours without it affecting their JobSeeker payment, and what we're saying is that they should have greater incentive to do that.

If the government can't put its mind to accepting what are very reasonable and forward-thinking ideas about how to maximise the opportunities that we get at the moment from having a very strong labour market—ideas that I think are endorsed by the Secretary of the Treasury, based on his comments in April of this year—if the Labor Party can't bring itself to be forward-thinking and use these opportunities, then I hope that the Greens and Independent senators might allow themselves to open their eyes, to expand their minds, about how we can use this unique set of positive opportunities to deliver better employment outcomes for people and solve a labour shortage challenge in our economy.

As we move into debating the amendments and the detail of this bill, I encourage Senator Ayres and others to, at a minimum, familiarise themselves with the comments that the Secretary of the Treasury, Dr Kennedy made earlier this year. He is a reputable, professional, dedicated public servant—the Secretary of the Treasury no less. I hope that Senator Ayres will be able to jump to his feet and talk about why the Secretary of the Treasury's ideas should be repudiated.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023. I would like to start off by thanking Senator Janet Rice and, before her, Senator Rachel Siewert for the passionate and compassionate work that they have been doing for years. I'd also like to thank my colleagues who have made such impassioned and heartfelt speeches today, making a case for why no-one in this country should be living in poverty—although we shouldn't really have to make a case for that in a wealthy country like Australia, where the government is banking $20 billion in surplus, where the government is giving $313 billion over the next 10 years to the wealthiest people who live here, where the government is putting $368 billion into war machines while leaving millions to live in poverty. That is just shameful.

Poverty is a political choice and one that this government, sadly, continues to make—one bill after another, one budget decision after another. They are actively choosing to leave people behind while boasting about a $20 billion surplus. What inhumanity, what callousness and what absolute disregard for so many people living in this country who are doing it so tough—people have to choose between heating and eating, people who have to choose between paying rent or getting medicine. This is what's happening in this country, and yet here we are tinkering around the edges. As my colleagues, including Senator Rice, have said, we see the evidence of this terrible political choice in this bill that we are debating today.

Let's not forget what the Liberal government, in their nine years, did. The Liberal Party left the rate of income support below the poverty line for those nine years. They actually slashed the social safety net, left people on inadequate rates of payment and refused calls from across the community to take any action. But we did hope for change at the last election, because people voted for that change and wanted to see that change. We hoped for something very different from a Labor government, because, in opposition, they did promise something very different. A few people have said this before. Their mantra before the election was: 'No-one left behind.' Then we saw their first budget, and there was no increase in JobSeeker. In the lead-up to their second budget, there was a concerted call from across the community and the sector, from advocates and community members, from people with direct lived experience, from experts, from national peak bodies to raise the rate above the poverty line. Labor's own backbenchers joined the Greens and others in calling for a substantial increase in income support. Sadly, in the budget earlier this year, we saw that the Labor Party did make a very deliberate choice to leave behind young people, students, renters, disabled people and people relying on income support. Their mantra of 'no-one left behind' was just that—a hollow political slogan.

We need to lift JobSeeker and all income support payments above the poverty line. While Labor's JobSeeker increase is woefully inadequate in the bill in front of us—it's less than a cup of coffee a day—it is absolutely atrocious that the Liberals want to block even that from going to those who need it most. How out of touch are you with what's happening on the ground in this country and how many people are suffering? We are in a cost-of-living crisis. Millions of people in this country are hurting. They're struggling to put food on the table; they're struggling to pay rent. The Greens very unapologetically are going to fight for those people so that everyone in this country will have enough to cover the basics, at the very least. Labor has the numbers in this parliament to make sure that everyone has enough to cover at least the basics. But, instead, they are choosing to keep people on starvation payments and locking 400,000 young people out of youth allowance.

