Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to 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.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion moved by the member for North Sydney and commend the member for bringing this to the attention of the House. The member for North Sydney is absolutely correct that there is an urgent need to deal with this matter. I also agree with the member regarding the government's claim that the regular CPI adjustment of government pensions and payments is somehow a discretionary decision of the government. Frankly, it's treating the community like mugs and it is diminishing the government. We all know that the CPI adjustment of government pensions and payments is automatic. It will happen no matter who is the government. It's happened in the past. It's happening this week. It'll happen in the future. What the government should be focusing on is not claiming credit for the status quo but what it can do to change the status quo to ensure that the fabulous wealth of this country is spent in such a way that everyone in this country can live a dignified, healthy life.

We really have to turn our mind to the amount of money that is paid by Centrelink in government pensions and payments. It is clearly inadequate. We focus a lot on JobSeeker or unemployment benefits, as we should, but sometimes we focus on that at the expense of talking about other payments, like the age pension and the disability pension, which come straight to mind, because they are all fundamentally inadequate. Imagine being a single age pensioner paying market rent in any capital city in Australia—in particular in my home town of Hobart, which is the second least affordable capital city in the country. You can't pay $400 or $500 a week for your rent and then have anything at all left for your food, your power, your clothes, a little bit of entertainment, some travel and so on.

Just bear with me, because there are going to be some facts and figures here demonstrating this. The recent ACOSS report that the member for North Sydney has referred to, which was done in conjunction with the University of New South Wales, found that 60 per cent of people on the JobSeeker payment live in poverty, that 72 per cent of people on the parenting payment live in poverty, that 43 per cent of people on the disability support pension live in poverty and that 34 per cent of people on youth allowance live in poverty. This is just absolutely shameful. We're one of the richest countries on the planet. In fact, according to the most recent UBS survey of global wealth, median per capita wealth in Australia is second only to that of Belgium. There is no shortage of money. This financial year, the federal government's going to spend—wait for it—two-thirds of a trillion dollars. I'd better say that again to get our heads around that: this financial year, the federal government's going to spend, approximately, in the order of two-thirds of a trillion dollars. Yet we have people sleeping on the streets, people waiting years for surgery, people going without food and people going without medicine. Not only is this unacceptable; it's entirely avoidable.

It's all about our priorities as a nation. Surely one of the first ways in which we should think of spending our fabulous wealth is to ensure that every person, including older Australians, people with a disability and people who are unemployed—the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people—has enough income support to live a healthy, happy, dignified life. They should have a roof over their head. They should have enough money in their income support payments to pay the rent. If that means increasing Commonwealth rent assistance, let's do it. Let's spend a little bit of that two-thirds of a trillion dollars differently so that we don't have this shocking gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged in this country, a gap that is getting wider and wider. For those of us who are lucky enough to own a house, we and our kids will be fine, but for the people who aren't as fortunate as us, the people who are living on government income support, let's spend some of that money so that they can live much better. It's all about priorities.

By the way, this isn't just the members for North Sydney and Clark having a spray. What we're talking about is supported by ACOSS, by the unions, by the Business Council, by the Australian Investment Council and by Deloitte, of all people. Everyone thinks we should do it. It's just a case of the government getting its priorities right.

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government won't be supporting the suspension motion moved by the member for North Sydney. We as a government certainly acknowledge that people are doing it tough, and that has been at the centre of all of our actions since we were elected to government. We absolutely understand the challenges people are facing. Our budget and our constant measures to address cost-of-living pressures, and our recent announcement of the tax cuts as well, show that we understand and know people are doing it tough, and that we are absolutely committed to providing support that people require. Those tax cuts from 1 July for every Australian taxpayer are vitally important, and they are on top of our cost-of-living measures which we have announced.

Many of the issues that have been brought up are in relation to some of the pensions. On 20 September 2023 we increased those base rates of working age and student payments, including the JobSeeker payment, youth allowance, the parenting payment, Austudy, the Abstudy living allowance and the disability support pension. They increased by $40 a fortnight to benefit over a million Australians. This is an issue we on this side of the House feel very strongly about, and many people have campaigned for a very long time in relation to increasing those payments—and that was a major commitment we made, as we understood how important it is to take that action.

Along with the basic rate of payment, everyone who receives the JobSeeker payment is eligible for at least another additional supplementary payment which could include the energy supplement, the family tax benefit or rent assistance. Depending on a person's circumstances, there are other supplementary benefits as well. In recognition of the cost associated with raising a family, a higher basic rate is payable to recipients with dependent children and principal carer parents. Income support payments such as JobSeeker are indexed in March and September in line with CPI, and I will detail that a bit more later on.

