Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since I last spoke on my first part of the address-in-reply, we have had another budget, so many of the measures I was addressing in my initial remarks have changed but not the basic unfairness of the current government. As both the shadow Treasurer and the member for Maribyrnong said, we do not need to have fairness as a focus group theme for our ideas; it is the very reason why we all are members of Labor Party.

Let me just make some very brief remarks about China, which I was talking about before I was interrupted some weeks ago. I just want to say something about the damning failure of the government on the proposed extradition treaty with China. We were undertaking a treaty with a country where, of several million people charged, only 1,000 people get off charges. This is a failure of ethics. China is not a country that Australia should be having an extradition treaty with in the current circumstances. We want good relations with China, but it is an ethical failure for this government to suggest that we ought to have one under the current circumstances.

It was also a failure of politics. As Greg Sheridan, the foreign editor of The Australian said, both the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister not only had to retreat on this issue and drop the legislation, because they could not get it through the Senate, but also shame themselves—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11:04 to 11 : 20

Returning to Australia, after having looked at the government's failures of both ethics and politics over the China extradition treaty, I would add one further thing. It is a shame to proffer a treaty to an important foreign power like China, including to visiting Premier Li Keqiang, and then withdraw it because you have incompetently handled the politics of it. The opposition clearly signalled to the government, in response to the JSCOT report on the extradition treaty, that in the current circumstances, where the Senate had not looked at the extradition treaties for all countries, not just China, we would be going forward with it, and the government completely ignored our warning. Without Labor's support in the Senate, foreign policy in this country cannot be conducted. It is a salutary lesson for the government that, if you want to have bipartisan important foreign policy in this country, you have to do it in conjunction with the Labor Party, particularly in light of our fractured Senate, which is a perfect segue to what I want to refer to next.

The great Prime Minister Keating talked of the Senate as 'unrepresentative swill', but with the presence of three or four senators from One Nation in the Senate, depending on who has been vaccinated and who has been convicted, we have a very logjammed upper house which grinds not just this coalition government but any particular government of this country to a halt. It is a problem of political systems, and it is the unintended consequence of the government of a previous stripe trying to handle the issue of informal voting by allowing 'just vote 1'. This led to gaming of the system. Now we have had a change of that system, which spectacularly misfired in this double dissolution when the government, in an ugly rort with the Greens, voted to change the Senate voting system and ended up with this logjam, still, in the Senate. How can Australia, a great country, have its prosperity dependent upon the ravings of One Nation and, now, split elements of the Liberal Party, who dispute climate change, who bay at the moon about NASA and who indicate, like Senator Hanson has, their admiration for strong leaders like Mr Putin?

Let me say something, however, about the issue of transport infrastructure, which has come up in this budget. Victoria, as we know, is now getting 39 per cent of the immigration coming to Australia. It is quite understandable. Melbourne is the most livable city in the world, according to all international indices. We are surrounded by wonderful regional cities like Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat et cetera, which are fairly close to the metropolitan centre. It is important, therefore, that a state which has 25 per cent of the population of Australia be allowed to receive transport infrastructure funding from the federal government that is appropriate to its size and to the fact that it has a capital city that is the fastest-growing city in the country—and will be the largest city quite soon if the trends keep up.

We in Victoria are only getting less than nine per cent of transport infrastructure spending from the federal government. The ethic that underlay Federation was that all states would be treated equally in the receipt of Commonwealth taxes—25 per cent of taxes come from Victorians; about 25 per cent of transport infrastructure should be coming back. Of course, we are pleased that regional rail will be funded to about $1 billion, as announced in the budget, so that the great cities of Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat et cetera can have their rail services improved, to feed into Melbourne and make it possible for commuters to travel to and from work, as they do elsewhere. But to see Western Sydney Airport being funded for more than $5 billion—about $10 billion of federal transport infrastructure going to New South Wales and barely $1 billion going to Victoria is iniquitous. It will not stand in the long term, and it only happens because this government is Sydney-centric. I think all the rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney is foolish; Sydney is a great city, a wonderful city, a beautiful city. But the agreement that underlay Federation is a key point that should be understood by all states: it is that states should get approximately that same share of revenue.

