Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is one of those bills that does get you a little bit worked up, and for a number of reasons. It's groundhog day for many of us in this place: we're standing up again to argue against a really bad bill, a bill that, if passed, will try to roll out drug testing for all people receiving Newstart and youth allowance. Whilst they say it's a trial, the government's real wish is to roll this out across Australia. Here is the reason why people, particularly on this side of the House, get pretty cranky that we're here again debating this: the government members, who aren't raising this with their ministers, are not listening to the evidence, they are not listening to the community, they are not listening to the experts, they are not listening to their health professionals and they are not listening to people who are active in this sector about how this policy will not work. It is costly, it is expensive and it will not solve the problem that they are trying to suggest it will.

It's become a real habit with this government that they like to create an alternative universe. They like to rewrite facts. We hear a lot in broader political commentary about living in a post-truth world. Well, that is this government and that is this bill, which is suggesting that drug testing people receiving Newstart and youth allowance will deter them from taking drugs. The government's rhetoric is cheap. First of all, one in four people currently receiving Newstart is over the age of 55. They are not drug addicts, they are not drug cheats and they are not the people that this government is trying to demonise. They, in many cases, are hardworking Australians who have found themselves unemployed at the age of 55 or older. It could be that they were made redundant in their workplace because of cutbacks and slowdowns as a result of our slowing economy. It could be because they retired from their current role through illness or through injury, or they may have retrained and are struggling to get work in a new area.

One person in my electorate I met with is a former nurse who lived in Woodend. She is on youth allowance. She's 61. She still has several years to work before she sees herself as graduating to the pension. She did retrain. She got her security licence. She said, 'I will work where I can get work'. So she's a first aider and a security officer at Melbourne Park. But, of course, it is casual work, like so many jobs today, so some weeks she'll get full-time work and other weeks she might be lucky to get five to 10 hours. That's not enough for this government or for Centrelink. She's still required to actively look for more hours of work, and is constantly being chased and asked: has she looked for work this week, and where has she looked for work? This is somebody who is doing her very best to keep active. She is working. She's not just part of the statistic of one in four people who is currently unemployed and on Newstart. She's also part of the statistic of one in five who are currently working but can't get enough hours. To say to this active person in my community—who's working every shift she can get, as she takes it regardless, and who's also volunteering for an animal welfare agency caring for animals that are brought in, many of which are struck on our roads in regional Victoria—that she is now someone who the government could consider to be on drugs and should be drug tested is just so insulting. This is what this privileged government is aiming to do—to divide and wedge our society and to suggest that people who are on Newstart or youth allowance are subhuman, are not like the rest of us, are leaners and are a burden on our society and our economy.

That could not be further from the truth. The fact that one in five people on Newstart are working but can't get enough hours is another area that this government is just purely choosing to ignore. Again, these are workers. They're not drug takers. They're not people who've dropped out of our society. These are workers, but they can't get enough hours. Rather than working on fixing our economy or on fixing our employment system, which is seeing more people forced into insecure work, this government again seeks to distract by putting forward this bill.

I've made my comments on this quite open and clear in my electorate. I am opposed to this bill. I'm opposed to mandatory drug testing for people receiving payments. Whether it be a trial, whether it be mandatory, whether it be selective or random drug testing, it should not exist. The only comments that I've got opposed to my position on Facebook have been from a couple of local small-business owners who I know to be members of the Liberal Party. Their comments have been, 'I don't want my workers turning up to work on drugs; why should someone receiving a government payment be on drugs?' It's very similar to the rhetoric that we hear from government members and ministers. I say to those people in my community that that is a really gross misunderstanding of the drug addiction and drug abuse that we have.

In Bendigo, we do not have the drug rehabilitation services required for the people who are seeking help. That's for people who are already putting their hands up to seek help with drug and alcohol addiction. In the entire Loddon Mallee region, which is not just the Bendigo electorate but the electorates to the north, there are only four rehab beds. If any of these areas were in this drug-testing trial, they would not have the services and the support for anyone who did test positive, not to mention that our region can't help the people already seeking help. They're put on a long waiting list. It's again another area where this government is just lacking in any decent policy. The funding cuts to health and frontline services are really hurting the regions.

