Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to contribute to the debate on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Coronavirus and Other Measures) Bill 2020, and I am especially pleased to rise in support of the amendments from the member for Barton, which would ensure that the Morrison government provides more support to vulnerable Australians in the deepest recession in almost a century.

This bill legislates two one-off payments of $250 for people who receive income support payments. Anyone who got the first economic support payments of $750 earlier this year will be eligible, including age and disability support pensioners, carers, family tax benefit recipients and some veterans payments recipients. These bills will also make it easier for people to meet the eligibility criteria to receive the higher independent rate of Austudy or youth allowance. This will mean that many young Australians who have had their hours cut or lost their jobs during COVID shutdowns will still qualify for the increased payments. This is a sensible measure, especially when you consider that more than half of the initial job losses were for people under the age of 30.

The bill also makes a number of changes to accommodate for the impacts of coronavirus and to create incentives to work. It extends a time frame to meet the paid parental leave work activity test from 13 months prior to the birth or adoption to 20 months. It creates incentives to encourage young people to take on seasonal farm work. It gives the minister the power to determine the average weekly earnings trend figures for child support while the official figures are suspended. It allows young people to qualify for the independent rate of Austudy if they earn $15,000 or more working in agriculture in the coming year, and it improves payments for people who have a stillborn child or because a child dies before their first birthday.

Labor have been calling for a number of these changes for some time now, so we are very pleased to see them included in this bill. But this does not make up for the fact that jobseekers look set to lose the coronavirus supplement in just two short months. That's why Labor today has moved those amendments which would oblige the minister to extend the $250-per-fortnight coronavirus supplement until March to at least ensure it is in line with JobKeeper. This is absolutely fundamental. It says everything you need to know about this government—that it would seek to punish those on JobSeeker by slashing this important payment while planning to retain the payment for those on JobKeeper. Why are those 1.6 million Australians somehow less important?

The coronavirus supplement has returned dignity to so many people's lives. It has meant they haven't had to choose between purchasing nutritious meals for their family, filling prescriptions, heating the home or paying their rent. Cutting the supplement isn't devastating just for the individuals who rely on it to survive, though. It's a massive hit to regional economies, especially to the local small businesses who have been hit very hard already by the pandemic. In the middle of the most perilous economic times in living memory, the government has a responsibility to keep our economy moving. The government talks up tax cuts as the answer. But the reality is that tax cuts benefit you more the more you earn, and those who earn more are far more likely to save more and spend less. In contrast, jobseekers spend every dollar just trying to keep their heads above water. Unlike those who have the luxury of a regular wage, people on JobSeeker are very unlikely to be able to squirrel away money for a rainy day. Instead, they're much more likely to spend with local businesses and keep money circulating in those local economies.

But extending the coronavirus supplement isn't enough. Jobseekers also deserve some certainty. They need to know that they're not going to get plunged back into poverty. The idea that JobSeeker could be returned to $40 a day—it simply cannot happen. It is unthinkable that JobSeeker would snap back to this rate at any point, let alone in the midst of a recession. Groups as divergent as the Australian Business Council, the Australian Industry Group, the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia and ACOSS have all recognised that the former rate of JobSeeker does nothing but entrench poverty, cripple people's quality of life and make it virtually impossible for them to find work. Frankly, when you get the Business Council lining up with ACOSS in any area of policy development, you know you've got an urgent policy imperative on your hands.

Labor have been advocating for an increase to the abominably low rate of Newstart since before 2019, and we continue to do so today. People mustn't be forced to return to living in poverty. The Morrison government has been the only opponent of this necessary change. This needs to stop—and it would with Labor's amendment, which would require the minister to announce a permanent increase to the base rate of JobSeeker.

Another concern that Labor has about this bill is the meagre support it provides to pensioners. Pensioners have been doing it tough in recent months. On top of the very real personal toll of being in a high-risk group during a pandemic, they have also seen the cost of living rise, while their income has been stalled or reduced. Health costs have climbed. Many have seen their investment earnings drop dramatically, as interest rates near zero. Then they got hit with the news that there will be no indexation of the pension for the first time in 25 years. Remember, this doesn't just affect this year's pension but every one that comes after it, because each year's indexation builds on the last one. Two lots of $250 doesn't even come close to making up for the financial hit that pensioners have endured. Regretfully, this failure to support pensioners is part of an ongoing pattern of neglect and cost cutting by this Liberal government.