It is not possible for Melbourne—a city of four million people—and Victoria—a state that has 25 per cent of the population—to be getting $1 billion and for New South Wales to be getting about $10 billion. That is unfair. I think it reflects the fact that many of the conservative members in Victoria are weak, compared to the Sydney-centric government that controls this country. They should have worked harder to see that transport infrastructure was equitably developed in Victoria; that we got at least 25 per cent of those revenues. If you stand on a train or a tram in Melbourne, you will know what I am talking about. And you will never win national government again if, in all those marginal seats, commuters are embittered, standing in those crowded trams and trains, because Malcolm Turnbull likes to have his picture taken, with selfies between the Melbourne CBD and Deepdene—but he will not fund a proper underground, proper train services, or proper tram services.

The Andrews state government is doing a wonderful job in recycling the Port of Melbourne asset by getting rid of all of the level crossings throughout Melbourne, making the trains run faster, and making road transport run faster. People in my area of south-east Melbourne—in Bentleigh, McKinnon, Ormond; all of these places—think it is fantastic that the promise which was made at the last state election has been fully financed and fully met already. But they see the federal government sitting on the shoulders of Victorians, expecting us to take—as we are happy to—39 per cent of all federal immigration, but not getting our equitable share of transport infrastructure. I know that our state Treasurer, Mr Pallas—who was, ironically enough, a rival for preselection for my seat, but who is doing a great job as Treasurer for Victoria—has been pointing this out today: the regional rail expenditure is good, but it is not good enough that Victoria gets $1 billion and New South Wales gets $10 billion. And it will tell—I say to all members of the government, whether they are from New South Wales or other states: you will lose more seats in Victoria, as people stand on those crowded trams and trains knowing that the person responsible for it is none other than the member for Wentworth—some people call him Lord Turnbull of Point Piper. People will resent that inequitable funding.

We know that, under this government, federal debt has blown out to a very large extent. I saw last night that the National Australia Bank economist said that he thought it was very optimistic to think they would stay within the projection of three per cent growth till 2021. They would have to have that stream of revenues in order to go back into surplus that year. And 2021 is a very important year, because, if they had not projected at least that they would go back into surplus, the AAA credit rating of our banks might have been threatened—and I still think they might be threatened.

We have the rhetoric from this government about fairness and equity. It is actually in Labor's skin. I cannot believe that we would have allowed the debt to boom, as it has under the current government, from the achievable debt that could have been gotten rid of when Labor went out of power to what it is now. The infrastructure expenditure, when it is happening, is going inequitably around the states, which will inevitably have political consequences. I am telling you that, in Victoria, in the next federal election, this will tell on the federal coalition, and it should.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You sometimes wonder if there are benefits to being further down the speakers list. To be on the list to speak in the address-in-reply debate the day after the budget does give me the opportunity to reflect on another shocker of a budget from this Liberal-National government, but I will leave those remarks for the end of my contribution.

This is an opportunity for me as the federal member for Bendigo to thank the many volunteers that were involved in the election campaign, to reflect on the fantastic electorate that I have the opportunity to represent and to talk about some of the really pressing issues and challenges that we have in our communities and economy, and for us as parliamentarians.

My electorate, Bendigo, is a large electorate. It is a Federation seat, meaning that for as long as there has been a Commonwealth, for as long as there has been a federal parliament, we have had a representative here in this place. When I was first elected in 2013 I said how proud I was to be the first woman to be elected to represent the federal seat of Bendigo. It took us over 100 years, but we got there. This time around, when I stand here to say how proud I am to have been elected the federal member for Bendigo for a second term, I am in the company of some great women leaders across all levels of government. At the state level, the three main seats that fall into my electorate—the seats of Macedon, Bendigo East and Bendigo West—are represented by three fantastic, progressive women: Maree Edwards, Jacinta Allan and Mary-Anne Thomas. The four of us work very closely together to ensure that our communities receive the support that they need. Their sisterhood and friendship is something that is ongoing, and I would like to acknowledge their support right at the beginning of this contribution.

