Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

In the last 12 months, many Australians have experienced for the first time what it's like to be out of work. For several years, the number of Australians receiving the JobSeeker payment was bouncing around at about 700,000, but in March last year, when the pandemic hit, that number jumped to 1.2 million people, an increase of 54 per cent in a single month. Our country has never seen anything like it. At the same time, the government did something extraordinary and temporarily doubled the rate of JobSeeker payment to around $1,100 per fortnight. It also introduced JobKeeper to support the business community. These were two of the best decisions the government has made, and they were made because those opposite recognised several things. They recognised that the hundreds of thousands of Australians who'd suddenly found themselves out of work were unemployed through no fault of their own, and they recognised that it would be good for small business to put more money in the pockets of people who will spend it locally. Since that time, the government has slowly cut the rate of JobSeeker back to close to its original rate. This is despite the fact that in January there were still 1.2 million jobseekers in Australia, the number having barely budged since the pandemic hit. And the bill before us, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Income Support) Bill 2021, will permanently enshrine yet another cut in the rate. If this bill is passed, on the first day of April, two things will happen. First, the permanent rate of JobSeeker and several other social security payments will rise by $50 a fortnight. Secondly, at the same time as the permanent rate is increasing, the coronavirus supplement of $150 a fortnight is ending. This means that the actual rate of JobSeeker that people are receiving is being cut by around $100 a fortnight. Right now, a single person with no dependants who's receiving JobSeeker will be getting around $50 a day. In two weeks time, that very same person will get just $44 a day.

I will support this bill because, if it does not pass, the JobSeeker rate will simply go back to its old level of $40 a day, but I do believe this cut is overly punitive and counterproductive not only for the people who are receiving it but for our small businesses looking for employees. I'd like to use this opportunity in parliament to outline my reasons why. I believe that the goal of our social security system should be to support people who can work to do so and to support people who are unable to work to live decent lives. Both of these things are important. I fear that this bill, by cutting JobSeeker to such a low level, achieves neither goal. It neither gives those people unable to work a decent life nor encourages people who are able to work to do so. On the new JobSeeker rate, a person will receive just $44 a day. I don't believe that there's any way to really survive on income that low. Before coming to this chamber, I checked on realestate.com to see what it costs to rent a place in some of the towns in my electorate. The cost of an average rental in Wodonga right now is around $40 a day. In Bright, there's basically nothing on the market at all, but, if you can find something, the cost is $56 a day.

When I met with the Minister for Families and Social Services a few weeks ago to be briefed on this bill, she insisted that, because the government has other supplements available, people really are given enough to live on. To an extent it's true that the base rate of JobSeeker is not the only thing that determines the total amount of social security that an individual receives, but, even once you include these supplements, I simply don't see how we can plunge 1.2 million Australians into living like this. Let's take an example. With the new fortnightly JobSeeker rate, a single person with no children who is renting a property will receive $620 in basic JobSeeker, $9 in energy supplement and $141 in rent assistance. That's a total of around $770 a fortnight or $55 a day. If you live in Wodonga and you're spending an average of $40 a day on rent, that leaves you with $15 a day to live on. But, in some of the smaller towns, the lack of affordable housing is even worse. The cheapest rental available right now in Mansfield—not the average, but the cheapest—costs $740 a fortnight or $53 a day. So, if you're on JobSeeker in Mansfield, even with all the extra supplements that the government talks about, you're looking at spending 96 per cent of your income on rent. After paying rent, that just leaves $30 a fortnight. So how is a person supposed to survive on JobSeeker if they live in a town like Mansfield where there are simply not enough properties available to live in?

The minister also insisted to me that health care is 'free in Australia and universal', so people receiving social security are able to access health care at no cost, but this is simply not correct, particularly in regional Australia. People are not always able to access health care for free. Fifty-three per cent of patients in regional Australia face out-of-pocket costs to access Medicare, paying around $142 per person a year. I constantly hear from constituents who tell me that they can't access mental health care in places like Wangaratta and Benalla because the only providers charge significant gap fees. If you live in Benalla and you have a medical emergency, there is no emergency department to go to. Instead, you can only go to an urgent care centre where, when you see a GP, you will receive fee-for-service charges. As a result, some people in Benalla will drive for up to half an hour on the road in the middle of the night to go to the ED in Wangaratta just to see a doctor. These issues are not isolated to Indi; they happen across regional Australia. The idea that we can afford to have such a low rate of social security because health care is free is not only incorrect but actually dangerous. We have to be honest: making the rates so low means that some people are unable to access the essentials of life, like a place to live and basic health care.

