Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the next few weeks we are going to see lots and lots of elected representatives posting on their social media about how so many people are doing it tough over Christmas, about how we need to support charity and other people who are helping them. That makes me angry and upset and frustrated, because we are standing in the very place that can fix that problem.

For over a decade, community organisations—and the Business Council of Australia and other organisations—have been pleading with governments to raise the rate of income support above the poverty line. This morning we had yet another presentation, one of dozens that I have been to already in the short time that I've been in parliament, presenting us with yet more evidence of the damage to people's lives that failing to raise the rate and leaving thousands upon thousands of people in this country in poverty is doing to so many people in this country.

It is disgraceful that Labor and the coalition—who have both been in government, who have both had the ability to lift thousands of people out of poverty in this country—have failed to do so. We have one in six young people living in poverty. I don't know how people in this place can feel like they are doing their jobs when thousands of people out there can't afford to eat, have a home or keep the lights on. Labor and the coalition, do better.