Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like so much of this government's legislation, the title of this bill does not reflect the intent at all. The Security Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Income Support) Bill permanently increases the base rate of social security payments by $50 a fortnight, or $3.57 a day. The base rate of JobSeeker will increase from $565.70 a fortnight, or $40.40 a day, to $615 a fortnight, or $44 a day. Youth allowance will go up from $462.50 to $512.50 a fortnight, and parenting payment will go up from $793.20 to $843.20 a fortnight. The increase of $50 per fortnight will also apply to Austudy, Abstudy, special benefit payments, widow allowance, partner allowance, farm household allowance, DVA student payments and the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme. The changes will take effect from 1 April, when the $150-per-fortnight coronavirus supplement ends. So most social security recipients will in fact see a cut of $100 a fortnight to their payments.

The other key changes in this bill will be to the mutual obligation requirements, with a return to the pre-COVID requirement of 20 monthly job applications, and the creation of a hotline to dob in people who do not accept a job offer. There will also be a permanent increase to the free area for JobSeeker, youth allowance and parenting payment partnered recipients from $106 to $150 per fortnight. Throughout the pandemic, the free area for payments had in fact been increased to $300 per fortnight, but that also will now be wound back.

I speak in support of the amendment moved by the member for Barton. What is clear from this bill is that the Morrison government's longstanding ideology of callously disregarding and even attacking people on welfare payments is what drives this government. It's what has driven it in the past, continues to do so now and obviously will into the future. This is a government that, with the help of the Greens, has cut $12 billion from pensions and social security payments by changing the asset test and therefore cutting the pension of 370,000 people, by completely cutting the schoolkids bonus, by cutting pensioner concessions and by freezing family tax benefit rates. All of these changes were opposed by Labor at the time because we knew that they were unfair. Indeed, were it not for Labor blocking other measures, the Morrison government would have cut a further $12 billion in payments by making people under 30 years of age wait six months before they could apply for unemployment payments, by cutting family tax benefits and by increasing the pension age to 70, which is what this government wanted to do. Furthermore, it wanted to scrap the energy supplements for new applicants and cut parental leave payments. All of those cuts would have gone through were it not for Labor.

There are numerous other penny-pinching examples, across a range of portfolio areas, where payments have been cut from people who are already struggling. The time for this debate doesn't allow me to go through each one of them individually. One I will refer to is the government's current proposal to bring in an independent assessment process for people who are on National Disability Insurance Scheme payments. The government is currently doing a trial with respect to that. What that independent assessment will do, in my view, is simply create another barrier. It will create another consuming process for people who are already struggling to navigate a complex system. It will create a process by which people will have their payments cut, if they are already within the scheme, or, once they have gone through an assessment, they will be provided with a reduced payment. From my understanding, it's an assessment that cannot even be appealed. I note that the minister is in the House. If I'm wrong, he's welcome to respond and tell me so. But it's clear to me that the new independent assessment process is simply going to be brought in as another cost-cutting measure that the government wants to impose.

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