At a local level, we have had equal success, having seen the election of a number of women to local government. For the first time ever, I stand here proudly and say, the three major councils in my electorate combined have a majority of women councillors. We also have three women mayors, and I would like to acknowledge the first six months of their terms and their efforts to represent our community: Councillor Sharon Telford, for Mount Alexander; Councillor Jen Anderson, for the Macedon Ranges; and Councillor—and good friend—Margaret O'Rourke, for the City of Greater Bendigo.

This level of representation by women does not happen by accident. It happens because men and women get together to say, 'We want to have equal representation,' and because people are encouraged and mentored. In my own organisation, the Labor Party, we have a proud tradition of acknowledging the need for a change of culture. The Labor Women's Network worked to change the rules within the party to set quotas, with the support of EMILY's List. When we preselect women in safe and winnable seats, we have women parliamentarians. I acknowledge that I am not the first in this tradition. I am part of a long tradition of Labor women and men working together to address the gender imbalance. I am very proud to say that we are on track on our path to reach affirmative action quotas of fifty-fifty. But I am more proud of the fact that in my part of the world we are achieving that goal at a local, state and federal level.

An election is always tough. That would have been no different for any previous federal member, and they would have told you that. We have great diversity and, with that diversity, comes strength. We have a major metropolitan, cosmopolitan city, Bendigo itself, plus a great network of regional towns and villages that make up the electorate of Bendigo. There are towns such as Malden with a population of about 700. They were the first notable town in our country because of their streetscape. They are going through their own battles with NBN Co to ensure that the construction of fast-speed broadband, fibre to the node, does not breach their heritage landscape. There are great and strong communities such as Macedon, Kyneton and Woodend that are going through a tree change. Only being an hour from Melbourne, they are now facing the housing price bite that Melbourne has as people move there, choosing the country lifestyle. That is creating pressures in those communities.

The Victorian component of the federal election many say was defined by the CFA dispute. I speak about the CFA dispute in many ways with great sadness. This government decided out of political desperation to blow up an issue to divide our community and, to this day, we have still not seen resolution. During the election, we saw the Prime Minister declare that he would fix the issue and resolve the differences. He used the election as an opportunity to beat up on paid professional firefighters, people who spend every single day protecting our community. Here we are, many, many months on, after a sham of a policy development rushed through parliament, and we have not seen a collective agreement reached. We have not seen decisions resolved. The pain continues in our state, yet the conversation in this place is finished. The Prime Minister should be condemned for the way he used politics to divide regional Victoria and, in particular, the CFAs in my electorate.

In the end, whilst they predicted I would lose the seat because of this issue, the politicians and the other people involved in politics forgot one fundamental, basic thing: the CFA reflects the community. In areas such as Malden and Chewton, CFA volunteer firefighters are also members of the Labor Party. They did not buy the rhetoric of this government. People in our community knew that this was a state based issue that someone was trying to politicise for political gain. Chewton I mention quite fondly because that is now the best 2PP group in the electorate of Bendigo—78 per cent 2PP to Labor—where we also have a very strong CFA and CFA community. They to this day still shake their heads at the way that this government tried to divide their town and their community.

The government also focused a lot on running a fear campaign. I would like to reflect on the fear that they created in Bendigo. Almost daily we had them saying there was a drug problem. Almost daily we heard that people were getting bashed, that it was unsafe. But, yet, we have not seen any commitment on how to fix the problem since or delivery of that. What we have had instead is more shops close. Fewer people go there to shop. It is becoming a real crisis point. Yet this government did very little to help and instead have put businesses at risk and reduced people coming into the centre of town by running a fear campaign about a very complex issue. This is the problem sometimes with our federal elections. People get caught up in the hysteria, do not win the seat and walk away and leave it.

