Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to make my contribution to the debate on the address-in-reply, which is in response to the election result. Though it has taken many months to get to my turn, as this debate is one that most people want to speak on, it is nonetheless an important speech to make and I'm very pleased to have the opportunity. The address-in-reply debate is the one in which the new members of the parliament give their very first speeches, and I acknowledge the wonderful speeches by many of my new colleagues elected this term, including the new member for Lingiari, who is here in the chamber. What an amazing range of perspectives, aspirations, and great ideas and values we heard from the new class of 2022 in those speeches!

In the election last year, the Australian people made it very clear that they wanted a change. They wanted a government that was committed to listening to and addressing the needs of the Australian people, and to working for a better future. That is why many of us joined the Labor Party—it's certainly why I joined the Labor Party. I wanted to be part of the movement that has made the differences for the people of Australia, the governments that have done the reforms and the hard work that deliver opportunities for Australians. Already, since the election in May last year, we have made so much progress in that direction on many of the things that we took to the election. Just before coming to make this speech, we passed through the House our legislation on starting the Housing Australia Future Fund, because we know that housing is so central to the health, dignity and prosperity of Australians, and that so many Australians—not least my constituents here in Canberra—are struggling with housing costs at the moment. We have made medicines cheaper for many Australians who are struggling to afford these essentials. We have delivered 10 days of paid domestic violence leave. We have made recommendations that have led to an increase in the minimum wage and also an increase for aged-care workers that was much-needed. We have begin much-overdue climate action, which is something that I know is absolutely top of the list for the people of Canberra, and one of the most important things that we need to address. I'm incredibly proud of the things that we have so far achieved and that we will continue to achieve and work on in this government. There was also the establishment of a National Anti-Corruption Commission, which I know is so important. So many people at the moment are concerned about accountability and the integrity of parliament and politicians, so it is a really important change.

In this address-in-reply debate, I also want to reflect personally on my re-election as the member for Canberra, and to thank everyone who put their trust in me to represent them in this place. This is not something that I take for granted or take lightly; that responsibility weighs very heavily on me, and I want to continue to make my very best effort to listen to the things that matter to you, and to advocate for our city and our community in this place. As part of that, I have established the Canberra Forum, which is a deliberative democracy panel—an Australian first, actually—run by democracyCo. In this model, 40 randomly selected Canberrans are debating a range of issues, and I have committed to bring their recommendations on the topics they choose into this place, and to advocate in the parliament and in our Labor caucus. At the point we're at, the issues that they are looking at are climate change, issues around equity of access to services and issues around community voices being heard in politics. Ill refine those topics further, but I'm so proud to represent a community for whom these things are so top of mind—very altruistic issues that affect not just our local community but our nation and our world. I'll be very proud to continue to advocate on those sorts of issues in this place.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who supported my campaign: my wonderful staff, Karen, Hamish, Mick, Radmila and Andrew, for all the work they did, and also all the Labor members and other volunteers who gave their time so generously to support the campaign in the seat of Canberra. The conversations they had were very important in gaining people's support. It is those conversations all around the country that change governments and change the country. So, thank you to all those volunteers who supported Labor out there.

Your first speech to the parliament is definitely a very important one and one that you may have thought about your whole life, in one sense. I sort of see it as an opportunity for the member to talk about the things that have driven them to be in this place and the things they are committed to advocating on. Also, in writing mine, I saw it very much as a promise to my electorate of the things that I would always advocate on as well as a promise to myself that those are the things I will never see as less important as long as I have the great privilege and opportunity to be in this place. So, I want to take this opportunity to restate my commitment on some of those issues.

Issues that were key to my speech were climate action, and I've been proud to advocate and am now very proud to be a part of a government that is actually delivering on that action. I have spent so many speeches in the last term crying out for action on climate change, which my constituents are so very active on. I thank them for all their advocacy as well.

But the issues that really drove me to want to be in parliament are issues around social justice and poverty and inequality. My background is an economist who began in analysing poverty and inequality at NATSEM, the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, looking at the impacts on households and individuals of policy, particularly social security policy and tax policy. I've also always been a very active volunteer in the community space in Canberra and when I lived in Sydney, and I've spent a lot of time talking with people who were experiencing disadvantage in our community. Something that is very important to me and that I always want to be talking about in this place is the importance of our social security system and the fact that it is the most powerful tool that governments have for addressing poverty and inequality—that when we have an adequate social safety net it says so much about our society.

