Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Despite Australia being one of the richest countries in the world, over 3.3 million Australians are living in poverty. We pride ourselves on being a country of opportunity, fairness and equality, yet millions of people are struggling every day to put food on the table, to secure safe and affordable housing, to pay for medication and medical expenses, and to enjoy their life without constant financial stress. The eradication of poverty should be a national priority, yet successive governments have refused and failed to adequately measure, research and understand poverty and economic disadvantage in Australia. This has led to decades of inadequate income support payments and policies that served only to punish people in poverty and further entrench disadvantage.

The permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee presents a real opportunity to address these issues and eradicate poverty in Australia. For the first time ever, we could have an independent body providing clear advice to the government on poverty reduction. This committee could mark the beginning of a government that actually works collaboratively with people living in poverty on issues that impact them. It could oversee the development of poverty measures and investigate specific issues that intersect and contribute to disadvantage, like lack of affordable housing and discrimination.

The Greens see the enormous potential of the permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, and we're excited to see the bill for the committee's establishment introduced to the parliament. But this bill, the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee Bill 2023, falls utterly short and is a complete slap in the face for advocates of the unemployed, for social service organisations and for every Australian living below the poverty line. Again and again, Labor has refused to listen and engage with people living in poverty on the policies that impact them, and this bill is no different. Nowhere in this bill is there mention of poverty.

There is no requirement for someone with direct experience of poverty to be a part of the committee. For too long, governments have implemented policies that have failed to take into account the experiences and knowledge of people living in poverty. This has contributed to the development of harmful and destructive programs like robodebt, ParentsNext, and compulsory income management. If the government actually cared about economic inclusion and tackling disadvantage, this bill would include a requirement for somebody with direct experience of poverty to be a member of this committee. They would also have listened to the long list of academics, social services organisations and advocates for the unemployed who have calling for the development of a national poverty measure. Government after government have used the lack of a nationally accepted measure of poverty to dodge responsibility for the inadequacy of income support payments.

The permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee could play an integral role in developing a national definition of poverty, one that takes into account a diversity of needs and contexts and one that the government could be held accountable to.

However, unsurprisingly, this bill fails to include any requirement for the committee to develop or use such a measure.

In their submission to the Senate inquiry into this bill, the Australian Council of Social Service also raised concerns about the lack of transparency and independence of the committee. A key piece of work undertaken by the committee will be producing a report providing recommendations to the government. However, in its current form, the bill has no requirement for the government to respond to this report, and, further, it is unclear if and when the committee will publicly publish its full report. Additionally, the bill contains a provision that allows the government to direct the committee to investigate only certain topics and issues. This clearly infringes on the committee's independence and hampers its ability to fully investigate poverty and disadvantage. Concerns about the independence and transparency of the committee were also echoed by the Antipoverty Centre, the Brotherhood of St Laurence, the Salvation Army and many other submitters to the bill's inquiry. This bill clearly fails to meet the expectations of key advocacy organisations and will fail to deliver an independent and robust body to advise the government on economic inclusion.

I do want to acknowledge and commend, though, the work of the interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. The interim committee's report, which was published in April, built upon the work of unemployment advocates, social service organisations and academics and contained important evidence about economic disadvantage in Australia. The report found that, apart from the temporary boost during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the JobSeeker payment has been declining relative to median incomes and other Centrelink payments for decades. It articulated what the Greens, people on income support and many others already knew: that the rate of JobSeeker is completely inadequate. The committee put forward a suite of important recommendations for the government to reduce economic inequality in Australia, but it made clear that the most pressing action was to raise the rate of JobSeeker and related working-age payments. In the report, the interim committee suggested that increasing the rate of payments to 90 per cent of the aged pension would improve their adequacy and reduce disadvantage.

Despite this, in the last budget the government decided to raise the rate of JobSeeker by only $4 a day. Four dollars a day is not a substantial increase such as the interim committee recommended. Four dollars a day can't even buy you a coffee, let alone pay someone's ever-increasing rent, grocery bills and medical expenses. Poverty is a political choice, and the Labor government is choosing to keep millions of Australians on income support well below the poverty line. They are also choosing to put forward a completely inadequate framework for the permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee.

As I said, there is enormous potential in this committee. The idea of an independent body to provide clear advice to parliament on this issue is something that the Greens have long advocated for. Earlier in the year, my colleague the Australian Greens spokesperson for social services, Senator Janet Rice, introduced the Greens' antipoverty commission bill into the Senate. This bill sought to establish an antipoverty commission to provide parliament with independent and transparent advice on the causes of poverty in Australia, on how to reduce it and on the minimum levels for social security payments. Unlike this lacklustre bill, our antipoverty commission would have had a number of distinct features we know are critical to establishing an effective independent body to tackle poverty and inequality in Australia. These included an explicit focus on addressing poverty in its name and framework, a clear requirement for the development of a national poverty line, a requirement for the government to publicly respond to recommendations made by the independent commission, a clear requirement for legislative reviews of income support payments and of the poverty line, an independent parliamentary committee that can scrutinise appointments to the independent body, and a focus on people experiencing poverty that enables people with direct experiences of disadvantage to be commissioners. This antipoverty commission would have responded to the work and the calls of unemployment advocates, academics and social security organisations about what is really needed to meaningfully address poverty in Australia.

While the Greens welcome the establishment of the permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, we know that this bill is not up to scratch. That is why I can foreshadow that my colleagues will be seeking to amend the bill in the Senate. We will be using our antipoverty commission framework in our deliberations, and we encourage others in parliament to do so. As the cost of living continues to soar, we must do everything in our power to ensure communities are kept out of poverty and out of financial distress. The permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee presents a real opportunity for change, and the Greens will fight to ensure that this opportunity is not squandered and that we have the best chance at truly eradicating poverty in Australia.

See this speech in context