I have actually run a review into Medicare. We did a survey of local doctors' surgeries. This government called it a 'Mediscare' campaign. The truth is that people are very scared about Medicare and what they are paying. In the survey that we conducted we found that, since this government was elected, we are down to four services that 100 per cent bulk-bill their patients. There are more and more services that are charging out-of-pocket fees, and, of the people that we surveyed in that review that we did six months after the election, on average they are paying $21 per consultation out-of-pocket. The government's decision last night to lift the freeze for GPs happened because, if they had not made it, more and more patients would have been paying out-of-pocket fees, and some of our rural practices would have closed. This is a snapshot of the damage the government have done to the delivery of healthcare services in regional areas like Bendigo. They still have not made up for the funding cuts to hospitals. As we celebrate the opening of the Bendigo Hospital—a brand-new, $630 million facility—I fear and am angry that this government are not paying their fair share to reduce waiting lists, to employ more nurses and to help meet the healthcare needs of not just Bendigo but the whole of northern and central Victoria.

The election was a good night, and there is a great photo of me in the Bendigo Advertiserthe ABC called the election result early, and I will never live down that photo of my surprise and excitement. I would like to thank all the branches and all the hundreds of volunteers that we have. We have a very strong Labor team across central Victoria—the Woodend branch, the Kyneton branch, the Castlemaine branch, the Bendigo branch and the Bendigo South Branch—rank-and-file, strong Labor people who, for years, have campaigned for Labor governments and Labor MPs. Without their support, we would not have held the seat of Bendigo. I would also like to acknowledge our brothers and sisters in the rank-and-file unions and affiliates: Luke Martin at the Bendigo Trades Hall, our nurses, our ambos, our cleaners, our teacher aides, our teachers, our construction members—the list goes on—RTBU, CFMEU, United Voice, the ANMF, the ASU, the NUW and the AWU. We have a strong family amongst our trade union movement, who are fighting every day to improve the rights of working Australians and to ensure that they receive a fair day's pay for a decent day's work.

Industrial relations is an area that is close to my heart. We have had some real failures and developments within the fair work space that need to be addressed. Companies have become quite bolshie and the rate at which Fair Work is terminating agreements must be stopped. On too many occasions, we are seeing employers and large multinationals file to terminate agreements as a bargaining step—as a way to bully employees to accept inferior wages. One of the first and most public examples of this is what happened at CUB. The company filed to terminate the agreements of maintenance workers who had worked there for a very long time. They wanted to move them onto a labour-hire company. The particular agreement that that labour-hire company had has been referred to as a bit of a dodgy, Work Choices era, zombie agreement. It was struck over in WA, nowhere near the site itself, and it massively reduced the pay of many of the workers there. After a six-months struggle, with the workers out the front, they won all of their conditions back. But it should not take that kind of action to get a company to respect its workforce. And I should say that they were not fighting for a massive pay rise; they were fighting to maintain their current conditions.

Unfortunately, the CUB dispute is not alone. Over in WA in the mining sector we have seen, time and time again, that companies file to terminate agreements as an aggressive tactic in bargaining. Some particular workers—again, maintenance workers—were facing 65 per cent pay cuts. What happens when Fair Work rules to terminate an agreement? In this particular case, they said to the workforce and to the company, 'You have six months to negotiate a new agreement, or you go back to the award.' These are massive pay cuts. This undermines the very principle of enterprise collective bargaining, which is supposed to be at the centre of fairness in the Fair Work Act.

We have seen also two lockouts. For example, there are the Echuca Parmalat workers, just north of where I am. That dispute was about labour hire. The workers there were saying they wanted to keep their clause to restrict the misuse and overuse of labour hire, which is so common these days by employers. Why were they so concerned? The Parmalat factory in Bendigo is a very good example. The Parmalat factory in Bendigo does not have a clause restricting the use of labour hire. The company there had a significant proportion of their workforce working for Manpower. They then changed labour-hire companies, and all the workers there were told to reapply for their jobs through a new labour-hire company. This company then said to those locally based skilled and trained workers, 'Sorry, we have no hours for you'. What we discovered a few weeks later was that that work had gone to Irish backpackers, who were being paid well below the award and were not aware of their rights. To this day, those workers that were skilled and trained working for the labour-hire company—the local workers—are still without work.