The knock-on effect of a policy like this when we don't have the resources is that it forces more people into poverty. This government demonstrates again in this bill that it has absolutely no respect for people who are actively seeking work. The whole experience for people on Newstart has become one where they feel like they're a criminal when all that has happened is they can't find work. I do know a lot of people who've dropped out of the welfare system, which the government boasts about having at its lowest numbers. The reason why they have is the punitive nature of it. This is why so many of our farmers have chosen not to take up the farm household assistance allowance, which is linked to the Newstart rate. It's the way in which this government has demonised anybody receiving some kind of payment or allowance. It's wrong. We should be helping all Australians who receive a payment. It's because it gives them the basic means to live and engage.

We should be lifting the rate of Newstart. It is below the poverty level. We should be lifting the rate of youth allowance; it is also below the poverty level. It locks people into survival mode. People who are on Newstart can't afford basic rent. They can't afford to get the bond together. They can't afford that first month of rent. They may get some rent assistance once they're renting, but in regional areas, where rents are supposed to be lower, real estate agents tell me that they are less likely to rent—in fact, in some cases they don't at all—to people on Newstart because they know that the rent will be at least 60 per cent to 70 per cent of their allowance and they know that they will fall behind in their rent payments. Many people on Newstart are couch surfing.

A woman who came to see me and speak to me openly about her experience is in her 60s and is couch surfing, because she's now been unemployed since her husband passed away over two years ago. She was on a carers payment. That ended once he passed away. They also lost his disability pension, of course, because he had passed away. She was struggling to get back into her career and struggling to find work, and it became a vicious cycle. She had to sell her home. She struggled to find a place to rent and she struggled to survive, because Newstart was so low. She was now living at her daughter's friend's house and trying to get hours together to work. This is someone who is skilled and someone who is a professional, but is facing age barriers—that discrimination that starts to creep in, once you hit your 50s and 60s, around work and employment and starting that work again. She said to me straight out: 'I feel like the government sees me as a criminal, when what I did was to take time out of work to care for my dying husband. I'm now trying to get back into work and I find myself locked in poverty.'

I also think about the comments from Bendigo Foodshare in relation to this bill. A few weeks ago I went out to thank the amazing volunteers at Bendigo Foodshare. Some of them are there as part of their obligations towards Newstart. Some of them are there as volunteers—older people who enjoy volunteering for Foodshare. Foodshare provide emergency relief to people throughout our community, and they see the face of the people struggling on Newstart and youth allowance. One of them said: 'Look, we turn up every day. I'm on Newstart. I turn up every day. I am at an age where I can declare my volunteer work as part of my obligations, and I'm really proud of what I do. We come together. We make sure that nobody in our region goes hungry.' When the Prime Minister announced he was going to roll out this drug-testing trial, he said: 'What have I done to ever upset the Prime Minister? Why is the Prime Minister targeting me? I'm contributing. I'm a big part of making sure that people in Bendigo don't go hungry.' And he's not alone. Here is this team of people volunteering and helping out those in need in our community. Yet the government's rhetoric does not recognise the amazing contribution these people are making. It instead seeks to demonise them.

I urge the government to drop this bill. It didn't work in New Zealand. It didn't work in Canada. It has not worked anywhere. All the experts are saying, 'This will not work,' whether they're in the social welfare space, whether they're in the job agency space or whether they're in the health space. Please listen to the broader community and to the experts on this and do not proceed with this legislation.

There's a time in this place when politics can get in the way of policy, and it does happen a lot at the moment. But this is probably one of the grossest examples of that, where the government's meanness and trickiness really shines through. We have a Prime Minister who loved this idea when he was the Minister for Social Services, loved this idea when he was the Treasurer and now loves this idea as the Prime Minister. He is somebody who has no compassion, respect, understanding or empathy for people who are unemployed and who are looking for work. He has no respect at all. If he did, he would not be introducing this bill. If the Prime Minister and this government were serious about supporting people with drug addiction, they would invest in frontline services, they would ensure that regions like my region, the Loddon Mallee, had more than four rehab beds, they would ensure that people got help the day they sought help and did not go on a six- to 12-month waiting list, and they would ensure that programs for people who come out of rehab were continued and not scrapped because of funding cuts by this government.

This is a bad bill, and it should be voted down in the Senate. I support the amendment that was moved by our side. I hope that the government considers that, but it should wake up and show some respect and compassion for some of the most vulnerable people in our community. (Time expired)

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