Senate debates

Tuesday, 13 May 2014

Questions without Notice

Budget, Pensions and Benefits

2:31 pm

Photo of Rachel SiewertRachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, my question is to the Assistant Minister for Social Services, Senator Fifield, representing the Minister for Social Services. Over the last few months, Treasurer Joe Hockey has said that the age of entitlement is over and that spending cuts will do most of the heavy lifting to reduce the deficit. It is obvious from comments to the media and leaks to the media that these cuts will be focused very strongly on income support payments, yet even economists at big banks, such as Saul Eslake, at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch, say it is 'virtually impossible' to cut government spending in ways that do not disproportionately affect people on low to middle incomes, meaning that people will be living in poverty—widening the gap between the wealthy and the poor, the haves and the have-nots. Has this government done any modelling on the impact of growing inequity and inequality and the impact of people living in poverty and its intergenerational impacts?

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