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

The Greens oppose these bills. They are so bad that we do not think that you can amend them to save them. They are fundamentally cutting at the fabric of our community and we will be opposing both of these bills. ACOSS says that these bills are radical structural changes to our social security system. I agree with their comments, but I go further: these are radical changes to our community.

Our community, once these changes come into effect, will no longer look or be as an inclusive as it is now. We will no longer have a land of the fair go, where we help the most vulnerable and where people are considered to have access to opportunity. It will be changed into a meaner, less inclusive community where if you have money or your parents have money, you will have an advantage and you will have access to opportunities that many others do not. We will move away from a community where we expect that we will help the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our community and where we provide help to people who need it. These budget measures do not discriminate against specific peoples, because they are having a go at everybody: at young people, at older Australians, at single parents, at people with disabilities and at families.

We have had overwhelming evidence that shows the negative impacts of these measures. Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has made the point that they do not consider that the measures that deny people access to social security are compatible with human rights. Accordingly, it says that:

…the committee considers that the measure is incompatible with the right to social security and the right to an adequate standard of living.

When they looked at the age criteria for the Newstart allowance and the exclusion periods, which will chuck under 30-year-olds off income support, they said:

Accordingly, the committee considers that the measures in Schedules 8 and 9 are incompatible with the rights to equality and non-discrimination on the basis of age.

They have also sought further advice from the minister about the impact of these measures on equality and nondiscrimination on the basis of gender and family responsibilities.

These measures are fundamentally unacceptable. As the National Welfare Rights Network says, these measures are not fair and they are not equitable. The harshest cuts in these budget measures are to the most vulnerable, yet these are the people who we should be helping; the most vulnerable are the people who should be supported by our community. Not supporting people, in the way that these budget measures would cause to come into effect, is not fair and it is not equitable.

The government is in fact making a concerted attempt to rent giant, great big holes in our safety net. There is absolutely no doubt that that is what is happening. These changes have been universally rejected by all submitters to the Senate inquiry, except for the government's own department. People can see through what the government is attempting to do—that is, to destroy our safety net. The community does not like it and neither do the Greens. We expect our safety net to provide a basic but adequate standard of living for our citizens and a foundation from which they can see beyond barriers to inclusion in our community and barriers to employment, to overcome their disadvantage.

We need a well-grounded, reasoned, evidence-based, credible, ethical approach that is person-centred and ensures their wellbeing, making sure they are included in decision making and giving them control over their lives. We should be working with people's strengths, hopes and aspirations and building on these. This approach will generate lasting change to those persons' lives; while blaming, punishing and demonising does not help people to overcome their disadvantage and in fact entrenches dependency and hopelessness. These bills will do that. These bills will increase inequality, particularly for young people who will be set back, potentially, for life. Living on nothing for over six months at a time, which is what these bills enable, creates dependency. It will create hopelessness and it will create a revolving door of people having to go on and off income support because barriers to employment and to inclusiveness are not being overcome with these measures.

These bills contain the government's cruellest welfare measures, their cruellest budget measures. They will take billions of dollars out of our social security system, money which should be invested in helping people. These measures do none of what I am talking about in terms of the way we should be supporting people to overcome disadvantage, how we should be supporting the most vulnerable. These changes are, I believe, purposely designed to hurt the most disadvantaged. The inquiry into these bills heard repeatedly of the negative and potentially dangerous effects that these budget measures will have. The government is making a determined attempt to radically change our social security system in this country and our safety net.

