Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Women's economic equality is one of my key priorities—one of the reasons why I decided to contest the seat of Goldstein. I've spoken about it many times in this place and I will continue to do so because women don't have true equality yet. Women's economic participation across their lifetime is less valued, less secure and less safe, which leads to lower incomes, less job security, job segregation, lower super balances and a higher likelihood of poverty. In fact, women comprise more than 60 per cent of all those relying on the lowest income support payments: JobSeeker, student and parenting payments.

Economic security is the only way out. We must enable women's workforce participation across all sectors. As lawmakers we must intentionally focus on empowering all women and girls to have equal opportunities and pathways to secure jobs. Women must be at the starting line if they're to have any hope of thriving socially and economically, and many are a long way back. The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 will help get vulnerable women, who are most impacted by cost-of-living pressures, to the starting line—but not much further.

The bill implements, or partially implements, two of the six urgent and targeted Women's Economic Equality Taskforce recommendations. From 20 September 2023, single parents—95-plus per cent of whom are women—will have access to the parenting payment single until their youngest child turns 14. This is a critical policy shift. Under the current rules, the payment stops the day the youngest child of a single parent turns eight and reverts to the lower JobSeeker benefit. As Terese Edwards from the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children told me pre budget: 'We do not celebrate our child's eighth birthday. Some of us become homeless and some return to the place of abuse, but we all struggle. We skip meals, limit heating and cooling, and miss medical appointments, but it's not enough. We can't stop the hardship despite our skills, talents and determination.'

The government's decision to increase the threshold to 14 is long overdue. It is a huge relief to single mothers, many of whom have been forced to choose between poverty and violence—a dire and dangerous choice that no woman should have to make. According to The Choice, the report released by Anne Summers, single mothers with children under 18 were three times more likely than the general population to have had violent partners and, of the single mothers living in Australia, 60 per cent had experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a previous partner. The changes to the single parent payment will mean an increase of about $176 a fortnight for 57,000 single parents. It means a lot, and it could save lives. I've been advocating for the single parent payment to return to the previous threshold of 16, but this is a good compromise and, hopefully, a stepping stone on the way to 16.

Housing insecurity is another part of society that disproportionately affects women. Women or girls made up more than six in 10 clients of homelessness services in 2021-22. Australian women aged over 50 are at greater risk of financial and housing insecurity than older men. This has been linked to several compounding and systemic factors. Women in this older age group today didn't benefit from compulsory superannuation at the beginning of their working lives. They were more likely to have been paid at a lower rate than their male counterparts, more likely to be concentrated in low-paid care sectors and likely to have taken time out of the paid workforce to have children and fulfil caring roles. This is the cycle that holds women back. It's deeply entrenched and hard to shift.

The 15 per cent increase in Commonwealth rent assistance is welcome, but, with renters at the mercy of escalating rental housing prices, vacancies as tight as one per cent and inflation very high, there may be less there than meets the eye. The JobSeeker payment is also skinny. The government ignored the recommendation of its own Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee to return JobSeeker to 90 per cent of the pension, where it once was, or around $70 a day. Instead it opted to increase payments by $40 per fortnight. That's less than $3 a day, effectively increasing it from $50 to $53—less than the price of a sandwich or a train ticket. This measure also extends to youth allowance, parenting payment partnered, Austudy, Abstudy, special benefit and disability support pension youth, which will provide some relief to young people and First Nations people. The expanding eligibility for the higher rate of JobSeeker payment to recipients aged 55 and over will go some way to helping older women break the poverty cycle—but only some way.

The strengthening the safety net bill comes as CHOICE survey data reveals Australian households are more concerned about the cost of living now than at any other point in the last seven years of data collection. In a national survey of more than 1,000 people conducted in March and April this year, a record 93 per cent of households said they had seen their household bills and expenses go up over the last 12 months. The cost of food and groceries was the highest concern for 85 per cent of households surveyed, followed by the cost of fuel and household energy bills.

CHOICE survey data also shows the rising cost of housing is hitting both renters and mortgage holders hard. Back in January 2021, 46 per cent of mortgage holders and just over half of renters—51 per cent—said that the cost of housing was a concern. This year, the level of concern has jumped to 78 per cent of mortgage holders and 72 per cent of renters. There is no escaping the level of discomfort in communities across the country.

The $14.6 billion cost-of-living relief package was the centrepiece of the May budget. In handing it down, the Treasurer said that the budget struck the balance of spending restraint to reduce inflation and 'doing what we can to help people struggling to make ends meet'. We do have $1 trillion of debt. We do have a structural budget problem. We do have tax and revenue systems that are not fit for 21st century purpose. Again, I'm going to say that we need broad tax reform. There've been only tweaks and no major reform since the introduction of the GST in 2000. Politics killed any consideration of the Henry tax review, written in 2009. A decade and a half on, we need another clear-headed, broad-based review.

We do need to be sure that, when we spend taxpayers' money, it's prudently allocated. But there are occasions when it's wise to spend now to avoid the risk of much greater spending in the future. We will not get the return to productivity our future prosperity requires unless we enable more women to return to the workforce. We will not get that return to productivity if many of the jobless are consigned to poverty because the rate of JobSeeker is so low that people can't afford to clothe themselves to make themselves presentable for job interviews or if they can't afford the bus ticket to get to an interview. The same goes for the single mothers who have faced the same dilemma when the single parent payment has cut out when their youngest child has turned just eight.

It is the case that the changes in this legislation don't go far enough, but they are a step in the right direction. More women and more young people will now be enabled to find work. That should make for a more productive workforce, and that, in turn, should make for a more prosperous future, and that's why I'm supporting this bill.

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