I said at the beginning of this speech that giving people dignity in unemployment should not be the only goal of the social security system; it should also encourage people who can work to do so. We have to be honest: if the rate of JobSeeker is too high, for some it is a disincentive to work. But I believe that simply cutting JobSeeker is a crude way to try to get people into jobs. I don't believe it does much to address the structural barriers that stop people being able to work. A few weeks ago the Mansfield Courier ran a story reporting accurately that I was calling on the government to rethink its cuts to the JobSeeker rate. When I was in Mansfield last week, I was approached by one of my constituents, Mr Dean Belle. Dean owns the popular Delatite Hotel and the Mansfield Produce Store. He is well known in the community and I, together with that community, hold him in the highest regard. He told me that some of the business owners in the Mansfield main street were concerned about what I had said about the rate of JobSeeker because they're struggling to find enough people to work in their businesses. He told me that he too was struggling to find enough people to work in his pub and cafe. As a result, he and other business owners had missed out on thousands of dollars in lost trade.

Dean's comments, while alarming, unfortunately didn't surprise me because, to be truthful, I'm hearing this from many people. In the last few weeks I've heard the same message from small businesses in Tallangatta, Corryong, Bright and Mansfield. One pub owner told me he had to shut down on the Sunday of the Labour Day long weekend because he was so understaffed and the few staff he had were completely worn out by the huge crowds on Friday and Saturday. I know Dean Belle. He is a model employer, and so too is the IGA in Mansfield and other great employers. They simply can't find people to work. There are businesses there offering traineeships, and still they can't find people to work. Many businesses tell me that one of the reasons they struggle to find workers is that they think, in their mind, that it's easier to be on JobSeeker than it is to work. The brutal truth is that in some rare cases they're probably right. There are some people sitting on JobSeeker, turning down work, when these hardworking businesses are unable to fill their available spots. That is deeply unacceptable.

But my view is that, whilst a portion of people on JobSeeker are choosing not to work, there are a slew of other reasons that prevent jobseekers from being able to take up jobs; it's not a zero-sum game. I heard from so many constituents about other structural barriers that stop them taking up jobs—things like housing and transport. If we just take housing, there is an acute lack of affordable housing, as I've mentioned. I've said before what the cheapest property in Mansfield costs. Just imagine: you're unemployed and living in Melbourne, and there's a job going in Mansfield, but the only place to live would cost you $740 a fortnight. It is impossible for you to even pay a security deposit out of your JobSeeker income. If you come up to work as a casual waiter or part time in a ski shop, you are unlikely to be able to afford that rent.

Lack of skills is another huge barrier. Many small businesses need people with experience and training in skills, which may not be available locally. Take Bright, for example. The Bright and Mount Beauty area has seen the number of people on JobSeeker go up by 96 per cent since March, the highest increase of any place in Indi. This is unsurprising, given it was heavily reliant on tourism, which was completely decimated in the pandemic. Many of those people who lost their jobs have subsequently left the area. Now that tourism is coming back, small businesses in Bright tell me the jobs they are trying to hire for are roles for chefs, bar staff and experienced waiters. The problem for these businesses is not the availability of people needing jobs but the mismatch between the skills they need and the skills that these local people have.

Another barrier is child care. In regional towns we have extremely limited childcare options, especially in flexible child care for shift workers. If you're a single mother on JobSeeker and there is a local pub offering you a shift on the bar at night, but you can't find childcare, you simply can't take the job. On top of that, even if you can find child care, it may be so expensive that it's not worth it for you.

Fourth is transport. If you need a car to get to a job and you don't have one, it's essentially impossible to take on a job in a regional area with very limited public transport options. If you live in Eurobin and there's a job in Porepunkah but you don't have a car, it's pretty simple—you can't take the job.

Housing, skills, child care and transport—these are four structural barriers to employment that I hear from my constituents. Simply cutting the rate of JobSeeker doesn't do anything to solve these four problems. I'm acutely conscious that these barriers don't tell the full story. We have to be honest: some would prefer to receive money for nothing. I recently met with Wodonga UnitingCare's social services, and they told me precisely that. But they also told me that these people are very much in in the minority; most people want to work.

If we really want to create jobs in regional communities, we should be creating more affordable housing, investing in transport, investing in child care and investing in skills. Addressing these issues in a holistic way, I believe, would do far more to create jobs in the regions than simply cutting JobSeeker. The government must be able to design public policy that allows our small businesses to thrive but which does not condemn our fellow Australians to the indignity of poverty. The debate about what the JobSeeker rate should be is a difficult one, mired in complexity and in politics, but simply railing against jobseekers, as some in the government do, is unhelpful.

I will support this bill because I think we're a society that lends a hand to people who are down on their luck, but I call on the government to offer a comprehensive regional investment agenda, one that's matched by services that enable people to live, work, study and thrive in the regions. It's high time they did.

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