Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

As Senator Birmingham says, I will behave myself impeccably at question time in the future.

An honourable senator: Will you really?

No! I rise to speak on the issue of the savage cuts to Newstart for people under 30. There are 695,000 Australians in circumstances where they need support—they need access to government support. That support comes through Newstart. That support is there for people who are in trouble, people who need support and people who have fallen on some pretty tough times.

The position of the government is that people should not get access to Newstart for six months unless they are earning or learning. And they can be refused Newstart for another six months. I think that that epitomises everything that is wrong with this budget. It epitomises why the Australian public have said: 'We don't like this budget. We do not accept this budget because it is not about a fair go.'

One of the great values of Australia is the fair go. To say to people who are suffering tough times that there should be no government support and that they should get no access to any welfare benefit for six months is against every value and every principle that I have understood since I came to Australia in 1973. This is not about the Australian fair go. This is about a tough, hardnosed, ideologically based budget that is trying to put economic issues before a good, decent community and a decent society. We have always said that one of the great things about this country is that we are not the United States of America—that this is Australia and we will give support to the poor and disadvantaged. We do not leave the poor and disadvantaged to their own devices. We do not say to them that you cannot get health care unless you have money. We do not say that you cannot get a decent education unless you have rich parents.

Over the years our society has been built on providing a fair go. This argument is about maintaining a fair go for all Australians, even if you are a disadvantaged Australian. The values that underpin this budget are not the values of Australia. I think that is clear with the reaction by the Australian public to this budget. You set up a straw man argument. You set up an argument that says that we are in financial crisis and that someone has to pay for it. Let me disabuse that argument. We are not in a financial crisis in this country; we are one of the richest countries in the world. We have three AAA ratings and we have one of the lowest debt to GDP ratios in the world. We are not a country that is a poor country and we are not a country that should be taking the harsh measures against people on Newstart that this government is seeking to do.

We are certainly not a country that should be praising Margaret Thatcher, as we saw today in question time, with the finance minister, Senator Cormann, indicating that he had support for 'the late, great Margaret Thatcher'. I do not know how you could ever come to that view in modern society. Even the Conservative Party in Britain do not go back and argue that the Thatcherite period was a period of Britain being great. They do not do that. What the conservative government in the UK do is try to avoid any linkage to Margaret Thatcher. Yet what we have here is the troglodytes in the coalition, the economic incompetents in the coalition, the Work Choices warriors in the coalition, who want to take rights away from workers. What do those opposite do? They say 'Baroness Thatcher is the late, great Baroness Thatcher'. And what did she do? She increased inequality in the United Kingdom. That is what this budget is about and that is what this Newstart arrangement is about—to increase inequality. I think many Australians have got relatives, have got friends, have got family who may at one stage in their life depend on Newstart. But what they are being told they must do now is either earn or learn. You will not get access to Newstart and if you do not earn or learn then you will not get any money from the government.

I put this argument to the Department of Human Services at the last estimates hearings, where the departments come in and you can ask them questions. I gave them the example—I come from the lower Blue Mountains out near Penrith—of a 30-year-old woman who is in a violent family relationship and she leaves that violent family relationship with a plastic bag full of what she can pick up and get out to get away from a violent relationship. I asked them whether she would be forced to earn or learn. What support would there be for her? After a lot of bureaucratic nonsense coming back, they conceded that she could end up having to rely on charity. There would be one payment available for her—a $500 payment. So you are escaping a violent family relationship, you are given $500 to try to see you through, but after that $500 is gone you are then sent to Job Services Australia. You have got to earn or learn and if you cannot do that, if you are traumatised by what has happened to you and you have got no money, then you will have no money for six months. I said: 'Well, what happens to people like this? Do they have to go and sleep in the gutter? Does this woman fleeing a violent family relationship have to go and sleep in the gutter?' They said, 'Oh well, there may be things that we could do.' They didn't know what they could do. I said, 'Charity?' And they said, 'That's one option.'

So we are now moving to a position that was seen hundreds of years ago in this country, hundreds of years ago in the UK and that applies in the US now on a regular basis—that is, if you are fleeing a violent family relationship and you are looking for government support, you will not get it off this government; you will be sleeping on the street if you do not earn or learn. This is an outrageous proposition.

You see all these coalition senators? They go about arguing for this as if this is a great thing. They were warned some time back, some years ago, when they ran with a thing called Fightback. Remember Fightback? You were cut off the dole after nine months. That was a policy, then it was not a policy, then it became a policy again. But the then director of the Liberal Party said at the time, 'To surprise the Australian people with our policies after the next election would not only be dishonest but it would also jeopardise public acceptance.' This was Andrew Robb, the current Minister for Trade and Investment. He said that you cannot surprise the public. 'Surprise' is the nice word. What it really means is 'lie' to the Australian public. You pay a price for lying to the Australian public. We know. We know about the price you pay when there is a perception that you have lied to the Australian public. And you have not only lied once to the Australian public, you have also lied about pensions, you have lied about education and you have lied about health. You will pay a massive price because you cannot lie to the public. You cannot get rid of the fair go. You cannot force people onto the street without paying a price and you are paying that price now.(Time expired)

An incident having occurred in the gallery—