Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Today I want to speak about the Morrison government's treatment of Victoria. The Prime Minister urged Australians in all other states to offer 'an elbow of support' to us Victorians. 'If you've got friends in Victoria, call them,' he said. 'Cheer them up, encourage them. We have to help them push through, because the future depends on the months ahead.' At first it was an elbow, but now it seems to be a salute from another part of the body.

Twelve weeks later, and we have the Prime Minister putting politics before people, and he knows it. He knows that Victorians are in the middle of a tough time and that times are going to get tougher—because of the actions of this Prime Minister, because he's putting politics before people, before families. The Prime Minister and other ministers have said that, on average, a thousand Victorian jobs have been lost each day of the lockdown. Victoria is working hard to protect its people from a pandemic, putting people first. There have been hard times, and we all acknowledge that. Parts of the economy have stalled while we deal with this menace. While Victoria is working hard to protect its people, in comes the Prime Minister, playing politics. He's cutting support in Victoria, even though we're the hardest hit.

Cuts to JobKeeper and JobSeeker are going to hit Victorians the hardest. More than a million Victorians have had their JobKeeper payments cut by $300 a fortnight whilst they remain in lockdown. This isn't an elbow of encouragement; it's more like an elbow to the guts. Treasury has forecast that more Victorians will be on JobKeeper in December than all other states combined. Thousands of Victorians are expected to lose their jobs and be forced onto JobSeeker payment, which the government has also cut.

There's a flow-on effect of putting politics first. It's not just these one million Victorians who will be affected. With less money to spend on food, clothes and other essentials, a whole range of Victorian industries and business are going to be cut off at the knees as they try to recover, because people won't have the capacity to spend that they did. This is going to push more and more people onto the dole queue. Australia's economy is trying to get through a recession that this government created, and the government wants people to stop spending. That is not going to help. It's only going to hurt Australian families and Australian businesses. Businesses understand the impacts of the Morrison government's decision in the Morrison recession. The latest ABS figures show small businesses reacting to the JobKeeper cuts. Payroll numbers have dropped 2.7 per cent in firms with fewer than 20 employees.

But Victorians don't just have to deal with these immediate cuts by the government. There's more pain ahead because, in the budget, the government put politics before people as well. You only have to look at the lack of infrastructure spending. Victoria is home to 26 per cent of the nation but only gets 15 per cent of the infrastructure spending. The two promises that were made at the last federal election have never been delivered. People need to know why New South Wales is getting 36 per cent, while Victorians miss out.

It was widely acknowledged when the budget came out that the government had forgotten to do anything for women. Victorian women have been hardest hit by COVID-19, finding themselves out of work at a greater rate than men, yet the government couldn't find room for women in the budget. The budget will rack up a trillion dollars of debt, but it still doesn't do anything to create jobs, it fails to build for the future and it leaves too many behind, especially women and older Australians. It's one trillion dollars of debt but millions of Australians left behind, including some 928,000 people over the age of 35 on unemployment benefits who have been deliberately excluded from government support and the hiring subsidy.

Make no mistake, the government knows that older Australians are being disadvantaged by the budget and by the cuts. They know. The Parliamentary Budget Office's own figures showed that the typical JobSeeker recipient now is an older person, rather than a younger man. The government's decision to cut support for older jobseekers, pitting them against younger jobseekers, is having the outcome that it seems the government wanted. Older Australians feel like they've been consigned to the scrap heap by this government. JobSeeker has effectively become a de facto pre-age pension. And where are the Victorian Centrelink staff to support the people forced onto welfare? The Morrison government has cut them too—420 Victorians given the elbow, added to the Morrison casualties.

If the government need an example of how to put people first, they could learn a thing or two from local community groups in the seat of McEwen, who have come together to help people affected by the pandemic. Love in Action, a community group in Wallan and Mickleham, and the Dal Baba Sikh organisation are a vital social movement in our region that forms partnerships to lend a hand. They truly are a community-based grassroots movement which has created meaningful linkages for people in our community. These values are so important to us, to our community and to our nation. (Time expired)