Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Schools) Share this | Hansard source

The mark of a good society for me and for all of us in Labor is how it treats its most vulnerable members and, at the moment, we couldn't be well judged in Australia. The drift we have been experiencing towards inequality is no longer a drift; it is accelerating by reason of decisions made by the Turnbull and Abbott governments. We know that wage growth is not keeping up with the cost of living and is being dwarfed by company profits. We know the proliferation of insecure work is putting enormous pressure on families. We are also increasingly seeing the real effects of the shrinking of the safety net, the dismantling of the social compact in Australia under this conservative government and we are seeing this particularly impact migrant communities.

These effects are not always clear to those who are not directly affected so I rise in the parliament to highlight the effects of particular decisions on a particular group in the community, which is facing extraordinary challenges, not to live well but simply to survive. These are people who are living lives characterised by terrible uncertainty, being asylum seekers awaiting process, and this has been compounded by some gross inequities. I think of a young woman who spoke to me recently about her sense that she was only a spectator in her own life and I want to tell this place about how this uncertainty has been compounded by her being cut off from any meaningful income support with changes to the Status Resolution Support Service—a program which presently is supporting about 1,000 people in Melbourne's northern suburbs as they wait for the processing of these claims.

This is not the only decision of this government that impacts on these vulnerable people. Of course, we've seen the social services legislation amendment encouraging self-sufficiency for newly arrived migrants, which would also have a terrible impact on vulnerable new migrants and people seeking asylum—in particular, single parents and their children, women at risk of family violence, children whose parents unexpectedly lose their jobs, young migrants and newly graduated students. These SRSS changes are particularly concerning. Lots of community organisations in my electorate have been speaking to me about their concern that those cut off from the SRSS will no longer have casework support. Access to jobs is really difficult and compounded by $68 million of cuts in this budget to jobactive services.

Next week, representatives from many local support organisations and community groups will be meeting to discuss these changes and will attempt to coordinate a response to the huge impact these changes will have: throwing people on the street. I rise in this place to show my support for these activists and these vulnerable members of the communities of Melbourne's north and to make this point in this place: I believe that Australians are generous and big-hearted people and I know that they deserve a government that shares these qualities.

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