Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

First of all, I congratulate the member for Wills on a really terrific speech that outlines the issues that I very much want to emphasise in my speech today. I would also like to thank the member for Barton for her fantastic advocacy in this area. Having recently visited my electorate with the member for Barton, I can say how much she is loved throughout the country for her care, her empathy and, hence, her wish to amend the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Extension of Coronavirus Support) Bill 2020.

It's abundantly clear to me that one of the truisms in health is that, whenever there is a global health issue, the people who suffer the most are the poor. That is certainly the case in the COVID-19 pandemic. Both around the world and also in Australia, the people who suffer the most in this pandemic are those who have the least to lose. I remind those opposite that people in our communities are doing it really tough. For all of their rhetoric and self-congratulations, I do not think that those opposite have a true grasp of the state of things, particularly in some of the more disadvantaged electorates around the country. Outside the affluent suburbs of our major cities, outside the streets of our gated communities and outside the offices of our CEOs, Australians are doing it especially tough.

I'm honoured to represent the people of Macarthur in this place, and I truly mean that. My community has really been fantastic in how it's dealt with the pandemic. My community's greatest asset is its people, and at the present time their spirit of generosity and camaraderie is really apparent. The people of Macarthur are resilient and they band together to support one another in times of need.

At this time every year I normally run a toy drive, and we give the toys to families in our community who are struggling. This year we have been overwhelmed, more than at any time previously, with the number of toys, the number of gifts and the number of offers of services and things that have been presented to my office to give to those who are really struggling in the community.

Unfortunately these times of need occur too often in my community, and often it's because of the ignorance and the lack of action by government. Our schools have a relatively high percentage of at-risk children, and unemployment and underemployment are historically much higher in my electorate than national averages. The point that I want to make is that my electorate is consistently neglected by the coalition government, both at a state and federal level, and people's standard of living and quality of life ultimately bear the burden of this neglect.

This government's failure to adequately attend to the needs of my community and to deliver investment in south-west Sydney is ensuring that poverty is ingrained. The government needs to understand that its ignorance towards the needs of my electorate is affecting the prospects of local businesses, limiting job availability and forcing people into unemployment queues. The government's consistently championed its new JobMaker scheme, yet it's deliberately starving my community of the very infrastructure and investment that would actually deliver jobs in time of need.

The blatant ideological attack on the people of south-west Sydney is becoming increasingly apparent to its residents. The lack of infrastructure spending, the neglect in our schools, the lack of health services and the lack of transport options are really putting people in my community at risk, and people in my community understand the need for investment in our growing regions.

The increasing development is putting incredible stress on our environment and on our local flora and fauna, in particular our koala population, yet this government does nothing. Like many of my residents, I cannot understand why the government continues to starve our region of basic infrastructure and services.

I've cared for generations of residents in my electorate of Macarthur, and I understand the challenges of local families and the challenges local businesses face. Many of the young people on the JobSeeker program have been patients of mine. They're decent people. They want to work. They want to do the right thing. But they are starved of resources by this government. The cutbacks in the JobSeeker arrangement, and in particular the cutback to JobSeeker to $40 a day, will bear tragic consequences and increase the stigma of being unemployed on young people in particular. My constituents want their kids to be given support and help to get into the jobs market, to get decent jobs and to support themselves. They want the peace of mind of knowing that their local schools are good schools, that their local hospitals are good hospitals, that there are local jobs and their local transport system works the same as it does on the North Shore and eastern suburbs. It is absolutely disgraceful that this government has allowed this two-tiered sociological system to develop, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

My residents want to have the ability to own a home in a great community and they don't want to be forced into a life of couch surfing, or paying most of their income on rent or crippling mortgage payments. They want to be able to get to the city and to other places for jobs et cetera without having to pay extortionate tolls. People want the assurance that our social security system is a safety net for all.

