Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This morning, in this Anti-Poverty Week, the member for Jagajaga and I, and a number of other Labor members of parliament, attended a forum put on by Catholic Social Services Australia. It was about the economy, and they spoke very clearly. I'm very glad the minister's in the House to hear that. I thought he would have been there, but he wasn't. If I'd been the minister I would have been there, because it's crucial to that portfolio. The forum spoke primarily of people who are desperately poor. It spoke about this government. It said the government is demonising people in its desperate search for a narrative. It also spoke about people who should be lifted up by government, which is not what this government is doing; this government is using punitive measures, scaring and scandalising people into submission. It spoke about providing people who are poor—and the gap is getting wider—with a frugal and dignified life. It spoke about a robust safety net.

This minister and this government are doing everything they can to undermine these things. Growing inequality is a reality in this country and it would be helpful if the government would come to understand that. Instead, there are $65 billion in tax cuts to big business, while they are privatising Centrelink jobs and putting people on rubbish wages to do it. In Centrelink, Minister, there are 42 million missed calls a year, and who knows what it has been over the last 12 months. And there are false accusations of fraud. But let's be clear: poverty is a reality in this country and this government would do well to have a look at what it actually means for people.

Foodbank in the ACT made a statement this week that the rising cost of living means parents are having to make the choice about eating and putting food on the table. How can this be, in a first-world country like Australia? It is because this government does not care about poor people and it certainly has no idea what inequality means. The Turnbull government's policy response to all of these signs, rising inequality and worsening poverty, is to make people work longer. It is, as the member for Jagajaga said, removing the energy supplement. It is cutting family payments. It is refusing to support people who have lost a partner. Households are praying about ever-increasing power prices. The fact is that there are people in this country who cannot afford to pay power bills, who cannot afford to have a home—and we know that many families are one or two pay cheques between homelessness and having a home. But this government says that everything's fine and, somehow or other, it's not its responsibility.

For any decent government, the first priority should be the poor and inequality. It should absolutely be about lifting people up, not putting people under their heel and pushing them down. We also know that the energy debate that's been going on is a falsity. They are going to provide people with a cheaper energy bill in three years time by 50c. What is that going to mean for people today who don't know where their dinner is coming from? What is that going to mean for people today who have no idea how they're going to put food into their schoolkids' bags tomorrow so those children can go to school?

The last speaker from the government said something about entrenched inequality, intergenerational inequality. Education is the way in which you deal with that, and we know that we will be investing in school funding. We know that proper investments in infrastructure and a fair tax system are the ways to deal with intergenerational poverty. It is not by scaring people, Minister; it is not by telling people they owe money that they don't owe; it is not by privatising and outsourcing government jobs. It is not by putting people so far behind that they have lost hope. How can it be that you are overseeing a system where people cannot even imagine a future? That is a shocking thing and a shocking indictment of this government.

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