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

I rise to make a contribution on a bill that we know very little about, because we did not even have it as the government was introducing it. I had to run up the end of the chamber to try and get a copy. It was the only copy. I got the Clerk's copy. It was the only copy I could get my hands on. And now we are debating it. Great! We know nothing really about the impact of some of these measures. Yes, some of the omnibus measures are recycled from before, the so-called 'zombie measures'. But the changes to the family tax benefit—Senator Xenophon said, 'This might be slightly better than the other changes that were being made to family tax benefit'.

Well, the fact is that we just do not know, because it has not been to an inquiry. They are putting a blanket indexation freeze on family tax benefit payment rates. I will come back in a minute to other contributions from some of my colleagues trying to justify why we should be supporting a bill that we have had no time to look at and no Senate inquiry about, why we should be passing that right now—feeble attempts to justify doing that to enable childcare measures to be debated. That, of course, has now been split off. We are going back to the original childcare bill that the government introduced, and we will obviously be debating that at some stage over the next couple of days and looking at what the government are prepared to fix in terms of some of the flaws that are in that particular bill.

But the proposition here is still that we should make families suffer and young people suffer. We should basically effectively cut Newstart—and I will come to that in a minute—so we should make all the people who are currently trying to exist on the very poor rate of Newstart keep existing on that poor rate for longer. It is trying to justify again why the government is targeting vulnerable Australians for these savings to pay for child care—in other words, robbing Peter to pay Paul—when there are plenty of other revenue-raising measures that this government should be and could be tackling, such as negative gearing, capital gains tax and more income tax reform. How about not paying the $4 billion that it is paying to high-income earners in tax cuts? How about we start there rather than taking—what are we talking about—$5.5 billion over the medium term out of the family tax benefit? How about we do that? How about Senator Xenophon and Pauline Hanson's One Nation think about those sorts of revenue-raising measures instead of attacking, again, some of the most vulnerable members of our community?

Let us get to the Social Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2017, which we have had limited time to consider. The government say that they have secured 'further savings of $2.4 billion'. This is in the minister's second reading speech, which was tabled—and which is not even two pages, folks—to justify these cuts and justify this approach. What they are doing is taking three of the omnibus measures. They are 'maintaining free-income areas and means-test thresholds for certain payments and allowances'—in other words Newstart and a couple of other payments. They are 'automating'—and doesn't that send shivers up your spine, folks?—'the income stream review process', which will lead to improvements, they claim, in 'the accuracy of income support payments and reductions in consumer debts'. What we have seen so far in automation is an increase in people getting debt notices, many of them inaccurate, of course. They are 'extending and simplifying ordinary waiting periods for the parenting payment and for youth allowance', and then of course we have the cuts to the family tax benefits. I will come back to all those measures in a minute.

Let us just focus, yet again, on where the government wants to really go, and that is evidenced from the omnibus cuts. I do not know what genius in the government came up with the approach: 'We want to do something about child care. We want to reduce paid parental leave, PPL. Let's tie it in with a whole lot of these zombie cuts, and maybe Australians won't notice that we're trying to cut at least $5 billion from various forms of income support, from our social safety net, and trying to use child care and paid parental leave as an excuse to do that.' Fortunately, Australians and this place saw the massive problems with that approach and saw what the government was trying to do. Unfortunately, Senator Xenophon and Pauline Hanson's One Nation have now caved in and agreed to still rip, in the first instance, $2.4 billion worth of funding out of our social safety net, but it actually goes much higher than that, because it goes up to $5.5 billion over the medium term.

For this particular measure, the family tax benefit, the government is including 'a new schedule to maintain the current family tax benefit payment rates for two years at their current levels from 1 July 2017'. The government is saying that it will result in savings in the first instance of $2 billion over the 2017-18 forward estimates and then build to $5.5 billion over the medium term. In other words, that money is coming at the expense of families in this country. But, wait, there is a little bit more. The government says:

It is important to note that under this … measure there will be no cuts to family tax benefit payments.

Of course there will be cuts into the future! The government is taking $2 billion worth in the medium term out of family tax benefits. That is out of the pockets of families in this country. And who does it hurt the most? Of course, vulnerable families, families on low incomes, young families, single-parent families—that is who it hurts the most. 'Oh, but don't worry; you get it back in child care.' No, they do not. They will not get equal value back in child care. Certainly single-parent families, for example, who have children who are not in early years education do not, by and large, access the childcare system so will not get those benefits back but will suffer the cuts to their incomes. When you are on a low income, every dollar this government cuts has an impact on your income. This money is not coming out of thin air; it is coming at the expense of families in this country.

And then the government is taking $69 million worth of funding—or it is suggesting it will save that sort of funding—by maintaining the income-free area and the means-test threshold for certain payments and allowances 'at their current levels for three years'. What that means is that people who are on Newstart—remembering that Newstart already means that people are living below the poverty line; it should be significantly increased, and we have been campaigning for that for years—will effectively have less money as this measure kicks in and the income thresholds remain the same. It means they will have less money in their pockets.

Once again, this government is doing over the most vulnerable members of our community, people who are struggling, literally, to put food on their tables, because food is seen as a discretionary item. People have to pay their rent. They have to pay their power bills. They have to pay their water bills. You are not really able to negotiate all those things, other than negotiating the payment period sometimes—let this bill run for a little bit while you pay that one; that one is arrears, so then you have to pay it. But you can actually decide not to buy food. That is why it is called a 'discretionary item' and that is where, we know from the evidence, people make cuts. Repeatedly, people have come before Senate committee after Senate committee, telling us, presenting us with the evidence, that what parents do is make sure that their kids always get to eat, but the parents go hungry. They are the ones who do not have meals. They are the ones that skip meals. So we know that that has a direct impact on people's lives.