And that was why in Echuca they said, 'We will fight this to the very end'. They want to make sure that, if there is a job going at the Parmalat site, it will go to a directly employed local first—local people in our electorate, local people in our region. They want to make sure that if there is overtime they have the opportunity to put their hand up for it. They are fighting the casualisation of the workforce. The good news is that, after many days of being out, Parmalat agreed and they are back at work. But then that brings us to a new dispute: Fletcher Insulation in Dandenong. Again, after meeting with some of their members today I learnt they have been locked out for 85 days. They have been out the front of Parliament House. This dispute again is about job security. Their company—as at other places—has an unlimited labour-hire clause. This means that they can replace the workers at any time with workers who are paid the award, significantly undercutting the agreement. Their fight is not just for their own jobs but for the next generation. Again, we have seen the company apply to terminate the agreement.

At the moment, our enterprise bargaining is being distorted by companies who are manipulating it for their own purposes. Our coalminers in Queensland: up to 60 per cent of them are labour hire in Central Queensland. There are miners working side by side: one on a collective agreement directly employed; the other working on the award or less for labour hire, being paid $40,000 a year less for the same work. And it is completely legal because the Fair Work Act is deficient and this government is not motivated or willing to change it. They are ignoring workers.

The exploitation of temporary workers must be acknowledged. We have a bill before the House now, but it does not go far enough to address the exploitation of temporary workers, guest workers and people who have come here in good faith to work on a 457 visa. The government has only changed the name of this to a 417 visa. They do not know what their rights are in many cases. There are some cases of extreme modern slavery where they have their passports confiscated, are locked in and are living in appalling conditions. These are the issues that this government is failing to address.

It puts pressure on the local jobs market and creates division. If you can pay an exploited temporary worker $5 an hour and get away with it, before they get deported or before a complaint is made, then you are not paying the correct entitlements. I referred earlier to the Work Choices zombie agreements. These are a massive problem in our community. These are a demonstration that Work Choices is not dead, buried and cremated. Too many workers are stuck on these agreements. The processes of Fair Work are slow and the workers are struggling to get them terminated. The legacy of John Howard and Tony Abbott lives on. We have a lot of work to do to ensure that we can help create decent secure jobs, jobs that Australians can count on. For a government that said on election day that they are about jobs and growth, in a very quick period of time—

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We did not hear about jobs last night. We hear that unemployment is going to increase under this government. The jobs embassy is back. It is back on the lawns out the front of Parliament House, because of the government's failure to have a decent policy on creating decent, secure jobs in this country. The government do not have a plan for future industries. They do not have a plan for growing and sustaining our industries. And they definitely do not have a plan for building good, secure jobs and a Fair Work Act that respects and that ensures decent jobs going forward.

Last night's budget was a shocker, and all of us will get a chance to reflect on its cuts to education, its cuts to health and its cuts to university students, including the fact that it could force regional campuses to close because of funding cuts compounding with the drop in student numbers from the forcing up of fees. The budget is demonstration, again, that the government do not understand, that they represent the top end of town, not the regions, not communities, not men and women and their families, and definitely not the electorate of Bendigo. But the government's failure on jobs is what we really need to highlight. They need a decent jobs plan.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People all over the country, young people in particular, are being screwed over by the government, and my constituents in Melbourne are no exception. Whether it is complete inaction on climate change—if you listen to the Treasurer's speech last night, you would be forgiven for thinking that climate change does not exist: it did not rate a mention once—the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else or the fact that young people are being done over day by day by day, the list is endless. The government showed us with their budget last night that they will back, every time, the people who own a home already to get their second, third or fourth, even at the cost of billions of dollars for the budget, while making it harder and harder for young people to buy their first house.

Since I was elected, nearly 3,000 individual constituents have come through my office seeking help about a range of matters, often dealing with problems caused by the failure of this government. That is on top of the many, many more who have contacted me with their views about a variety of issues and, of course, the hundreds of community groups in the electorate, with whom we deal on a regular basis. But today I want to talk about a few of the failures in our system and how they are affecting people in my electorate of Melbourne, in particular.

