James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the second reading of this bill, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Income Support) Bill 2021. Perhaps it's important to reflect on the context of what we're doing here. I'm lucky enough to have been involved in international business in previous careers. In fact, one of the roles I had involved doing business in the United States. It was quite an eye-opening experience for me to recognise how different other nations around the world are in the way they support the most vulnerable in their societies. There are lots of great things about the United States, but one thing I don't think they get right is the lack of an appropriate and proper safety net. I remember employing a number of people over there and experiencing things that are totally foreign concepts to us in Australia. An example is the importance, to someone who's applying for a job, of health insurance being provided by their employer, as part of the employment contract—for a lot of people, that's more important than the salary they receive, because, of course, they don't have the universal healthcare system that we are lucky enough to have in this country. In the United States, support for unemployed people is also very limited. It would surprise a lot of people in Australia to realise that there are many other parts of the world where unemployment benefits, if they do exist, are, in many cases, provided in a very time-limited way. In some jurisdictions of the United States, you might be eligible for six weeks of unemployment benefits in total.

In this country, of course, we have a very different approach. We recognise the need for a safety net. We want to live in a country and an economy where we encourage people to participate in the workforce, to have a go, to try to get ahead. We want to be a country where success is rewarded and hard work is rewarded. But it is, of course, vitally important that there is a safety net, because we want to live in a society where no-one can completely fall through the cracks and not have the support that is beholden of human dignity for every person that's lucky enough to call themselves a citizen of this great country. I think it's important to start by acknowledging that the system we have—not just the system supporting unemployed Australians, which this legislation is relevant to, but the universal healthcare system that we have, the universal pension system that we have, et cetera—and the support that we provide as a government, this federal government, but also at state levels, gives us the society that we want. We are paying taxes to support the less fortunate and those that need government support at times and sometimes permanently. That's the sort of society that we want to live in.

When we think about the last 12 months in this country—people often talk about Australia as the lucky country. I don't dispute that we're a lucky country, but I always believe in the saying, 'You make your own luck.' We might be a lucky country, but it's because, as a country, we do so many things very well. The last 12 months have shown how well we have been able to respond to the dual challenges of a global pandemic from a health point of view and from an economic point of view. I won't get into the health response; it's not relevant to this legislation. But certainly the economic response and the social welfare response is relevant to this legislation, and I think it's worth recapping how we came to be where we are today in debating this piece of legislation.

It's well known that about a year ago to the day, the most significant elements of or likelihood of the threat of this coronavirus were becoming evident, and we had to make decisions about closing our borders. Pretty soon, within what felt like days at the time, we weren't just closing international borders but effectively having to shut down many elements of our economy to ensure that we got the health risk of this rapidly spreading global pandemic under control on this beautiful island continent of ours. Closing the international border was a significant decision—one that in hindsight seems obvious, but at the time it was something extremely significant. It was the first time we had ever done it. We're lucky enough to be an island continent, of course, but nonetheless it was a significant decision for a government to take, knowing the economic impact that would be brought about by closing that border, whilst still allowing any Australian or permanent resident who was overseas to return home, and that's still happening up to 12 months later.

As we had to take further measures to shield the population, as we had to shut down so many parts of our economy, and as so many states, in their slightly different ways, went into lockdown for different periods of time, this, of course, provoked an enormous economic risk. Some of it was foreseeable at the time, and some risks eventuated but other risks thankfully did not eventuate. Nonetheless, as a government, it was vitally important that we took significant measures to make sure the government was stepping in to support some fundamentals of our economy.

One of those fundamentals was, of course, protecting consumption and keeping confidence in the economy. A big part of that was the JobKeeper program. Another big part of that was the JobSeeker coronavirus supplement—the $550-a-fortnight payment which initially we announced would go for a six-month period of time, from about late March to late September. The government made further enhancements to that spectacularly enormous announcement of social welfare by extending it from September to December, and then from December to March, with the step-down payments. Now, of course, we're in the middle of March, and in a few weeks time that temporary payment will cease. So the government has, through this legislation, made the decision that we are going to put in place a permanent increase to the JobSeeker payment. I'm strongly in support of what the government is doing here—both the payment amount and the mutual obligation changes that are coming into place as part of it. This is a very significant, permanent increase in JobSeeker. It's a 9.6 per cent increase in the JobSeeker rate, and it's going to cost the budget $9 billion over the forward estimates. That's a very, very significant increase—a permanent increase—to unemployment benefits in this country. We haven't seen an increase like this since the late 1980s.

