Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Omnibus Savings and Child Care Reform) Bill 2017. This bill is a callous attack on ordinary Australians. It attacks families, pensioners, jobseekers, people with disability and new mothers, and it demonstrates so very clearly how out of touch the government are with the day-to-day lives and concerns of Australians. Even more insidious is the disgusting game the government are playing with the NDIS. It is a clear measure of how ruthless this government are when they say to the parliament, 'Pass these cruel cuts or we can't fund the NDIS.' It is disgusting that the government are using the NDIS as a political pawn. They have disgraced themselves, and people with disability and the community are rightly outraged that they are threatening the NDIS.

Since their very first budget the coalition have tried to impose cruel cuts on Australian families, motivated by a warped conservative world view. It is ironic that the coalition always claim they are the party of family values. But this claim is a blatant mistruth as over the last 3½ years they have tried to rip away family support and make life much harder for families. It is the height of hypocrisy to attach yourself to 'family values' when you are blatantly attempting to make the day-to-day lives of families harder.

This bill contains massive cuts across the board. They include: cuts to family tax benefits; cuts to paid parental leave; scrapping the energy supplement; introducing a five-week wait for Newstart; and cutting the rate of support for young people between the ages of 22 and 24. This bill introduces $2.7 billion worth of cuts to family payments to pay for a $1.6 billion childcare package. Overall, the bill cuts a massive $5½ billion from the household budgets of low-income Australians. So, at the same time it is giving a gigantic $50 billion tax cut to big business, the Turnbull government is cutting support for hardworking families.

I particularly want to examine the impacts these cuts will have on family payments. The government has admitted that the cuts to family payments will leave 1.5 million Australian families worse off. Let's just consider that for a moment. The government is freely admitting that it is going to make life harder for 1½ million families. Let's also consider the practical impacts of the cuts. An average family with two children and a single income of $60,000 will lose around $750 a year. A couple on $75,000 a year with one child will lose over $1,000 per year. These are very significant amounts of money for working families. The cuts will put enormous pressure on already stretched household budgets in an economic environment of very low wage growth and rising unemployment. Australian families are already doing it tough, and these cuts to vital family support are wrong.

There may not be many constituents of the Prime Minister in Wentworth who access these family payments, but families in the Hunter and Central Coast regions which I represent certainly do. Many families in the member for Robertson's electorate to my south and the member for Lyne's electorate to my north who access these payments will be much worse off. The government are happy to make life harder for families at the same time as making life much easier for their corporate mates. That is the great difference between the Labor Party and the Liberals and Nationals. We want to make life fairer and better for people; they seem to want to make it much harder.

The changes in this bill to Labor's paid parental leave scheme also constitute an attack on working families, and 70,000 new mothers will be worse off each year. The women affected are our teachers, nurses, police, retail workers and hospitality workers. These are not double dippers or fraudsters as the government arrogantly claims. They are the women who make our economy and society function. The irony of cutting entitlements that many members of the government have accessed is not lost on many. The whole point of Labor's scheme was for women who already had access to employer funded leave to also be able to access the government scheme. This is in line with the World Health Organization's advice that new mothers should have 26 weeks off work to bond with their newborn, breastfeed and recover from the birth. This was in fact a recommendation of the Productivity Commission, and the explanatory memorandum that accompanied Labor's paid parental leave scheme made it very clear that it was intending to work in conjunction with employer funded schemes.

The debate around this aspect of the bill by the government has been appalling for two reasons. Firstly, they have tried to say that only high-paid public servants in Canberra would lose entitlements, yet again attacking the public servants of this nation. Secondly, they have failed to recognise that the employer related benefits have been won at a cost to ordinary working mums and dads. It has usually been a pay rise that they have given up. It has usually been a condition that they have given away or an extension of the working day that has led to a trade-off for this paid parental leave scheme. So what they are doing here is saying to the mums who work at Coles and Woolies at Cardiff or at Lake Munmorah, 'We're going to take away an entitlement that you sacrificed a wage raise for.' It is disgusting. It attacks nurses, retail workers and emergency service personnel in my electorate. I oppose it completely.

This bill also attacks pensioners by cutting the energy supplement for new pension recipients. This measure will cut $365 from a single pensioner and $550 from a pensioner couple. The government is, in fact, creating a two-tiered pension system. This is incredibly ill-thought-out and mischievous. It says to the people who will access the pension from September this year that they are not worthy of the current rate. It creates a second class of pensioners, and we should not forget that the annual pension rate is already very modest. It again demonstrates the warped priorities of this conservative government.

Some of the savings from this bill, if it is successful, will be directed to the government's childcare package. Being the father of two kids who are in childcare, childcare is an issue that I am passionate about. I know how important access to quality childcare is. And, of course, the Labor Party supports additional investment in childcare. However, we have serious concerns about the government's proposals. Detailed analysis by the ANU has identified that one in three families will be worse off and over 71,000 families with an income below $65,000 will be worse off. Let me repeat that, because the government has attempted to portray its childcare reforms as somehow taking childcare assistance off wealthy families and providing it to low-income families. Yet, 71,000 Australian families with an income below $65,000 will be worse off.