Housing is out of control. In 1985, a home in Melbourne cost three times the average wage—now it is 9.7 times the average wage. The Domain Group chief economist has predicted that Melbourne's median house price will reach $1 million by the end of next year. When you look at how it has changed for young people over time, you see that it used to be, a couple of decades ago, that an average house cost six times young person's income—that was back in the 1990s—now it is 12 times an average young person's income. But when the government had the chance to do something about it by tackling unfair tax breaks it squibbed it. The government has said in this budget that it will make students pay more, by loading them up with HECS debt and making them pay it back earlier, and it will cut the funding to universities, so the education the students get is going to be delivered by universities with even less money to deliver it, but it is happy to spend billions of dollars every year to subsidise people who have already got a home to buy their second, third or fourth home and have a tax break to put in their pocket. That is manifestly unfair. The budget was a chance to fix that and take some real action to make housing affordable and put it within reach of young people, and the government has completely squibbed it.

Meanwhile, the government is persisting in saying that it has to give tax cuts to big business. Its priorities are completely wrong. If you are a young person under 35, the only thing that you got from last night's budget was the middle finger. The government had a chance to help address the growing generational gap in this country, and it chose to side with those who already have a lot of money and who already have a lot of wealth—and the war on the young is continuing.

Even as costs soar in the private housing market, for decades governments of both stripes have failed to invest in public housing in the way that we need. Over 33,000 people are on the waiting list for public housing in Victoria. When you look at the waiting lists over the last few years, it is common for people who are homeless to have to wait three, four or five years to find a home—this is people who are homeless. This week, my office spoke with Hawa, who is a sole parent with young children and has been homeless for over 15 months. She and her kids have been left waiting on the highest level of priority for public housing for over a year without even stable transitional accommodation. Imagine: how can you do all the things that a parent wants to do, like get the kids to school and back home again, if you do not know where you are going to sleep that night. Hawa is just one of hundreds of people in my electorate who have sought my assistance, because housing has failed them.

With this crisis in affordable housing, the number of people who are homeless is shooting up. More than twice as many people are sleeping rough in Melbourne as in 2012. Faced with this crisis you would think that governments would be doing everything they can to be building more public housing. But, instead, the Victorian Labor government, which we thought might be better than the Liberals, is selling off public housing land to private development. My constituents in Ascot Vale, Flemington and parts of North Melbourne are facing the prospect of Labor moving them out of their homes and breaking up existing communities, and if they choose to come back to their previous estates most of the open space is going to be taken up not with new public housing but with private housing.

The small increase in the amount of social housing is going to go nowhere near what is needed to address the looming crisis. When you have prime land in inner-city Melbourne that has public housing on it, let's take the opportunity to build more public housing there. But, instead, the government is saying that they are going to sell it off to private developers because it makes them a bit of cash. We are going to fight that tooth and nail, because building more public housing is one of the best ways that we can deal with the housing affordability crisis in this country.

Meanwhile, in Melbourne, our lord mayor, Robert Doyle, has come up with the worst possible idea, which is to ban homelessness. Well, passing a law against it is not going to make it go away. In the 19th century, Nobel Prize winner Anatole France said:

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, that was a warning—it was not a 'how to' guide. It was not a suggestion that you actually pass a law banning people who are homeless from sleeping in some of the few places they might be able to.

A quorum having been called for in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11:57 to 11:58

Meanwhile, in Melbourne, our lord mayor, Robert Doyle, has come up with the worst possible idea for dealing with the housing crisis, which is to pass a law to ban homelessness. In the 19th century Nobel Prize winner Anatole France said:

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.

That was a warning about justice. It was not a 'how-to' guide for a local council. It was not a 'how-to' guide, Robert Doyle. It was not suggesting that we somehow need to deal with this problem by saying that people who are doing it so tough that the only place they can find to sleep is somewhere where most of us would never want to spend an hour, let alone at night, passing a law saying you cannot do it any more and we are going to fine you and potentially have you committing a criminal offence. So let us get serious in Melbourne about investing in affordable housing, not just blame the people who are homeless for the failure of our housing system.

The Greens are standing up to the homelessness ban by Melbourne City Council. I acknowledge all of those who have campaigned against the ban, including many people who have experienced homelessness and who know what it will mean for people who are sleeping rough. We have a housing crisis and we will fix it by government deciding to build more public housing and by the federal government deciding to stop spending billions of dollars of taxpayers' money on helping people who already have a home to get their second, third or fourth and instead put it into building more affordable housing.