This is not the first time attempts have been made. Previous Prime Ministers Howard, Rudd and Gillard all made changes that were negative but these take the cake. These will fundamentally change how we care and support the most disadvantaged. These bills will add to the growing inequality in Australia. They will have long- ranging effects as wealth, interest and power are concentrated more and more with a few. These measures will affect generations ahead. When combined with other budget measures, people will be priced out of the housing market. People will be unable to find accommodation. Education will become more inaccessible to people. There will be more insecure access to income support and if they become sick people will not be able to access adequate assistance. The submissions and evidence to the inquiry into these bills show that, if enacted, these bills will compound poverty and hardship in our community and will not help improve employment participation. As St Vincent de Paul said to the inquiry:

We cannot agree with measures that will drive people even deeper into poverty, above all in an environment where there simply aren't enough jobs for the numbers of people looking for work.

A number of organisations raised concern about the cumulative impact of these measures, with National Welfare Rights Network saying:

These Bills contain a wide range of measures which have complex interactions with each other, and with other measures proposed in other Bills the harshest reductions to income are felt by the more vulnerable social security recipients and low income working families.

These bills are fundamentally a shift in the wrong direction on income support. Again the National Welfare Rights Network described the proposals in the bills before the committee as containing:

… some of the most significant changes to the Australian system of income support since it was first introduced in a consolidated Social Security Act in 1947.

I agree with them. These measures include forcing young people to live for six months and potentially longer without any income support, and changes to indexation of the pensions which will have an increasing impact on the ability of older Australians and single parents to meet their living expenses. Increasing the retirement age will have a significant impact on many older workers. Cutting and freezing payments for families and single parents will have a significant impact. Reassessing payment eligibility for people with disability will also have a significant impact. As NATSEM said, and I go back to the point I made earlier, the government know what they are doing. They know they are going to be impacting the most disadvantaged. That is why I think this has been designed that way. They had advice from and modelling done by NATSEM which made it clear that:

… this budget is raising revenue by taking income from the disadvantaged people in far greater proportions than from the affluent. 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 up for up to 10.8 per cent of their income in 2017-18. By contrast, the richest Australian families can expect to forgo a maximum of 1.7 per cent in the same period.

In their submission to these bills, St Vincent de Paul said:

We cannot agree with measures that will drive people even deeper into poverty, above all in an environment where there simply—

is not enough work. These measures will impact on a range of Australians. Let us look at the budget measures which affect younger Australians, in particular the harshest budget measure of all, the one that shows this government simply does not understand what they are doing to young people. They think they will motivate people to find work because they think there are jobs out there for the picking, if people were motivated. Well, there are not the jobs there. There simply are not enough jobs for all young people, but we will dump them onto no income support anyway and expect them to live with nothing. While I am on this point, please, I beg the crossbenchers: do not compromise on this measure. Even a month, which I have heard some people talk about, is too long without income support—you already sow the seeds for homelessness and for people's inability to meet their basic needs.

We need to be generating and adopting a system that is supportive of young people, that helps them overcome their barriers and that helps them see a future beyond being able to sometimes access a part-time, casual or temporary job where they cycle in and out of employment. That is not how you can build a family; that is not how you can build a secure future. This budget measure dumps young people onto no income support for six months and, potentially, longer if you happen to breach one of your requirements. There is this neat, cute little description of 'new payment', but you still have to meet your requirements if you were, in fact, getting income support. This is an ideological approach to how this government thinks you support young people. It has got it so wrong, and the evidence clearly shows that. Also, the human rights committee now says it is incompatible.

The Abbott government's attitude to employment for young people, as I said, assumes that these jobs are readily available and young people are making a lifestyle choice. None of the young people I have spoken to are making that lifestyle choice. They have told me of the dozens and dozens of jobs that they have applied for and the circumstances where there are 1,000 people applying for one job. I heard, in fact, over the weekend from a young person who said that Target was opening a new store in Western Australia, and they had over 900 applications for around 100 jobs. That is 800 people that will be disappointed. And those 800 people, you could bet, would have applied and applied for jobs.

