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

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the routine CPI indexation that took effect yesterday will increase Jobseeker payments by just 96 cents per day, and other income support payments including Disability Support Pension and Carer Payment by similarly nominal amounts;

(b) indexation will lift the Jobseeker payment to just $55 a day (including the energy supplement), which equates to less than half the minimum wage full-time;

(c) this increase is insufficient to prevent the widespread distress experienced by income support recipients due to inadequate payments alongside rising prices and rent; and

(d) the Government's media release, announcing these changes, titled 'indexation puts more in the pockets of millions of Australians', does not acknowledge that income support payments are not enough to cover the cost of essential goods and services including housing, food and energy; and

(2) calls on the Government to significantly increase income support payments, beyond indexation, in the upcoming May budget.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the member for North Sydney from moving the following motion:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the routine CPI indexation that took effect yesterday will increase Jobseeker payments by just 96 cents per day, and other income support payments including Disability Support Pension and Carer Payment by similarly nominal amounts;

(b) indexation will lift the Jobseeker payment to just $55 a day (including the energy supplement), which equates to less than half the minimum wage full-time;

(c) this increase is insufficient to prevent the widespread distress experienced by income support recipients due to inadequate payments alongside rising prices and rent; and

(d) the Government's media release, announcing these changes, titled 'indexation puts more in the pockets of millions of Australians', does not acknowledge that income support payments are not enough to cover the cost of essential goods and services including housing, food and energy; and

(2) calls on the Government to significantly increase income support payments, beyond indexation, in the upcoming May budget.

With the latest data telling us that one in eight Australians are currently living below the poverty line, it's time this parliament prioritised a debate about the woefully inadequate income support system that we now have in this country. The fact that most people relying on unemployment and parenting payments in Australia are being forced to choose which everyday essentials they will give up, just to survive, is something that should be of the highest concern to this parliament and this government. Ultimately, urgent agent is required to increase income support payments so that recipients can afford the basics and be lifted out of poverty. And the government has a very real opportunity to do this in the upcoming federal budget.

The truth is: despite recent media reports, this dire situation will not be significantly addressed by yesterday's routine indexation, which saw some payments increase by just 96c per day. More than 3.3 million Australians are currently living in poverty. That is more than the populations of South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory combined. Sole parent families, women and people with disability are all experiencing poverty at above average levels. The system that should be helping these people to get through tough times and supporting them to find suitable employment is broken.

Surely, as a parliament, we should be able to agree that the income support payment should be enough to cover the basics—food, rent, energy and medicines—so that people can focus on getting on with their lives, be that as parents or as employees once they find jobs. For young Australians, this payment should be enough for them to study and find employment without worrying about where their next meal will come from or how they're going to pay the rent. But these payments remain totally inadequate to cover the essentials.

The Australian Council of Social Services' latest survey of people receiving JobSeeker payments, youth allowance, parenting payment, Austudy, Abstudy, or a special benefit found that nine in 10 people renting privately are in rental stress, which means that they're paying more than 30 per cent of their income on rent. Seven in 10 are eating less or skipping meals. Seven in 10 are cutting back on heating or cooling for their homes. Three out of five experience difficulty affording their medicines or medical care. Ninety-eight per cent said that the low rate of income support harmed their mental health, while 93 per cent said it harmed their physical health.

This is an appalling situation. And we, in this place, should be ashamed. Every day that this parliament fails to increase welfare payments is another day that people on welfare struggle to keep a roof over their heads, skip a meal or suffer mental and physical distress.

Many people with courage have shared with me their personal experiences of living on income support, and I want to thank them for doing so. I now want to share some of these stories with you, so this place can hear the experience of those living on income support in their own words.

One person receiving JobSeeker said: 'After several years off work to care for my parents, I've not been able to return to the workforce. I have been actively applying for employment since 2017 and have literally applied for hundreds of jobs and have not been successful. Meanwhile, the gap in my employment record has widened, and employers are now discriminating against me for it. I am now 59 years of age, single, with no super. And, due to the ongoing financial stress, I suffer from mental health issues, along with physical health issues, the result of years of unemployment, stress and poverty. I don't have family or friends to lean on for support, and I'm quite isolated and alone.' Separately, someone on Austudy actually said that they were 'staring down the road of homelessness with each lease renewal or rent hike,' while another receiving JobSeeker said: 'Relying on income support makes you depressed and anxious and gives you panic attacks. It adversely affects your overall physical health and confidence. You feel less of a person. You feel like you don't belong—like an outcast.' Hearing these stories is truly heartbreaking, and I believe it is our job, the job of the people in this place, to say: 'You do belong.'

More than that, this parliament—this government—has a very real opportunity to show the more than one million people who are relying on these payments that they belong by significantly increasing income support payments in the upcoming budget. Routine indexation, while better than nothing, simply doesn't cut it. This week JobSeeker payments increased, because of indexation, by just 96c. That isn't even enough to buy the reusable shopping bag, let alone the groceries to put in it—96c a day. It won't help with the rent, it won't make a dent in the energy bills and it certainly won't buy a bottle of water, let alone a meal.

For this reason, I think the government's media release announcing this indexation, titled 'Indexation puts more in the pockets of millions of Australians' and boasting that it boosts payments, is insulting to the more than one million Australians who are struggling to live on these inadequate support payments. People are systematically being left behind. Young people who are trying to kickstart their working life are being left behind, with students struggling to pay for essentials while trying to complete their degrees. In fact, those on youth allowance experience the deepest poverty. And women are being left behind, particularly single mothers and older women. People with a disability are being left behind. The situation is worsened by a cost-of-living crisis that is not easing. Inflation may have slowed, but that doesn't mean costs are coming down; they are merely rising less quickly than in previous months. Many of the costs that rose faster than inflation were for essential goods and services, things that households cannot avoid spending on even when the prices increase faster than their wages.

Over the 12 months to the December 2023 quarter the CPI rose by 4.1 per cent. That's indexation. But the price of food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by 4.5 per cent, housing costs rose by 6.1 per cent, electricity prices rose by 6.9 per cent and health costs rose by eight per cent. Under that scenario, regular indexation can clearly be seen to be inadequate. An urgent boost to welfare payments is needed.

The OECD has recommended that Australia lift unemployment payments, highlighting that they remain amongst the lowest in the OECD and are well below the poverty line. Last year the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee report found that JobSeeker payments are inadequate against all benchmarks and recommended substantially increasing the payment, potentially to 90 per cent of the value of the age pension, as the most effective way to tackle poverty. Today the Australian Council of Social Service has called for social security payments to be increased to 100 per cent of the age pension. But it should be noted that the age pension itself does not provide a comfortable standard of living, and I am frequently contacted by members of my community sharing with me their struggles in trying to get by on the age pension. It's just not good enough. While increasing all social services payments to the same rate as the age pension might be a starting point—and it will lift millions out of poverty—it's by no means the entire solution. I acknowledge that the government did increase payments in the May budget last year. But it did so by only $20 a week. That's $4 a working day. It's not a coffee. It's well below the increase called for by the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, the Australian Council of Social Service, those with lived experience and many others.

Ultimately this piecemeal approach of small increases and routine indexation is not addressing this national crisis with anywhere near the urgency that we should adopt as a parliament. The upcoming May budget provides us with an opportunity to fix this. While we may continue to debate what income we should be generating as a government through reforms like an adjustment of the PRRT or changes in individual tax circumstances, ultimately it's beyond belief that in a country as wealthy as Australia those 3.3 million people continue to live in poverty. I call on this government, I call on this parliament, to urgently act to end poverty in Australia. We can begin by delivering a substantial increase in income support payments in the upcoming budget.

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