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

I rise to contribute to this debate because I agree with the proposition that there are impacts of the Abbott government's proposed budget cuts on pensioners, families and young job seekers. Impacts can be positive or negative. In this case, they are extremely negative. It is widely recognised. Every witness and all the submissions, except for the government's submission, in the inquiry into the budget cuts delivered through social services bills 1 and 2 clearly showed the negative impacts on pensioners, families, young people and single parents. The impacts that this budget will have are endless.

Some of the cuts do not cut in until 2017. The government thought they were being really smart. They promised they would not make cuts to pensions, so they think they can fool Australians by saying, 'Don't worry about the indexation measure,' which ACOSS calculates, when the full ramifications kick in, will decrease pensions by $80 a week. The government is trying to be very cute by saying, 'But that's not a cut.' I am sorry, but in everybody else's definition that is a cut. When you take money out of people's pockets through legislative change, that is a cut.

The government have also increased the retirement age. If you were having a proper, fully considered legislative approach to the way we address retirement age, some people might think raising the retirement age to 70 would be reasonable if you deal with all of the ramifications. The simple fact is that the government have not dealt with the ramifications. They seem to ignore the fact that older Australians are falling out of the workforce and are not able to regain employment because of age discrimination and the need for training and skill development, which they are being denied. Raising the retirement age means you condemn people to living on Newstart, which is now $170 below the age pension. So older Australians cop it through this budget in a number of ways, not to mention the impact of co-payments and other measures that are contained in the budget.

When we were looking at the Senate inquiry, a number of organisations made very good submissions. St Vincent de Paul made a good submission and articulated the issue around the modelling that NATSEM had done. They said that it had made it clear that this budget is raising revenue by taking income from disadvantaged people in far greater proportions than from the affluent. They said:

As a result of changes to pensions, family allowances, unemployment benefits, and other social security payments, the poorest one-in-five Australian families will be hit for up to 10.8% of their income in 2017-18. By contrast, the richest … families can expect to forego a maximum of 1.7% in the same period.

We just listened to Senator Mason's contribution when he was talking about robbing future generations. That is a complete nonsense argument when you look at the fact that the government are ignoring revenue measures that are here now—revenue measures that they could use to raise revenue so that we do not make the poorest, most vulnerable members of our community pay for their ideologically driven decisions. That is what this is about. This is not about reducing debt; this is about their ideological agenda to get those who they see making a lifestyle choice to live on income support. That phrase has been repeated in this place a number of times. There have been comments made about young people living on the couch instead of getting work. That is so far from the truth it is laughable. They talk in this place—and they have done it again today—about handouts. No, we have a social security safety net to help people who are unemployed, to help the most vulnerable in our community. They choose to take the approach of demonising those who unfortunately have not been able to find work, who are unemployed. Instead of offering support, proper case management and access to proper training that is going to help people into work, they choose to demonise people and put even more barriers in their way.

When you look at the impact on young job seekers, the cruellest budget measure is dumping young people under 30 onto no income support—nothing, zilch—for six months. But this is not just a waiting period; it will be rotational. So if they are unlucky enough not to find work in that first six months, they will be doing work for the dole, with no proper training or support there, and then they will be back onto no income support.

Poverty is one of the biggest barriers to be overcome to find work. If you have no money, how can you even buy the basic essentials? What the government has cleverly done is say: 'You can go and get emergency relief. We've given a bit more money for emergency relief.' What they do not mention is: 'We've cut that money out of the Department of Social Security's discretionary grants program. In fact, we haven't given more money; we have just taken more money away from another program that might provide that help.' How can you look for work and put in 40 job applications a month—which the government still says is what they are going to be doing—when you do not know whether you are going to have a roof over your head, if you do not know whether you are going to be able to maintain your accommodation. All your energies are consumed in living from day to day. But that is one of the biggest barriers they are going to put in place for young job seekers.

And then we go to the impacts on single parents. Not content with starting the attack on single parents, which the conservatives did under the Howard government, not content with the cuts that the Gillard government then made, they have to hit single parents and their families yet again. The indexation reductions that they are making to pensions for those on parenting payment single and parenting payments hit straightaway. They do not even have the decency to wait until 2017 when they are lowering the indexation for other pensions; they are lowering them straightaway—another cut to income support for single parents who are raising the next generation.

Senator Mason spoke about impacting on future generations. Well, the government are impacting on future generations with these budget cuts because they are damaging the prospects of those young people. We know what growing up in poverty does for young lives. It can affect your prospects for the rest of your life. That is what they have been doing to the single parents of this country and their families. They conveniently forget that being a single parent means you have children you are trying to raise. When you cut support for single parents, it actually means you are cutting support for their children as well. Those single parents deserve our support. We are starting to see the impacts of the cuts that the previous governments have made to single parent payments. We know that many of them are already worse off. And not content to just get the funding they are getting, they are also cutting the pensioner education supplement. What do you think that is going to do to the prospects of single parents when they are trying to raise their family and, sometimes, managing a part-time job and improving their education so that they can get a better job and raise their children not in poverty and afford access to activities that other people take for granted.

People with disabilities access the pensioner education supplement. This budget is going to hit people with disabilities because the government are targeting them as well. It was no coincidence that the front page of the paper was running articles demonising people with disabilities at the time these draconian budget measures were announced. This budget will adversely impact on young people, pensioners and families.