Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Before I start, I convey on behalf of the Greens our thoughts to the member for Cooper, my parliamentary neighbour, and to her family in this very, very difficult time.

This novel coronavirus is transforming the world and our country before our very eyes, and it's exposing a lot about how we have structured our societies, what is important when it really matters and also what can be discarded. But if the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us one thing it is that it is not just that we're all in this together and that if we want to get through this we all have to get through it together; it's shown us that by valuing the things that we have in common and things that governments have attacked for the last 30 years we are able to pull through in times of crisis. It is with a touch of irony that we are retreating as individuals, isolating ourselves in our own homes, to advance the needs of society. The neoliberal truism from Margaret Thatcher that there's no such thing as society couldn't be further from the truth right now.

We're all making our own little sacrifices to stop the devastating impact of this pandemic, but some of us have to make much bigger sacrifices than others. For many those sacrifices can't be avoided. If you have a relative, a partner or housemate with health vulnerabilities, your social sacrifices will be greater than others. For those who through no fault of their own have lost their jobs or who have had their businesses shut down those sacrifices are severe. To the nursing and medical staff risking everything to leave their homes and care for others, the retail workers stacking the shelves, the couriers delivering our essential goods to market and the cleaners keeping our hospitals sanitised and safe: thank you so much for putting yourselves at risk.

Some sacrifices cannot be avoided, but others can, and that is where government comes in: to look after people. It must be the first priority of government to make sure that no-one is left behind. What is getting us through this crisis are all the things, as I said before, that have been attacked for the last 30 years: a strong public healthcare system, government deciding to look out for each other and putting life above a surplus and understanding that if we pull through together and look after everyone then we are all better off.

In many respects I think the government has made some significant steps that I never expected this government would make, but it is clear that in other respects they have had to be dragged there. There was advocacy from the Greens and community groups that means in some states we now have eviction bans for renters. This was because of Greens amendments that passed New South Wales and Tasmanian parliaments.

We finally saw the rates for people on government income support—students and the unemployed—lifted. Not-for-profit sectors were brought in to be supported, not just for-profit businesses—something we pushed hard for—and women at risk of domestic violence in this time of heightened stress, loss of income and isolation are being supported. When I became leader, I talked about the need for free child care but I didn't expect we would be seeing it so soon. Most of the legislation for this support was delivered in this building a few weeks ago, but at that time the Greens were saying loudly and clearly that we also need to guarantee people's wages to keep them employed and not overwhelm Centrelink offices that have been starved of resources and funding for the last decade. We moved an amendment here last time to achieve that. The government said no at the time but now we are back debating that very legislation that the Greens called for. But still our job is not done because even now the government is arbitrarily sorting people by who it will look after and who it will leave behind in the wake of this COVID disaster—renters, one million casual workers who worked for less than 12 months, people on the disability support pension and those who are carers, residents working here on temporary visas, international students, the arts and entertainment sector. Why has the government drawn a line to sort people into deserving and undeserving of help? It makes no sense why some groups need to be looked after and others don't.

What a lot of the groups being left behind have in common is that they are young people. Again, it is young people the government is doing over. From encouraging our climate to collapse to lifetime debts for education, from unaffordable housing to an unfolding extinction crisis, the government doesn't seem to care about young people having the same safety net that previous generations enjoyed. And now the looming recession is going to hit young Australians hard. I am not just talking about forced isolation or a delayed career or being forced to move back home with parents. Young people are wearing the social pain because they are the ones occupying the jobs in industries that have been shut down—hospitality, retail, tourism, the arts and entertainment industries—but they are being intentionally dismissed by this government. Half a million of the million casual workers the government is abandoning from the JobKeeper scheme are under the age of 24. Let me say this again: half a million young people under 24 are purposely being excluded from help by this government. Many will be forced to default on their rent, borrow money from friends or have to navigate our unemployment system. The Greens will move an amendment to scrap the 12-month working requirement and provide young people with jobs support and peace of mind. We need a wage guarantee and a jobs guarantee for everyone. The government's policy misses the mark on so many levels, and these young people and casual workers are being excluded purely as a budget savings measure. The sectors where casuals have been employed in high numbers for less than 12 months include retail, hospitality, tourism, accommodation and education—the exact sectors hit hardest by the forced shutdowns. There are one million casual employees the government is turning its back on and these are real people living real lives, people like Shannon from Adelaide, who returned to work six months ago after having had a baby. She is casually employed but doesn't qualify for the JobKeeper payment. Her words to the Prime Minister are short and sharp. She said, 'I am one of the one million people left behind in the JobKeeper package. I have been out of work since early March and I have a young family to support.' There is Scott, who recently moved to Sydney in order to complete his training as a boilermaker. He was employed as a casual and now he is out of work. His direct plea to the Prime Minister is: 'No income makes it hard to find a place to rent, and without a place to rent it is pretty hard to find a job. It is going to take me months to save up the bond for somewhere.

