Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the minister for her response to the amendments as proposed by myself and my community, and I would just take a moment to reflect back to the minister and this government the point that it is one thing to provide budget for this community to operate but it is another thing to ensure that those who have a permanent seat on this committee actually are those who have lived experience in this space.

I refer again to my speech as I tabled these amendments the concepts that only a woman living in a car knows why she's there, only a young person trying to live in the city like in my electorate of North Sydney on JobSeeker why they look for work knows what that is like and only an older Australian currently trying to juggle their life under what we classify as an appropriate pension knows exactly what they are foregoing week on week to ensure that they can afford other things.

Academics and heads of organisations are one form of people. I pay no disrespect to them in terms of the knowledge and expertise they have, but I think involving those with lived experience at the heart of this on a day-to-day basis, not just in a passing, consulting fashion, would significantly improve this committee.

To that point, I return to the fact that those people are the people who will not have the financial resources to participate in this. So, again, while I acknowledge that $8.7 million has been set aside over forward budgets, I would suggest that people like me will be looking for reports on how that budget is expended and whether part of that funding is used to enable those who are most vulnerable in our community to participate in this process. It could be compensating them for turning up for meetings or their travel arrangements. I think that would be an incredibly appropriate use of funding in this point of view. I think Australians would support the minister and the government in doing just that.

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