We all hope that the cost of this will come down. We hope, of course, that unemployment will fall, and we hope that as few Australians as possible need to access these payments. But it's important for those who do need to access these payments that they're receiving this increase. A lot of people in the last 12 months have gone onto the JobSeeker payment for the first time in their lives. I know, as a member of parliament, that, in those first few weeks after those significant government decisions at a federal and state level were taken around closing borders and around economic shutdowns, my office was contacted by so many people—I'm sure all members had the same experience—who had never had to access, in some cases, any form of government support, except, perhaps, Medicare et cetera, in their lives. They didn't have customer reference numbers at Centrelink. They didn't even really know or understand what the process would be for registering and accessing government support. It was a real eye-opening experience for me as a new member of parliament, having been elected less than 12 months earlier, to have that volume of people, for the first time in their lives, seeking out their federal member of parliament and seeking their support in accessing government support.

A lot of those people thought that they would never need to access that support in their lives—whether it was JobSeeker or whether it was JobKeeper. All sorts of other support mechanisms have been put in place: small business loans et cetera, dealing with landlords around rental holidays and all the rest. No-one could have foreseen the enormous amount of government support and response that was going to be required and the enormous number of people who were going to be seeking that.

The number of people on JobSeeker and the temporary supplementary payment that was part of that initially went up quite significantly but, thankfully, it has now come back down quite significantly. Unemployment figures will come out tomorrow. Last month's figures were, again, very encouraging, with unemployment returning to pre-pandemic levels. I mean, any unemployment is not a good thing, but the unemployment rate that we've got, at 6.4 per cent, compared to the economic challenges in other parts of the world, is truly quite remarkable. And it's great to see that, geographically, that is fairly consistent across the states and territories.

There are some industries that are still very significantly impacted: particularly, of course, tourism—particularly international tourism—the airline industry et cetera. I welcome other announcements that we have been making as a government to support those industries. But we hope that the number of people on JobSeeker will continue to reduce as we continue to grow our economy and come out of the worst impacts, economically, of dealing with the health response to the coronavirus. The vaccination program will, of course, be one of the largest parts of that.

I'm proud to be part of a government that is putting in place a permanent increase to the JobSeeker allowance for those who need support as they are looking for work. It's really important that there's a balance here. It's really important that we have a safety net, but it's equally important that anyone who is on JobSeeker wants to get off JobSeeker as soon as possible. You get off JobSeeker by getting a job. I know that, in this debate, people raise and talk about the challenges of living on JobSeeker, and I completely agree that it would not be easy to live on the JobSeeker payment. It would not be comfortable. When people say, 'Could you live on it?' I say, 'Certainly not to anywhere near the comfort and standard that I, of course, do at the moment.' And the point there is that we want people to have an incentive to get into the workforce. We don't want people wanting to be on JobSeeker. We want it to be a support structure in place.

The increase of 9.6 per cent is the largest increase since the late 1980s. But, equally, we're also increasing the mutual obligations components of JobSeeker. That's important too because, as I say, the objective of JobSeeker is to help as many people get off JobSeeker as quickly as possible, and the mutual obligation provisions, as part of receiving JobSeeker, are very important as part of giving people a pathway from JobSeeker back into the workforce. That's critically important for the productivity of our economy; it's critically important for supporting the budget. We don't want long-term unemployment in this country; we want everyone to have the dignity of being able to have a job. We recognise that people need to be supported when they do fall on tough times and are unemployed. That's why this increase is going to contribute significantly to supporting people on their pathway back into the workforce.

I'd like to commend Minister Ruston for the work that she's done on this. She is a good friend of mine, a fellow South Australian. She's had an enormous number of spectacular challenges in the social services portfolio over the last 12 months, and she's risen to the occasion remarkably. I'm so very proud to call her a friend. I'm very proud to support this initiative that she's brought through the cabinet and into the parliament, and I commend the bill to the House.

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