The government thinks that by making life unbearable for young job seekers they will see the light and their barriers to employment will suddenly be overcome. That is so far from the truth. It will condemn young people to poverty and to probably forcing them to lose their accommodation and not be able to meet their basic needs. That is not a safety net. That is simply getting rid of any form of social security for those young people. Poverty, we know, is another barrier to employment. Workforce exclusion is complex and enduring, particularly for people who are disadvantaged. This simplistic ideological approach will not help people into work. It will not overcome those complex and enduring problems. Denying income support to job seekers under 30 for more than six months and then subjecting them to Work for the Dole regimes—and I do not have time to go into all of the problems there—is a major problem. It is fundamentally unacceptable. It is wrongheaded and needs to be rejected.

If you look at indexation, the government says that these bills propose to change the indexation for age pensions, disability support pensions and parenting payments. However, the indexation for parenting payments changes come in straightaway. The others do not come in until after the next election. Again, who will that hit the most? Of course, single parents. Single parents have already copped cut after cut. But if you then look at what it will do to age pensioners and to people on disability support pension, ACOSShas calculated it will be about an $80 per week impact by the time those indexation changes come into effect. That is a cut to the pension. Whether the government likes to describe it like that or not, it is a cut to the pension. We reject it. Likewise, we reject the increase in the retirement age because older people's exclusion from the workplace once they fall out of employment has not been addressed. And we know that one-third of the people on Newstart have barriers to employment, and we are not adequately addressing those payments. The combination of the changes to retirement age, indexation and freezing of assets will have a significant impact on older Australians.

As COTA pointed out, in their submission and to the Senate inquiry, they are not opposed to looking at how you address retirement income. There are many perverse incentives included which the government is not addressing in these measures that COTA and others think need to be addressed. We think their idea of a retirement income review is a very good idea. Wouldn't you think it would be sensible to do that first before you bring in these ad hoc changes? And, of course, it is very cute for the government to say that they are not breaking their promise. They are breaking their promise. This is a cut to the pension that will adversely impact many Australians. If you then look at the other changes in this budget, such as co-payments and changes to access to health, these are other impacts that older Australians have to face.

The government are also talking about changes which—and I just cannot understand it—are seeking to demonise disability support pensioners, who are now having their portability changed from six weeks to four weeks. Why? They are trying to demonise people. They trying to say, 'It is because you are travelling overseas; therefore, you should not be doing it because you are on a disability support pension.' I have had a number of people contact my office saying that they have been saving up for years and years to be able to travel overseas. And it is harder when you are travelling overseas with a disability. They are travelling to see relatives or because of a dream that they have always had to see the world or to see a specific place. They save up for years, and what are the government saying? 'You can only go for four weeks.' It is mean and demonising to people with disabilities.

People with disabilities are extremely concerned, also, about the reassessment for those under the age of 35. They do not think the process is well thought out. There is the impact on families in terms of, particularly, single parents due to changes to the family tax benefit. Again, this is another impact on single parents. It is ill-thought through. How many times are we going to have a bash at single parents in this place? Government after government has. And yet this government talks about trying to support families. Obviously single parents do not count as families to this government. The supplement of $750 will not adequately compensate single parents.

And then of course we are taking away again the pensioner education supplement, which is particularly important for single parents. The previous government, the Gillard government, took it away but saw sense and restored it. It was only restored this year and now it is going again. People with disabilities are extremely concerned about the demise of the pensioner education supplement and the impact that will have on them when they are trying to get better qualifications so they can engage in work. The problem for people with disabilities is it is hard to engage with work; they have many barriers to overcome. Single parents are the same.

We will be opposing these two bills. There are a couple of measures in these bills that in fact could be supported, but we think the bills are so bad that it is not worth amending them. The equal remuneration case for Western Australia is an example. Dealing with superannuation and the seniors' health card are important measures, but the government is trying to maybe sugarcoat the other measures by putting these ones in there. If the government wants support for those measures, it can pull them out of the bill and put them separately. We will not be seeking to amend these bills because they are not saveable. They fundamentally affect our social security safety net and they should be rejected, both of them.