I've been saying for some time that the rate of—previously the dole, then it became Newstart and now it's another euphemism—JobSeeker is far too low. I've advocated for increases, yet this government ignored those pleas. I hate to see people in my community being stigmatised and traumatised by being made to eke out an existence—and it is only an existence—on a rate that doesn't allow them to dress properly, to eat properly or even to pay for transport costs to go and look for a job. I really am sick of seeing young people in my community not being offered the prospect of a decent education to help them get into the jobs market. I've seen how the other half lives. I understand that many people are able to access all the services that people in my community want, but they can't. We need to see a permanent increase in the rate of JobSeeker, and that is abundantly obvious to anyone who looks at it—every support organisation in my electorate, every doctor who works in my community and every high school principal who struggles to get his kids jobs once they leave school. We're a rich country. We have people doing very well. We can afford to allow people looking for work to have a decent support system to look after them, yet we're not doing it.

We can subsidise the jet planes of billionaires and we can allow our CEOs to earn salaries in the multiple millions of dollars, yet we can't allow young people looking for work to have enough money to live on decently and to be able to actually look for a decent job. As previously mentioned by the member for Wills, this whole system is a missed opportunity for reform. It's a missed opportunity from a government that really doesn't have a plan for those who are struggling the most in this pandemic. And this pandemic is not over. We know that it will be some time before our community gets back to growth and gets back to the type of community we lived in less than 12 months ago. The government needs to be committed to reform, particularly to support those who are struggling more than most. We've fared relatively well as a country in the COVID-19 pandemic, but it still has had a devastating impact around the world and on our economy.

The minister ought to have the ability to extend the coronavirus supplement for as long as this pandemic continues and for as long as our economy needs it. Having short-term increases over short periods of time is not good enough. The system needs to be reformed to care for those most at risk. There's a consensus belief that an increase to the rate of JobSeeker would be good for the economy. It seems utterly bewildering that the government would seek to have the economy operating in idle mode and removing desperately needed support for so many Australians at a time when our economy is crying out for more cash flow. Returning JobSeeker to the old Newstart rate isn't good for individuals, it isn't good for communities, it isn't good for jobs, and it isn't good for the economy. Even I understand that, if an individual has less money in their wallet, they have less money to spend on local businesses. The last thing we need in my community is to have our local businesses struggling even more. The government is already starving my community of desperately needed investment, and now they're seeking to turn off the tap for so many young people, in particular, in my community. There are those who say, 'We can't keep spending money,' but we are spending money on supporting other people. We need to be spending money on supporting the most disadvantaged. There simply aren't enough jobs to go around at the present time because the government has no job-creation program. We presently have seven jobseekers for every job vacancy. Matters are even grimmer in the outer metropolitan, rural and regional areas—a fact which the junior coalition partner should readily understand. Many of them, I think, even support a permanent increase in the JobSeeker rate.

In my community and all over the continent people are facing an anxious and uncertain Christmas. It's okay for us; we know that we'll be able to support our families this Christmas. For many people in my community they're not sure about that; they will have to rely on support from non-government agencies to get through Christmas. Christmas is actually a very stressful time for the most disadvantaged in our communities, and we need to be aware of that.

The proposed cut to the JobSeeker rate, and the threat to the futures of many people because of it, is even more worrying. The least the government can do for the thousands of jobseekers in each of our respective communities is to come to the table to provide some certainty and some concept that it wants to support them with a permanent increase in the rate of JobSeeker. If we want our economy to recover, people need to have money in their pockets to spend on our local businesses and money to support local jobs. It's a vicious cycle: if people have less to spend on local and small businesses, these very businesses have less to spend on wages and jobs. It's a very real risk that the move to reduce the rate of JobSeeker will result in more business closures and job losses, and that's the last thing we need.

I echo the sentiments of my friend and colleague the member for Barton and call upon the government to abandon their Christmas cuts to unemployment payments. This is just not the right thing to do. I also speak in favour of the amendment moved by the member for Barton, which is designed to get the government to not cut the coronavirus supplement at Christmas, permanently increase the rate of JobSeeker and enable the minister to keep paying the coronavirus supplement after March.

The reality is that this government has provided support too narrowly when it has come to the pandemic and this recession. We saw entire sectors of the workforce overlooked and neglected when it came to—

See this speech in context