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

I appreciate the minister's comments. I thought he might have actually clarified the issue I was alluding to, given that it is directly within his portfolio's responsibility. It is a matter of social security payments, and that's why I refer to it. It is consistent with this government's approach to cutting social security payments to people in need throughout this country, and it always has been.

There are currently 1,357,000 people across Australia on JobSeeker and youth allowance payments. I understand it's expected there will be an additional 200,000 people joining those queues when JobKeeper ends. Almost 107,000 are in South Australia, the state I represent, where there are currently 10 unemployed people for every job vacancy. We know that, nationally, there are about two million people who are unemployed or underemployed. Underemployed people are, by definition, people looking for more work. They are people who are 'having a go', to use this government's phrase, and who are taking whatever work they can get. Often, these are the people doing the work that nobody else wants to do or doing work at payment rates that are much lower than the accepted community standard. These people are not trying to rort the system. They are already within the workforce and they're trying to get more work.

Unemployed people, equally, are not people who are trying to rort the system, in most cases. Today, most of them are either people who are over 55 years of age or people with limited skills, or they are relatively new arrivals, who face their own difficulties in securing a job. It's not that they don't want to get a job; they have barriers to overcome. They do not want to live off welfare payments. They too have families to support and mortgages to pay. Often they are people who, through no fault of their own, have lost their job because of the COVID pandemic or other issues that have impacted society. They are people such as those within the travel and tourism sectors; people affected by the sudden trade sanctions applied by China; people who have lost their work because of the travel restrictions, such as university staff; people in industry sectors that have been affected by restricted numbers, such as those in the hospitality industry or in entertainment; people who work at sporting events; or even those who work within the funeral sector, such as undertakers. These are all people who, because of issues completely outside of their control, today find themselves either unemployed or underemployed. They are not bludgers or freeloaders but people with a strong work ethic who are indeed looking for work. But the work is simply not out there. Now they are being expected to live on $44 a day, if they are on JobSeeker, or, if they are on youth allowance, on $36.60 a day. These are people who already have financial commitments to meet each and every week.

I've heard members opposite who've spoken in this debate refer to those payments as 'a temporary safety net, never meant to become a permanent lifeline'. Can I just focus on the words 'temporary' and 'safety net'. Firstly, with respect to 'temporary': for many of them, it will not be temporary, because we know that there are at least 10 applicants for every vacancy—and that's in South Australia; in other places, it's even higher than that. Therefore, the likelihood of full employment is way down the track. It is also likely that, for many of these people—who, in many cases, are at a stage in their life where they're already going to find it difficult to get a job—being unemployed will be a long-term feature; it will not be a temporary matter for them but one that could affect them for months and months to come. Secondly, with respect to these payments being a 'safety net': how can living on $44 a day be a safety net? It is a safety net with lots of holes in it, because it simply will not support people adequately to even just live a basic life, let alone meet the commitments that many of them already find themselves with. So those claims that it is a temporary safety net simply don't stand up to scrutiny.

On the $25 increase that is being proposed by the government: unemployment payments in this country have not been increased since 1994. An increase of $25 is an increase of less than $1 for each year that the payments have remained stagnant—less than $1 for each of those years. And the government thinks that that is a fair outcome! Well, it is simply inadequate.

I will very quickly turn to the issue of mutual obligations, where the government will now revert back to requiring 20 job applications per month from every person receiving payments. Again, when there are dozens of people looking for the same job, it is impossible to get work. Quite frankly, I see that as being simply another mechanism by which the government will force people to breach their mutual obligation and therefore to lose not only their $44 a day but all of their payment. It is a harsh measure at a time when the economy is struggling, and the government knows full well that it is simply being brought in to further cut payments to people who already need every last dollar.

I also make this point: it is clear that the government understood the value of putting more money into the economy during the pandemic recession when it also increased the JobSeeker payment quite considerably. It did so because it knew that that would strengthen the economy. It knew that the money provided to these people would circulate and help all of the small businesses, who, in turn, would employ more people. In other words, there is a clear economic benefit, which the government understood when it responded to the COVID-19 pandemic but which it now turns its back on.

Quite frankly, I think the government's own actions are not going to help the economy at all. There is a social benefit from providing support payments to people who are struggling. It saves money in the long run because, if people are adequately supported, they will not incur other social costs that inevitably arise when people are struggling. When people are struggling and they cannot afford the food they need or the medical support they need, ultimately the social costs increase rather than going down. So it's in neither our economic interests nor our social interests to cut these payments the way the government wants to do. And, quite frankly, given that this government has now been in government for eight years and has had plenty of time to thoroughly assess this issue, the government's stance is condemned.

See this speech in context