As a government, we are always committed to helping those most in need. That has been obvious from day one of this government. After 10 years of neglect we have committed a huge amount in terms of providing support that people need. We do that because it was the Labor Party that built the modern safety net. We built universal Medicare, universal superannuation, universal NDIS and the minimum wage. We will always work to ensure all Australians are supported and no-one is left behind. We understand how important that is. We know the cost-of-living pressures, and that's why we're taking all actions possible to make life easier for all Australians.

In our cost-of-living package in the budget, there was a whole range of measures; I've outlined some of those increases already. They include expanding the eligibility for parenting payments single to parents with a youngest child under 14, and, very importantly, increasing the maximum rates of Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent—the largest increase in more than 30 years. All that additional support has started flowing. And from yesterday around five million people are receiving a boost to their payments as a result of that indexation. Indexation is absolutely important to make sure we see those increases.

On top of that—that increase in payments is just one element of this—we have a whole suite of measures addressing cost-of-living concerns. We have energy bill relief, cheaper medicines, cheaper child care, lifting the Medicare levy low-income thresholds, tripling the bulk-billing incentive, expanding eligibility for the Commonwealth seniors health care card, freezing social security deeming rates, expanding paid parental leave and—as I said at the very beginning—delivering bigger and better tax cuts for working Australians. We understand how tough people are doing it. That is a tax cut for every Australian taxpayer.

We also have a massive investment in social and affordable housing, with our $10 billion package and a whole range of measures to make sure that social and affordable housing can be accessed by the most vulnerable in our community. As I said before, the JobSeeker payment increased yesterday as well with indexation, and we saw that increase with lots of other pensions as well. It means that, since the government was elected, the rate of JobSeeker has increased by $120 a fortnight, or 18.7 per cent, providing over $3,100 in additional support each year. From yesterday, 20 March 2024, the higher rate of JobSeeker is $816.90 per fortnight. We understand people are still doing it tough on that, but we increased it because we know it's vitally important to do that. There is that full range of the packages I have suggested and talked about here today.

We are also absolutely committed to making sure that we are providing the resources and training and support that people need to get into the workforce. We know that so many of these people want to do that. Part of that is our fee-free TAFE, and that has been a huge success—I hear every day from people who had not been able to access training to get into jobs. So, whilst we have to provide all of that support through our safety nets, which we are doing, as well as through cost-of-living relief and tax cuts, we also have a strong focus on ensuring that people are able to access training and get into employment, because secure work, as we know, is one of the strongest forces for reducing poverty. We know that. That's our priority: to get people into work.

The current state of the labour market is a success story. Just today the unemployment rate is at 3.7 per cent. It is at a historic low. Since May 2022, around 650,000 jobs have been created, and workforce participation is at a historic high. We know we have to make sure we are investing in training and education as well as providing all of those necessary supports. As I said, that absolutely is a hallmark of Labor governments and all that we have built in terms of providing those social security safety nets. We have to do this, and we have done all of this, in a fiscally responsible manner as well, in terms of having a surplus while providing all of these necessary supports. But we do understand that people are doing it tough and we do understand that there needs to be that support provided there.

Indexation is a very important part of it. As I said yesterday, the government pointed out that there was indexation in place from 20 March. Applying this indexation to the age pension increases it to $1,116 a fortnight for singles and $1,682 a fortnight for couples. Parenting payment recipients will see an increase as well. This includes the more than 77,000 single parents—mainly women—who are benefitting from the government's decision to expand eligibility for the single parenting payment until the youngest child turns 14. What you see time and again from this government is our consistent commitment to providing that support where it's required, particularly in relation to the increase in those pensions.

As many of us would know, many people advocated for this for many years. We responded because we understand how vitally important it is. We know the challenges that people are facing today. We all speak to people every day. We know that people are doing it tough. That's why we have a whole range of cost-of-living assistance. I hear from people every day and I know that it's making a huge difference to them, particularly the increases in bulk-billing, being able to see a doctor who can bulk-bill, cheaper medicines, cheaper child care, fee-free TAFE—and, of course, paid parental leave. We're very proud as a Labor government to be increasing that as well, which will mean that a lot more women can be in the workforce. We know that it's great for families, and it's also very good for the economy. So we have done a huge amount, but at the same time we realise that it is very difficult for people within the community.

We as a Labor government are very proud of these supports. They build on our legacy of all that we have already done, whether it be the NDIS, Medicare—all of those measures that provide vital assistance to people and provide the social safety nets we have in place for people, because we know that they're doing it tough. We are committed to, and have a long history of, not leaving anyone behind. That's why we're committed to the cost-of-living measures that you heard about from us, because we know they will make a difference. Indeed, our tax cuts that are coming in from 1 July will make a massive difference.

This government is absolutely committed to providing support for Australians who are doing it tough. We absolutely understand that, and that is why we have a whole range of measures to assist them.

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

In the few seconds I have left, I just reiterate that one in eight Australians are living in poverty at the moment.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion moved by the honourable member for North Sydney to suspend standing and sessional orders be agreed to.