I have to say it like it is: the government's wicked stubbornness in offering a pittance to those on JobSeeker and youth allowance means that they're pushing already vulnerable, struggling people further and further away from training and studies or any semblance of a good life lived in dignity. As the Greens spokesperson for education, I have heard from so many students in the past few months alone about how they are struggling. I do want to talk a little bit about student poverty. It must be really depressing and overwhelming to be a student right now. There was a time in this country when you could actually live a good life while being a student, but that time has long gone. Students are struggling to afford groceries, to pay for medicine or period products, to afford train or bus tickets or to pay weekly bills. They are surviving on instant noodles and lining up in queues for free food. Students are struggling to pay rents to keep a roof over their heads. There are facing rent hikes from greedy landlords. International students are suffering the most at this point in time. They are pitching tents in lounge rooms and sleeping in bathrooms.

Students are caught in a terrible debt spiral. Labor allowed student debts to rise by an astronomical 7.1 per cent on 1 June this year, handing down an even longer and larger debt sentence to millions of students. On top of that, another 3.9 per cent increase is predicted next year. We had that same increase last year. That means that, under a Labor government, in just two years, student debts have ballooned 15 per cent. The situation gets even worse for students who are required to work for free as part of their degrees while knowing they'll be paying off this debt for decades. It should be the other way around: degrees should be free and students should be paid for the work that they do. They should be on liveable incomes while they are doing their placements. Last month, I joined Students Against Placement Poverty to launch their campaign against unpaid placements, which is yet another unfair and unjust aspect of our education system. Hundreds of thousands of students are working countless hours without any pay or compensation.

Work placements are especially common in feminised fields of study. This further entrenches gender inequality. We already have that gender inequality entrenched as the rental crisis and the housing crisis soar; we already have that gender inequality in women having more student debt. And this pitiful increase in JobSeeker doesn't really address that problem at all.

One student at that forum which I joined last month spoke through tears about completing placement in a hospital and needing to work seven days a week just to afford to live each day. And this is what they said: 'You can't process anything when you have to work seven days a week. How do you learn and how do you get better?'

So students and young people are being pushed to the limit at the moment. Students in many situations are going months without a day off. They finish their placements at 5 pm and go straight to another paid shift at a pub or a grocery store. Students are having to choose between putting petrol in the car to get to placements and putting food in their stomachs.

Inflation is on the rise because of corporate profits, not because people should not live under the poverty line. Young people and students are working multiple jobs. They're cutting back on necessities but still they're barely scraping by. Yet here we are debating a bill that wants to keep them in that horrific situation where they can't make ends meet. It is an absolute travesty that the Labor government is allowing this to go on.

How is it that senior executives and CEOs of some of Australia's largest listed companies are pocketing 14 and 15 per cent average pay rises? How is it that vice-chancellors of universities are getting above million-dollar annual salaries and yet so many in this country can barely keep afloat? That is absolutely obscene. And yet whenever someone points out to the government how bad things are for students and for so many people living in this country, the response is, 'The current system is working perfectly. We'll put $4 in everyone's pockets a day and things will be hunky-dory.' Well, they won't. Those people will still be living in poverty.

Something needs to be done right now and the government has the power to do this. We are here. We have the numbers to be able to lift people out of poverty. The system at the moment is completely broken. A welfare system that doesn't lift people above the poverty line to ensure that they are living in dignity is an utterly cruel one. An education system that piles thousands and thousands of dollars of debt onto people is a broken one. We all know students are struggling. We all know young people are struggling. We all know millions are struggling. To say anything different would mean we're completely out of touch with any reality.

Labor can lower the age of independence for youth allowance from 22 to 18 and raise all student social security payments above the poverty line to at least $88 a day. You could not bank that $20 million surplus that you have and boast about; you could actually support and help people today. You could take meaningful action for renters by freezing rent hikes. You could wipe student debt, pay students a living wage for placements and make uni and TAFE free. There is absolutely no doubt, as I said earlier, that we can afford these measures. It is just a matter of political priorities. Labor has made the terrible choice to give $313 billion in tax cuts to the wealthy and spend $368 billion on dangerous war machines. Meanwhile, supporting struggling students and those doing it the toughest is apparently too costly: 'There's no money for that anymore.'