Melbourne is the place it is today because of the contribution of migrants and refugees. I cannot imagine Melbourne without the Vietnamese community or without the Greek and Italian communities, all of whom settled in Richmond and then moved to other suburbs like Carlton. There are the African communities in my neighbourhood of Flemington and other parts of the electorate and there are the Chinese communities that you see in various parts including in Chinatown, and there are so many others. Melbourne is a place where we show that there is an alternative to the hate and fear of the likes of Senator Pauline Hanson. When the federal government takes its lead from the far Right and attacks the success of Australian multiculturalism, people in my electorate feel the pain.

I have met constituents who have told me they have already faced racist insults in the street. One woman told me that her hijab was ripped off her head. A 12-year-old at Carlton Primary School wrote to me to say that, during the middle of her 800-metre race at school, someone called out an insult to her suggesting that she was a terrorist because she had a hijab on. She was so upset that she could not finish her race. This is what is at stake—the right of kids to be able to go about their daily lives and do something that everyone would expect you would have the right to do, like participate in a sports carnival, without being insulted or assaulted because of who you are. But we have got a cultural and immigration system that is punishing people, not supporting them. Families are being separated because it is getting harder and harder to bring family members to Australia to spend time with loved ones. Melburnians trying to bring their partners to Australia are being told to expect a waiting time of over 23 months before their partner can join them. That is two years before couples can get on with their lives together. Not that long ago it was less than 12 months, which is still very long time. This federal government is failing families. People applying to bring in family members located in East Africa are waiting for a longer time than those applying to bring in family members from, for example, Europe or North America. I have heard of constituents who have followed the rules and done everything correctly but have had to wait over a year longer than the guidelines say because it took over a year for basic police checks to be done by the Australian government. They were told they were not allowed to access any information or even ask about what was happening to their applications. It is not good enough. It is systemic discrimination and it is hitting people who come from countries like those in Africa, particularly the Horn of Africa and East Africa, the hardest.

We have also heard from a constituent who has a son who is in danger, who was bashed by the police. He is living in Sudan and has no direct family there nor anywhere else in the world other than Australia. The family have been waiting since May 2011 for their last remaining relative visa to be finalised. Someone who has no family anywhere else in the world other than in Australia has been waiting since May 2011 just to have a visa finalised. Just yesterday my office spoke with a woman whose brother is a refugee who was forced to leave his country and is now in a camp. The department of immigration told her that they acknowledged he was in danger, he had faced persecution and he had nowhere to go but Australia. Yet, because the coalition government had cut the number of refugee places by a third, his request to join his family and live safely in Australia has been refused.

This government talks all the time about how we have to so-called stop the boats because we have to look after the people who are waiting in the so-called queues. Well, let me tell you—and the parliament needs to understand—there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people around the world who are desperately waiting in camps, and their family members here are trying to get them out. They are waiting and doing the right thing, and they are being shown a closed door by this government.

The government's recent announcement that it plans to change citizenship rules and leave people waiting for more than two years has left many Melbourne residents and their families facing deep uncertainty. My office has spoken with people who have tried to do the right thing and want to contribute to Australia as their new country but at the last minute have had their entire plans ripped out from under them. These changes have real impacts on real people. Often the people in this situation have no access to support or legal advice, and with chronic underfunding from government for community legal centres, which they were dragged kicking and screaming to partly repair, still so many people who just want to come to Australia and make this place their home do not have access to the support that they need to even get their application processed and to deal with the fact that the government is putting otherwise good applications on hold.

Meanwhile, the government's cruelty to refugees continues. This government has sent Vietnamese and Tamil asylum seekers back to danger without even processing their refugee claims. Recently in the House I spoke about Saeed, which is not his real name. He is currently in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre, threatened with deportation. He is a stateless man from a religious minority, who faced persecution in Iraq, to where the Australian government wants to forcibly return him. He fears for his life if he is sent there. Mr Peter Dutton has the power to stop his deportation, and I stand with Saeed and the people protesting around the country, including in my electorate, who are trying to make sure this deportation does not happen. It is worth remembering that, if 40 years ago governments had the same policy of turning people back that the Liberal and Labor parties have today, there would not be a Vietnamese community in Melbourne. Pausing and reflecting on that single fact alone ought to make people realise that our current approach to dealing with refugees who are coming here seeking our help is fundamentally wrong, and those people who did not stand up and demand a better system are going to be judged very harshly.

