Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

In an extraordinarily unusual development in my very short political career, I tend to agree with the member for Melbourne on some points—it will not happen very often. However, I do not agree on most of the solutions. It will not shock you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to learn that. The motion before us reads:

That this House acknowledges that the current level of Newstart is too low.

It is an interesting debating point. But it has no detail, no costings about exactly where the member for Melbourne thinks it should go or how much it will cost. Maybe that is one of the Treasury costings that they have been asked about, that they are running a protection racket on—and it is being prevented from being released.

Mr Bandt interjecting—

Well, you released the costings. You go with Treasury—there are eight of them there. We just want to know what is in them. Maybe that is one of them.

Mr Bandt interjecting—

No, they are not. There are eight. You are hiding them, Adam. Just put them out there today and we will know what they are.

I thought the member for Melbourne's efforts of showmanship, a couple of weeks ago, claiming that he was living on Newstart reduced this debate—and what should be a serious debate—to a pathetic level. The point on which I agree with him is that it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that we get the safety net right. One of the great strengths of our society is that we have a safety net for people. There is a legitimate argument about the level of a safety net and about whether there is an inconsistency in different payments in the system at this point which creates a disadvantage. I think they are reasonable points. But the member for Melbourne displayed a bit of political showmanship, claiming he was living on a certain amount of money when, quite obviously, each week in this position we as members of parliament are entitled to quite a generous taxpayer-funded salary and to benefits, such as membership of the Qantas Chairman's Club, which many people do not. I know the member for Melbourne attends that regularly as well, as he is entitled to. But to claim that you can somehow live on Newstart is, frankly, a joke and reduces what is an important debate that we should be having about the level of Newstart payments, which this motion seeks to raise, to a pathetic level.

There is of course a reason that this allowance is called Newstart. It is designed to assist people who have, for whatever reason, fallen out of work and who are seeking to get back into the workforce for a period. We do not want people to be on Newstart for a long period. The member for Melbourne makes a good point that the allowance needs to ensure that people can survive and that they can use that allowance, in addition to other assistance they get such as training, and that people who need this money to help them reskill and get back into the workforce are able to. How that money is allocated, I think, needs to be reconsidered.

But it is a two-way street. You cannot just expect that those who create jobs in society will pay more and more tax for those who are unwilling to go to their own extent to get themselves back into the workforce. There are issues in the economy at the moment as we go through a structural change where there are parts of the economy and parts of Australia where there are more jobs than there are in other parts of the economy. That requires, I think, job seekers, particularly younger people, to look at ways that they can better access employment in certain circumstances. So this is a two-way street.

That is what we expect people to do, and that is why our plan that we will put to the Australian people before the 14 September election—of creating an economic environment where the private sector can create two million more jobs—will be an important aspect of this debate also, because we need an economic pie that is growing to ensure that people can get access to work and that we assist the economy to adapt to the structural change that is going on within it, which means that people who had presumed work in a certain industry some years ago which is not there now are able to change their skills, update their opportunities, get themselves back into the workforce and not be stuck on Newstart for a long period of time. That is because, no matter how much you increase Newstart—and it is an expensive thing to do as far as the government goes—you will never be able to put it to a level, and you never want it to be at a level, where people are living comfortably, because indeed the whole idea of it is to push people and encourage people back into the workforce. We on the coalition side want people to be in work which satisfies them and means that they are contributing to a strong and prosperous economy for the future.

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