Despite the hardships that students and young people are facing, I am in awe of their courage to speak up, organise and mobilise to turn things around. They are rallying in the streets, bravely telling their stories and building a powerful movement for change. And that is what will change things. It will be those movements on the ground. It will be the work that the Greens do with the community—which is doorknocking and talking to people and listening to their stories and bringing them to this place—that is going to change Australia, that is going to force the government to change, that is going to change the world. I want to thank all those advocates and activists for showing such grit in the face of the really difficult circumstances that they face every single day. This fight will go on until every single person in this country is lifted out of poverty. At the end, I'd like to foreshadow the Greens second reading amendment, which Senator Rice will move later.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor governments believe very strongly in a strong social safety net. We need that safety net to be there for all Australians if and when they need it. We will always do what we can to support people in our nation who are doing it tough and need our assistance. This is why we have put forward the targeted and responsible measures in the bill before us today, the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023. Far from being a small patch, you can actually see in all the detailed, targeted measures in this legislation and in a wide variety of other measures we are implementing as a Labor government a commitment to all of the key areas within social security, within the cost of living, and to support Australians when they need it most. We are in the process of implementing a $14.6 billion cost-of-living package, which was announced back in the 2023-24 budget.

What we have before us today is an amendment to strengthen the social security safety net. As a package, the measures in this bill provide additional assistance to some two million income support recipients. The amendments in this bill will see an increase to the rates of JobSeeker, youth allowance, parenting payment partnered, Austudy, Abstudy, disability support pension youth, and the special benefit by $40 per fortnight from 20 September. These are significant increases in our social security payments.

What they also do is set a new benchmark for these payments. What the last government did during COVID, when they boosted payments temporarily, did not amend the base rates and did not even apply CPI to them. They simply made those temporary increases without ever doing anything substantive to address the underlying problems in the base rate of social security. Here, we are increasing the base rate for all of these working-age payments by $40 per fortnight from 20 September. This is a responsible, balanced increase targeted at people on some of the lowest incomes in Australia, who rely on this safety net for support. We have, in this increase, additional support to some 1.1 million people. Our approach in government, to contrast with that of the coalition opposite, is to see this rate indexed by CPI at regular intervals, which is particularly important at this point in time of high inflation. We also see, in the bill before us, increases in Commonwealth rent assistance.

We also see eligible payments—JobSeeker, parenting payment—indexed on 20 September as usual. The government could have said, 'We will apply that indexation only to the CPI and the payments as at 20 September,' but, no, we are applying that CPI indexation to the new $40 that's on the table. In this context, you can see the rate of JobSeeker for a single person with no dependants increases not by $40 but by $56.10, to $749 per fortnight, with an indexation of $16.10 to that $40. It's all very well for the Greens to simply say all that's on the table is a $40 increase. That $40 is a substantial increase, and it is an indexed increase—you can see, as I've just outlined, the rate of JobSeeker for a single person with no dependants increasing by $56.10. With this regular indexation, between May 2022 and September 2023 the basic single rate of JobSeeker payments will have increased from $643 to $749, a 17 per cent increase. That is $106 more in people's pockets each fortnight to help with cost-of-living pressures. This is some $2,700 in additional support each year.

The Labor Party in government is also expanding eligibility for the existing higher rate of JobSeeker to single recipients aged 55 and over who have been on income support for nine or more continuous months. This is a significant and targeted change. The higher rate of social security currently applies to people who are moving towards pension age from the age of 60. However, we know that there are many people doing it tough, including women moving towards retirement. The majority of people who this income support change will benefit are, in fact, women—55 per cent of them.

We're increasing this payment because we understand the additional barriers older Australians face when they're looking for work. This includes age discrimination and often poor health. In fact, I was talking the other day to my taxi driver, who had moved into transport because of such discrimination—being discriminated against because of the presumption of poor health. This taxi driver had clearly found a way of continuing to participate in the workforce, which can and should still continue to be our priority—to make the most of the skills of older Australians, particularly at a time of low unemployment, when many businesses are working hard to find the staff they need. I really want to encourage them not to look past the skills of older Australians. I won't outline some of the measures we're looking at as a government today in this speech, other than to highlight that we understand the importance of that workforce participation. It is a problem, and it's a problem that evolved under the last government where the proportion of mature aged recipients on JobSeeker payments significantly increased. Eighty-one per cent aged 55 or over stay on payments for more than a year.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Pratt, I don't wish to interrupt you, but we're at the hard marker. You will be in continuance when the debate resumes. I shall now proceed to two-minute statements.