For years the Greens have pushed for a better deal for people receiving Centrelink payments, including an increase to Newstart and to youth allowance, but Malcolm Turnbull and his Liberal-National coalition are instead punishing and making life hard for too many people in Melbourne and in Australia. This comes on the back of cuts from previous Labor governments, including cuts to sole parenting payments. Now the punitive measures are continuing in this year's budget. If you are on social support, the government wants to treat you like someone who is a potential criminal all the time. We need a supportive approach to people that are seeking support from our safety net, rather than a punitive approach. It is replacing one punitive approach with another, when we know that does not work. You cannot blame people for not finding jobs that are not there. One thing that government did not tell you in their speech last night is that buried in the back of the budget are forecasts that unemployment will continue to rise. That is going to hit young people the hardest. We know that since the GFC the youth unemployment rate has not come back to parity with the general unemployment rate, and young people are finding it increasingly hard to find a decent full-time job that allows them to meet the ever rising cost of housing and to deal with the debts that, thanks to this government, they are increasingly accruing. The jobs are just not there.

So what do you do? Do you turn around and say, 'Let's put in place programs, like investing in education and building more renewable energy, that might actually employ some of those people'? Or do you turn around and blame the victim, which is what the government has done in this budget? To say, 'Just because you have no job, through no fault of your own, we are going to subject you to invasions of your personal liberty and demand that you submit to regular drug testing,' is vilifying people. If this government starts breath-testing its own MPs and cabinet ministers before they come in for every speech or every vote then the Australian population might start to take them seriously, but everyone can see what they are doing for what it is: an attack on the poor and the jobless, when the government should be trying to create jobs for those people, rather than blaming them.

Let's not forget the robo-debt debacle. My office has been inundated with calls from people who have been issued automated debt notices by Centrelink, and I am aware of many cases where the debt was totally wrong. One couple was issued with a debt notice for over $25,000, and when it was investigated it turned out there was no debt at all. Imagine receiving a letter from a government department telling you you have to pay $25,000 and the full force of the law applies, and it turns out there is no debt at all! This couple was fortunate enough to know that there was someone they could turn to for help—their local MP, who was not in the government—but so many people will not be in that situation. They will receive these notices and not know what to do. It will be terrifying and it will have a huge impact. Think about what that means. Imagine getting that letter from the government. You might think that at least you would get an apology from the government, but no. This government has refused to apologise at all. It has simply said, 'The system wasn't working as intended.'

Another constituent was issued with a debt notice, then told the debt was no longer current, but then, months later, was sent another letter asking how he was going to repay the debt. It was only after further inquiries from my office that he was finally told that really there was no debt.

What we are finding is that the government is saying to people: 'You have a debt to pay. You've got to pay it. If you think that debt isn't right, effectively the onus is on you to come and prove to us that there is no debt.' It is like getting a phone call from a debt collection agency to say: 'We've got a suggestion here that back in 2005 you borrowed Flying High from the video store and you haven't returned it. The fines have accumulated and we'd like you to pay them back. If you can prove that you didn't borrow that video then we'll waive them, but if you can't prove it then, sorry, you have to pay up.' This is ridiculous. It is reversing the onus of proof and it is government continuing with the approach of treating everyone who is without a job as a criminal.

You do not treat people who have fallen on hard times as criminals. If you want Australia to be a place where everyone is looked after and everyone feels that they have got a place, you provide support for people. You put in place programs that create jobs and you lift the level of Newstart above the poverty line. It is far too low and it is stopping people from getting access to the jobs that they need. They do not have the money to go and get that haircut or buy those extra clothes that might help them at a job interview. There are so many people applying, and the jobs are not even there. The government has to stop punishing the victim.

Debate adjourned.