The government is also trying to implement a complicated new activity test that will leave 150,000 families worse off. These changes include removing the current entitlement children have to access two days subsidised early education per week. It halves access to early education from 24 to 12 hours per week and it will result in many children being pushed out of early education altogether if they have a parent that is not working and a family income over $65,000.

Early education is of fundamental importance to a child's development. Studies have shown that the first five years of a child's life are the most critical to their overall welfare and development. If this government was serious about enhancing and improving childcare, it would not be making these changes. I am in awe of the work that early education childcare workers do every day. It is a great profession. They do great work under very gruelling circumstances for low pay—pay that, in my personal view, should be increased, and deserves to be increased. For that profession and for that service to be attacked by this government is appalling.

This bill also attacks young Australians. The government will make young Australians wait five weeks before accessing Centrelink payments if they are unemployed. Let's be clear what this means: these young people will have absolutely nothing to live on for five weeks. We are not America. Australia is not a country with a philosophy of 'you're on your own', but this is exactly what the government want. They are saying to young people: 'If you happen to have the misfortune of losing your job, you have to wait five weeks for any government assistance.' This, yet again, demonstrates that the government are completely out of touch. That might be okay if you can rely on the bank of mum and dad, which seems to be the government's policy prescription for every problem confronting this country. If you cannot afford a house, rely on the bank of mum and dad. If you find yourself out of work, rely on the bank of mum and dad. That is fine if you happen to be lucky enough to have been born to a wealthy family. Most families have enough trouble making ends meet for themselves let alone trying to support an unemployed young person. So this, yet again, shows the cruel and callous nature of the government.

This is amplified when you look at the cut that they want to impose on 22- to 24-year-olds by moving them from Newstart on to youth allowance. This involves a $48 weekly cut. For some Liberals, $48 a week might not seem much, but for a young person in Gateshead, Swansea, San Remo or Windale on an already small, fixed income, it is a huge amount. Often, it is the difference between eating and not eating. It is the difference between paying the electricity bill and having the lights turn off. It is a cruel cut. It is unnecessary when you look at the warped priorities of the government. It will stain their soul forever. Labor will stand up for young Australians against these draconian and severe proposals.

Finally, I want to address the shameful conduct of the government in linking cuts from this bill to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. This is probably the worst aspect of this entire debate. For the Treasurer and the Minister for Social Services to excitedly and proudly announce that the cuts of the omnibus bill will help fund the NDIS is appalling. This is gutter politics at its worst, pitting pensioners and job seekers against people with a disability. And it has been called out as such by disability advocates. Champion Paralympian Kurt Fearnley proudly hails from the Hunter region. Kurt is an inspiration and has been a dedicated campaigner for people with disability and for the NDIS for many years. In fact, I first met Kurt in 2013 when he attended the launch of the NDIS pilot project in the Hunter Valley. It was one of the first pilot projects for the great NDIS scheme. For him to call out the naked political cynicism of the government demonstrates how low they have sunk. I really hope that the Treasurer and the minister heard his response to their sick stunt. Kurt said the government should stop using the NDIS as a political football and he wished they would fight for the NDIS as much as they fight for the $50 billion company tax cut. I urge the ministers to meet with Kurt and discuss this.

Funding for the NDIS is not dependent on these obscene cuts to our social security system. Myself, my colleagues and all decent people are rightly opposed to the obscenity this government is trying to perpetuate through this bill. Politics is willing. Politics is, by its nature, a battle over ideas. But for the Treasurer, a punitive contender for the leadership of the Liberal Party when the current Prime Minister is turfed out by his own party room, to use disabled Australians as some sort of human shield—saying, 'Pass my cuts or disabled Australians get it in the neck'—shows what an appalling creature the Treasurer is. This is a man content to bring a lump of coal into this place as a stunt, doing a gross disservice to coal workers in my electorate and in other electorates, cheapening a very significant energy debate into a game of stunts. For him to then hold disabled Australians hostage through this political tactic demonstrates the character of this individual—a man who, it should be said, tried to prevent the family of a dead asylum seeker from attending a funeral. This is the calibre of the Treasurer of this country.

In conclusion, the omnibus savings bill represents an attack on the living standards of millions of Australians. With devastating clarity it reveals the radical right-wing agenda that the government is pursuing. This government is proudly cutting payments to low- and middle-income families, pensioners, job seekers and young Australians at the same time as prosecuting a $50 billion handout to the big end of town—a $50 billion handout where, I might add, the main recipients will be overseas investors and the US government, which will receive $8 billion of the $48 billion.

If you ask my constituents whether they think the government should be supporting families and funding the NDIS or giving a tax cut to the big four banks, I know what the answer will be. That is why Labor is opposing this bill. We can improve child care in this country without attacking families, pensioners, unemployed young people and the disabled. This bill is fundamentally unfair, and I am proud to join my Labor colleagues in opposing it and in doing so standing up for the millions of ordinary, decent Australians in this country.

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