It is not just young workers but carers too. Neesa from Busselton is a single mother caring for her son with autism. She has just lost her job, and this is her message: 'My landlord has ignored all contact. I have pleaded with him to reduce my rent for the time being. Our medical bills have gone up as have our grocery bills. I'm scared about how to feed my son and keep a roof over our heads. I feel unseen and overlooked by the current government.'

In my electorate, Ali in the Docklands receives the disability support pension, another group that is left behind by this package. He is immunocompromised and can no longer take public transport. His story for the Prime Minister is: 'Two weekly appointments used to cost me $9 in myki fares but last week it cost me over $120 in taxis. Because of this, I haven't been able to pay my utility bills or even buy groceries for this upcoming week.' And then there are the 565,000 international students, who the government has confirmed it won't lift a finger for. We welcomed these students into our country, we accepted the fees they are paying to our universities and we took the money from the leases they signed. Now they have lost their jobs, and in their time of need we are abandoning them.

Temporary visa holders are in a similar position. Few temporary visa holders have the financial capacity to simply leave, as the government is suggesting. For them, this is a sentence to poverty and hunger with serious public health implications. How can we ask people to self-isolate without income and, in some cases, without a home?

Finally, the largest group being left to languish are renters. The government are bending over backwards to secure the rights of landlords and property owners. They are working hard to find a pathway for commercial arrangements to continue, even when commercial land value right now is reduced to zero. But what about a roof over someone's head? What about the human right to housing? The government, it seems, couldn't care less. The issue keeps slipping off the national cabinet agenda. We heard a proud announcement today how far advanced the cabinet is on a code for commercial tenants but still nothing for residents. People are being evicted right now, people are being threatened with eviction right now and it keeps going in the too-hard basket. Unless the government acts and acts in the next couple of days, this will reach crisis proportion. This must be a matter of priority to ensure that there is a national eviction ban and that there are rental holidays for those who need them.

There are so many others who are going to be left behind, but the bills we are passing today give extraordinary power to the Treasurer to create payment schemes. We say amend the legislation in the Senate to look after the people being left behind. But if you are not prepared to do that then amend your schemes after we leave this place to make sure those people are not being left behind.

Despite the promise of everyone getting a chance to speak here, we are running out of time for other members of the crossbench to have their say, which is typical of how the government has worked throughout the whole process. I will say one final thing: we are about to adjourn this parliament within a day or so and then not come back until August. That means that the key ministers about to spend huge sums of money, unprecedented amounts of money, will have next to no oversight from their parliamentary counterparts. We support legislation going through to ensure that money can be used to keep people safe, keep people in jobs and keep businesses going but it must come with some oversight. What we need is a joint House committee where members of this place and senators can call ministers to account over the coming months and ask them to explain how they are spending money so that we can put to them that there are people being left behind. If we just suspend this place and have a Senate committee that, while it is a powerful Senate committee, won't have the capacity to call House ministers because they can simply refuse to appear, then we are entering a realm of unaccountability. Democracy should not be put into isolation during this crisis; we need more democracy, not less. The Greens will be pursuing amendments in the Senate to ensure that, in this crisis, no-one is left behind and to make sure that government keeps being held to account so that we can include those groups that the government is forgetting.

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