Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

I have to say that it is very disappointing, in this Anti-Poverty Week, that the Prime Minister is leaving the parliament. It is a week for all Australians, including all of those opposite, to actually focus on the needs of the far too many people in Australia who are living in poverty. In fact, according to the Australian Council of Social Service, there are around three million Australians, including 730,000 children, living in poverty.

Unemployment and underemployment, of course, are the greatest drivers. They remain persistently high, and all of us know that without a decent job it is very hard to make ends meet. There's only one job available for every 10 people who are out of paid work or who want to work more hours. That is what is happening under this government. We saw earlier this month—and the member for Gellibrand, I know, will talk about this later—the closure of the Toyota factory in Altona. Six thousand workers lost their jobs. Of course, as the member for Wakefield knows only too well, this week we will see the closure of Holden in Elizabeth, in South Australia, leaving thousands more people out of work in a part of Adelaide that already has very high unemployment. We're going to see the end of car manufacturing in Australia, after 70 years, on this government's watch, and we will see so many families driven into poverty as a result of this government's inaction.

On this side of the parliament our goal is to make sure that everybody who is able to work can find work and is able to get a decent job. We actually believe in making sure that our economic policy delivers full employment, that people get a stable job with decent pay and conditions. We know it's that decent job with decent pay and conditions that leads to a good life. By contrast, what we see from those opposite is not only this huge loss of skilled manufacturing jobs but the abolition of weekend penalty rates for many thousands of low-income workers across this country. We have company profits skyrocketing, which those opposite are the cheerleaders for, while wages for workers are stagnant. That's the reality for thousands of people in this country.

Young people in Australia are being driven into insecure work, into casual work, and are finding it very difficult to earn enough money each week to pay their bills. They're finding it even more difficult to get into the housing market. For the people who are dependent on income support, being able to afford housing is at crisis level. In most of our capital cities, rental vacancy rates are below two per cent. All of us know—particularly those of us who care so much about those who are struggling the hardest—that the social housing system is no longer providing an adequate safety net for the people who really need it. One of the biggest issues driving poverty in this country is, of course, that Newstart is too low. We on this side of the House acknowledge and understand that. It is leaving people in poverty. As the Business Council of Australia has said, it is acting as a barrier to employment. That's why at the last election Labor said that we would do a detailed, in-depth review about the adequacy of Newstart.

Amidst all these signs of increasing inequality and worsening poverty, what's been the response from those opposite? What is this out-of-touch Prime Minister actually doing to address these serious issues? One of the worst things that he's doing is continuing to push to get the age pension age up to 70.

Mr Hawke interjecting—

I want to go through a few very important facts about how this is a demonstration of increasing inequality, which obviously the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection at the table has no understanding about. Between the years 2001 and 2014, the life expectancy of the richest five per cent of Americans increased by roughly three years—so the rich people got to live longer. For the poorest five per cent there was no increase whatsoever. If ever you wanted a demonstration of inequality, there it is.

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