Let's not forget that consecutive Liberal governments have axed the $900 seniors supplement; changed the pensioner assets test, ripping away $12,000 a year from around 370,000 pensioners; cut $1 billion out of pensioner concessions; tried to cut indexation so that pensioners would lose $80 a week within 10 years; and tried to scrap the energy supplement for new pensioners—remember that? Indeed, they have tried to cut the pension each and every year since they took office in 2013. It's clear the Liberals can't be trusted to protect pensioners—people who have contributed and given back to our society their whole lives. That's why we need Labor's amendments, which would oblige the minister to better support pensioners facing increased costs because of COVID-19.

We don't want to hold up payments, and many of the changes in this bill are reasonable and sensible, as I made clear at the outset, so Labor will support it. What's not reasonable or sensible, however, is that pensioners and jobseekers are being dudded by this government. Two payments of $250 aren't going to help pensioners, who are already living with the triple hit of having their pension indexation axed while their income is dropping and their cost of living continues to increase. Two payments of $250 aren't going to provide the certainty to the 1.6 million Australians on JobSeeker who desperately fear being plunged back into poverty when their payments get slashed in just two short months time. I know there are government members who have spoken out on this issue, and I urge them to support Labor's amendments. But, whatever happens here today, the fact that the government is pulling support from jobseekers and those on JobKeeper in the middle of a pandemic is utterly unacceptable.

COVID-19 has thrown into stark relief the fault lines in our society. It has shown us what has been working and what we urgently need to improve. We saw the damage done by decades of hollowing out the Public Service, funding cuts and allowing the private sector to free range over key parts of our economy. When the Morrison government started out in its response to the pandemic with a seemingly sensible and humane approach, Australians were shocked but cautiously optimistic. Wage subsidies bolstering public service and increases to JobSeeker all seemed to demonstrate that the government had finally understood the principles of inclusive growth—that, if our economy is going to work for any of us, it needs to work for all of us. We dared to dream that the pandemic might also usher in a new period of reflection and self-improvement, where the government recognised that some of the fundamental principles that underpin its approach have not been working. But I fear that the Liberals' foray into compassion and economic understanding seemed to be a temporary affliction, because their spots are coming back one by one.

Indeed, what we are seeing right now is that, rather than demonstrating that they've learnt the lessons of COVID-19, the government is instead using the pandemic as a cover to double down on the very problems that we had in the first place. I am very worried that these cuts to income support herald a return to the failed philosophies of neoliberalism; of slashing wages and conditions; of cutting funding and reducing services; of handing over fundamental functions to the private sector and trusting the market to simply look after itself; of removing protections of citizens against the unethical actions of private companies; and, of course, of taking from those who can't afford it and giving to those who don't need it. It's little wonder that the Treasurer included Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan as his sources of inspiration. This government needs to be very, very cautious before going any further down this path.

As I mentioned, the Morrison government demonstrated early on that they are capable of acting with compassion and ensuring that vulnerable Australians have the support they need during this crisis. It's time for government members to do this again, to support Labor's amendments today. You know it's the right thing to do. You know it is a tried and tested pathway to recovery from a devastating pandemic and a shocking hit to our nation's economy. It is unthinkable to those 1.6 million Australians that the government has managed to rack up more than $1 trillion worth of debt, and is on a trajectory to clock up $1.7 trillion of debt, yet cannot find it in its heart to help those whom it will push back into extreme poverty if it carries out its intention to slash these payments in just two short months time. That's what happens. There are many vulnerable Australians already dealing with entrenched barriers in our society, but forcing a shocking financial hit at a time when people are at their most vulnerable would be unforgivable.

I don't think any Australian who is listening to this debate today and has been following the debate closely throughout this pandemic would feel, in any good conscience, that they would want to stand alongside this government as it announces its intention to strip a basic fundamental living allowance from our most vulnerable Australians during a pandemic. It is tough enough at any time, but during this pandemic it is totally unforgivable. I don't believe the government can do that. I remain forever optimistic that the government will see a way to ensure that there is a permanent increase to JobSeeker, that it becomes a liveable allowance for Australians and that Australians in receipt of JobSeeker will be able to live with dignity and have enough money to actually look for work. That is the outcome we seek to achieve in a nation like Australia. (Time expired)

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