We claim that we are an egalitarian society, and mostly we are. I would say that Australians do want to see everyone getting a fair go, and they don't like to see people suffering because of bad luck, because they don't have a job or because, for whatever reason, they are doing it tough. And I think Australians want to see governments supporting people in our community who can't always support themselves through work. When the COVID pandemic began we saw a very powerful example of this. Through the coronavirus supplement, income support payments, including JobSeeker, were increased, and we saw poverty actually go down as we entered our first recession in decades. Where we would have expected poverty to explode as a result, we actually saw poverty go down and, anecdotally, we saw the difference it made to people's lives as they could do things they hadn't been able to do for a very long time, like buy healthy foods, like go and get a haircut or new clothes, or whatever it was. Since then, we have not seen a significant permanent increase to that payment, and poverty persists in Australia at significant levels.

Around one in eight people in Australia are in poverty, including around one in six children. I think that, as a nation, this is something we can do more to address. This is something that Australians want to get behind. But it has taken many years, and we have not seen the action we need to increase the unemployment benefit. I think it's safe to say that various campaigns have been going on to increase the unemployment benefit—formerly Newstart, now JobSeeker—for at least 20 years or, certainly, as long as I have been in the social policy space. We know that this is one of the most powerful things that a government can do to get people out of poverty.

I talked about former prime minister Bob Hawke in my first speech. He did many wonderful things for this country that are celebrated, but his commitment that by 1990 no Australian child would live in poverty is something that is often ridiculed. What is less known is that a bunch of changes that he then made to the social security system and to child support actually reduced child poverty by around 80 per cent. Such is the power of the social security system.

Under the Gillard government, Labor also very proudly increased the age pension and lifted around a million pensioners out of poverty. This is a wonderful thing. I think it's important to note as well that people on low incomes actually spend the greatest proportion of their incomes, so, when we invest in giving these people on income support payments an increase such as with the coronavirus supplement, that money goes straight back into the economy because they are buying their essentials.

I want to note as well, as someone who does have a background in poverty analysis, that there is a lot of discussion about poverty. Poverty essentially has two meanings. In the sense of the lived experience of poverty, poverty is going without. Poverty is being failed by our system. Poverty, as one person put it to me, is choosing between baby food and tampons. But often what we're talking about in poverty is poverty lines and rates that are decided based on the distribution of income more broadly, and I think the meaning of that can be lost a little bit. It's not necessarily the best measure of what people need to have a decent standard of living. It is a reflection of the broader distribution of incomes—normally half of the median or average income for a particular type of household such as a single person, a couple or a couple with children.

It's not as simple as saying—well, frankly I feel it is as simple as saying that we don't want Australians to be living in poverty. I think that is something that most in the community would agree with. It's not as simple as saying that the rate should be at the poverty line, because the poverty line is a somewhat arbitrary measure. These are things that really need to be looked at with regard to a range of things such as the minimum wage and other social security payments. For example, there's long been the pension. The age pension is for someone who is likely to be on that payment for life, whereas an unemployment benefit is essentially meant to be for people in between jobs, so there is a rationale for why that might be a higher payment than a short-term payment.

We also have a problem if people are spending many years on the JobSeeker payment. It is supposed to be a payment to cover a gap in between jobs. We do have relatively low unemployment at the moment, and, therefore, some people on the payment might have particular barriers as to why they're finding it very, very hard to find a job. Based on that, I feel that we should probably look at whether that is in fact the best payment for them, or perhaps they should be on a more permanent or a different type of payment. I also feel that people in the community are concerned about mutual obligations for people receiving a JobSeeker payment which are too punitive and can make it difficult for them to get to the objective of finding a job.

I think that these are discussions that we as a nation need to have, about whether we are happy for one in eight Australians, and one in six children, to live in poverty, or whether these are things that we really want to see addressed as a priority. As I say, this is something my constituents raise with me a lot, too. Particularly in Canberra, there's a view that Canberra is a relatively well-off place, which is true. We do have high average-incomes and low unemployment. But it makes it a very difficult place to be poor. When I talk to the community services in my electorate, it's clear that the demand on them is absolutely increasing, and they're seeing new groups of people seeking that support that they haven't seen before.

These community groups run by the generous donations and volunteer time of community members are, in many ways, filling a gap in the social safety net. Something that really sticks in my mind was when I was told by someone at a local service at St John's Care—who do incredible work here in Canberra—that sometimes the best thing they can give someone is money to register their car so that they can continue sleeping in it. I think that we can do a lot better than that. I hope, as a nation, we can do a lot better than that, here in our nation's capital and around the country.

That is not an isolated story. I hear many stories like that from these hardworking community organisations. I do hope that as a nation we continue a discussion about poverty, about inequality and about what governments can do about these things, and, personally, I commit to continuing to talk about these issues as long as I'm in this place.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:28

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