Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Labor's opposition to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Stronger Penalties for Serious Failures) Bill 2014. Labor opposes this bill and we do so because Labor supports a just and reasonable job seeker compliance system—a system which encourages job seekers and supports participation for those in receipt of participation payments.

Job seekers need to be encouraged into work. They need to be supported into work with appropriate training and, yes, there does need to be some kind of penalty regime but not a regime which has such harsh consequences as the ones being proposed in this bill before us.

We have seen that the Abbott government is a government which just cannot properly explain its policies. We have seen that over and over in the last 12 months. In this place, we need to look no further than the recent examples by Senator Abetz as he stumbled to try and make a link between women's reproduction and breast cancer, and family planning matters and breast cancer, until the Prime Minister had to intervene. After that, we saw Senator Brandis absolutely fail to explain to the Australian public the security issues that he wants to introduce around metadata. It is not just Labor saying this: you only need look to the Sunday papers, great friends of the Abbott government, who I think gave Senator Abetz and Senator Brandis a 'C' and a 'D' for their efforts. These are the people trying to impose harsh penalty regimes on those in our society who are the least able to defend themselves.

This is a government which is determined to make life tougher for most Australians through its harsh and unfair budget. This is a government which pays off mining companies at the expense of every single Australian worker—8.5 million Australian workers sold down the drain by the Abbott government in its desire to deliver to just a handful of mining companies. It did that by freezing 8.5 million Australian workers' superannuation entitlements, not for a year, not for a few years but for the next seven years. This is a government which is trying to pretend that somehow this stolen superannuation entitlement will magically appear in the pay packets of those 8.5 million workers.

Just yesterday, after it had stolen the superannuation entitlements of 8.5 million workers, the government publicly attacked the Community and Public Sector Union for its wage claim of four per cent a year. Make no mistake: this is a government that will attack the first union to make a claim for that stolen superannuation to go into the pay packets of workers. The government wants us to believe that somehow, magically, once it freezes superannuation, people's pay packets will suddenly increase. What a lie by the Abbott government.

After it has punished everyone else in our community, except those at the top end, it wants to punish further some of the most disadvantaged in our community by its harsh job seeker penalty regime. In respect of this social security bill, I am just wondering—and I am not alone in wondering; the Australian public is wondering and I am sure that 8.5 million Australian workers this morning are wondering—just who does this government represent? Let us have a look. The government does not represent the homeless because there is another program that has not only been frozen but has lost the capacity to actually invest in housing affordability for the homeless. That was done way before the budget.

What about ordinary working Australians trying to find affordable housing? I have read what Mr Abbott said on that. He somehow thinks that if the housing market is buoyant that means it will translate into affordable housing for ordinary Australians. I do not know where that logic comes from but that was a comment made about six months ago by Mr Abbott: that, yes, somehow the market will take care of those who cannot get into the housing market. Perhaps he has not seen what is happening in Western Australia, and he certainly has not been visiting Western Australia, but I can tell you that for young couples, for singles, for those who are currently not in the housing market, whether it is rental or purchase, there is no hope that those people will be able to afford a house as the buoyant market in Western Australia gets further and further out of their reach. What about pensioners? They have been punished too. Despite those promises before the election that there would be no cuts to the pension, we have now got pensioners being punished in this country.

Let us look at another group—working Australians, the 8.5 million of them punished yesterday over their super. They have been punished if they use child care, because the childcare benefit for those on the lowest incomes has had the wage eligibility aspect frozen too. Is there anything that this government has not frozen? So into the future we will see low-income families—and heaven help them if any of them lose their job—have their super attacked and now they will be paying more for child care.

But it does not stop there. What about the kind of promise that women's super will somehow be protected? The maths has been done on that and obviously the government did not bother to do the maths before it decided to cut the bonus payment to low-income women. Those women, through the combination of the effects on their super imposed by the Abbott government, will be about $10,000 worse off at retirement—$10,000 dollars. And somehow the Abbott government is trying to pretend that you will have more money in your wage packet each week. What? I have never heard such nonsense in all my life in trying to pretend that the money that has been stolen from super is somehow going to appear in people's pay packets.

But it does not stop there. What about anyone who needs to go to a doctor? Seemingly, the government is absolutely determined to try to get their GP tax through, and what we saw yesterday from the Palmer United Party is that they are willing to do anything to get their names in the headlines for a few days. So watch this space, Australians, as the Abbott government tries to impose a big tax every time you get sick and visit a doctor.

I heard Senator Cormann or one of the other government senators on the radio this morning, saying, 'No, no, we are not increasing the cost to go to a doctor. After you have been 10 times, you will revert to the Medicare payment and you will not be charged a fee.' But how do you find the money for the first 10 visits when everything else is being attacked?

Let us now get to the unemployed, the last group—