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

I rise to oppose the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Stronger Penalties for Serious Failures) Bill 2014. This is another example of how unfair this government is—how unfair it is to those who are the most vulnerable in society. How incompetent this government is. If the government had the least bit of competence or understanding about the real issues to try and deal with unemployment, they would not be going down this path.

It shows how arrogant this government is that it would allow its ideology to dominate any common-sense approach to dealing with unemployed Australians. Remember: these are our most vulnerable Australians. Thirty-six dollars a day they are surviving on—I would not call it 'living'; they are surviving on $36 a day. Yet this government wants to treat the unemployed as dole bludgers: 'They should not be there; they should be out in gainful employment'! This is the ideology of a coalition who are really so far removed from the reality of unemployment that they cannot make basic legislative frameworks that understand the needs of the unemployed in this country. All they want to do is to implement penal provisions. We have seen already today that this Senate has looked askance at the penal provisions that this government wants to put in place. What we did earlier today was to disallow a regulation that was part of the framework of attacks on unemployed Australians in this country.

You see, the problem for the coalition is that Minister Andrews, who has carriage of this for the coalition, just does not seem to understand the complexities of dealing with unemployment in Australia. If you deal with unemployment on the basis of saying to companies like Toyota and General Motors: 'We don't want you; we don't need you; we're not going to co-invest; you can go away,' and they go away, what basis is that for having any understanding of the real issues on jobs?

As I have said many times, I just cannot understand why the South Australian senators do not do what other coalition South Australian senators have done in the past and actually stand up for their state and stand up for jobs. I have never seen such a weak-kneed, lily-livered, jelly-backed approach from coalition senators in my life. We have had all these debates about jobs in South Australia. We have had all these debates about how we maintain an industry based on manufacturing in South Australia. And I do not think I have heard a contribution from the South Australian senators. I was not a great fan of some of the previous coalition senators, but I will tell you: they would have been in there arguing for jobs. They would have been arguing for their state. They would not have been wanting to turn South Australia into a pale imitation of the United States, with all the social and economic problems that we see there.

This bill that is before us now I think demonstrates the lack of politicians in the coalition's ranks that are prepared to stand up for jobs, because all they seem to want to do is to run this ideological line, this American Tea Party line, that what you do is you punish those who cannot get a job—punish those who cannot get a job! And, as with the Republican Party in the United States, I think we are rapidly seeing the Australian public recognise this—the same as the United States public recognise that you cannot trust the Republicans in the United States with jobs and you cannot trust them to make decent, fair policies.

We have the Tea Party fanatics in the coalition. We know they are there; we have seen them in action. And this bill is about saying, 'We don't care about the unemployed; we can fix unemployment by forcing people into a job.' How do you force people into jobs if the jobs are not there? How do you force people into jobs if the government has got absolutely no idea about how to develop a jobs policy in this country?

It would be less embarrassing for the South Australian senators if they actually stood up against their own party and said: 'You've got it wrong on jobs; you've got it wrong on fairness; you've got it wrong on equity. We should take the words of Brian Loughnane and not be so ideological, otherwise we are doomed.' The South Australians have got an opportunity to actually do something about unemployment, and I would hope that, when this bill goes to a vote, the South Australian senators actually get a backbone—that they stop being jelly-backs; that they actually stand up for their state and say, 'We will not simply penalise South Australians who are going to face the problems with this bill more than those in most other states.' South Australian senators have an opportunity to actually stand up for their state and vote against this bill, on the basis that it does nothing for jobs and it does nothing for South Australians who are looking for jobs. It is about an ideological obsession of the coalition's. It is wrong in policy, it is wrong in equity and it has no basis in social fairness at all.

So I will be watching carefully those jelly-backed, lily-livered South Australian senators when it comes to this issue, and coalition senators from other states, like the Tasmanian senators who are going to impose this draconian legislation on Tasmanians as well. Because where are the highest areas of unemployment? South Australia and Tasmania. That is not to say we do not have unemployment problems elsewhere; we certainly do. But there is an opportunity now for those who are not Tea Party extremists in South Australia, for those who want to look after South Australians and, by extension, all those in this country who are doing it tough—those people surviving on $36 a day, who do not know where the next meal is coming from, who, under this package of legislative changes that the coalition want to bring in, will be facing six months with no income. How about creating an underclass in this country! That is what the coalition are doing.

I suppose, if you were a Tea Party supporter, you would not care about that. You would not really worry as long as the market is operating effectively, as long as your business is allowed to operate how it likes. Exploit workers if you want. Get any of those externalities out of the way of business—so, no union involvement, no collective bargaining, no decency, no underpinning of a decent social safety net for Australians.

That is the position that this coalition proposes. Was anyone aware of this before the last election? Of course we were not. The Australian public were lied to; they were lied to by the coalition. They lied about their welfare policies. They lied about their jobs policies. They lied about their environmental policies. They lied about every policy of substance. They said there would be no cutbacks to pensions, and there are. They said there would be no increases in taxes, and there are.

This is a government based on ideology. It is about ideology; it is not about the national interest. For the coalition, when it comes to ideology versus the national interest, the national interest comes a long way second—because where is it in the national interest to say to our fellow Australians, 'You will not be allowed to have any income for six months?'