We know also from the evidence that poverty is a barrier to employment. Here is the government once again blaming 'bludgers' and having a go at people because they cannot find work—which is why they wanted to try and keep young people off work. The excuse is, 'We will try and just make them work a little bit harder to find a job.' They obviously still do not get that there are not enough jobs out there for young people, who keep trying and trying. It is not because they do not want to work; it is because they cannot find work. Fortunately, that disgusting measure in the omnibus bill is off the agenda for the time being. The government need to hear what the Australian people are saying—that they think that is unfair—and never bring back that zombie measure. Call it dead and buried so that they do not continue to attack young people with it.

This measure, however, will impact on young people, because they will also be subject to this freeze on income-free areas and thresholds. Single parents will also be subject to it—single parents that the last few successive governments have kicked off parenting payment and onto Newstart, which has already had a significant impact on payment rates and their ability to work and support their families. There was another go at them through the cut to family tax benefit. Now this measure will have an impact on, literally, the money they have in their pockets. That is $69 million coming out, again, of the pockets of those most vulnerable members of the community who are unemployed, who are trying to survive on Newstart or other allowances.

The second measure is automating the income stream review process, which, according to the government, 'will lead to improvements in the accuracy of income support payments and reductions in customer debts'. Well, that has been a brilliant success for Centrelink so far, hasn't it! It has been so successful that we have a Senate committee inquiry to look at the massive problems that are going on. Why would we move to automate anything else until we solve the massive problems that we have with the Department of Human Services and with Centrelink? Not only do we have the evidence, over the last couple of months, of the massive failure of Centrelink's automatic debt-recovery process; we also have the Auditor-General's report that came out a couple of weeks ago that shows Centrelink's failure in trying to apply the previous compliance measures. We have plenty of evidence to show that this measure should not be contemplated until those issues that have caused massive problems are addressed.

Then we come to the third measure:

Extending and simplifying ordinary waiting periods for the parenting payment and for youth allowance for a person who is not undertaking full-time study and is not a new apprentice.

This means that, if you are applying for a parenting payment, you have a new ordinary waiting period. The very nature of the term 'parenting payment' means that there are children involved. So, what the government is saying is that that waiting period now has to apply to parenting payments. They are going even further than that, saying in the explanatory memorandum:

This Schedule also provides that the current exemption on the basis of severe financial hardship will only apply if the person is also experiencing a personal financial crisis.

In other words, they have upped the bar. Not only is there the ordinary waiting period but the bar has been raised for exemptions. In fact, it has been raised so high that, by the time you gather all the evidence for it, you are through the ordinary waiting period anyway. In other words, you have been subject to this period of no income support.

There are a couple of corollaries to the exemptions, such as if the person who makes the claim has been affected by domestic violence in the four-week period before they make the claim. Anybody who knows anything about domestic violence knows that in most cases it has been happening repeatedly and it takes someone a long time to leave the home. There are many factors that stop somebody leaving a situation where domestic violence is involved. So it may take somebody longer than that four-week period since the last episode to, for example, leave and find somewhere to go. There are so many issues involved in that very complicated situation that it is, quite frankly, obscene that the government is trying to make people wait an extra week. It means that the government will save $184 million on the backs of parents who need support for themselves and, most importantly, obviously, for their children.

That measure is one of the omnibus measures that certainly should not have been supported. And, quite frankly, I am surprised that Senator Xenophon is trying to use the excuse that this, along with some of the other measures, is slightly better than the omnibus cuts. It is just not on. He is just not right. These will significantly impact on families, on single parents, on young people and on older Australians. A third of the long-term unemployed now are over the age of 45; they are trying to survive on Newstart. So this also impacts older Australians.

The government have been fair; they have managed to have a go at all Australians. But they are having a go at the most vulnerable—vulnerable parents, single parents, and young families on low incomes will be particularly affected, along with young people and older people that make up large cohorts of those on Newstart—and having another go at parents and single parents in particular by making them wait an extra week.

We will not be supporting these measures. We will not be supporting cutting, over the medium term, $5.5 billion out of family tax benefit payments that support vulnerable people. We do not know the impacts this will have, because—guess what?—it has not been to a Senate inquiry. We reported on the other measures through a very short Senate inquiry into the omnibus bills. Some of the measures we have just been talking about were the subject of a Senate inquiry, but this one, which will take out $5.5 billion over the medium term, has not been to a Senate inquiry. That is why I move the following second reading amendment to this bill:

At the end of the motion, add:

", and the bill be referred to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 8 May 2017"."

We will be able to look at what impact this freeze on payment rates for two years will have on families. Over the medium term, $5.5 billion will have a significant impact on the families of this country.

We also need to be looking at the total of the impact of these measures on vulnerable Australians: on young families, on single parents, on young people, on older Australians—all of whom are affected by these measures. When you look at the omnibus bill and you look at the impact of some of these measures—for example, on single parents—you must look at it cumulatively. You cannot look at some of these measures in isolation, because the impact on people adds up. For example, some of the single parents that were affected by a number of the measures in the omnibus bill were going to be $50 a week worse off. For people who are struggling on a low income, $50 a week is a hell of a lot of money. It means that they have to make even tougher decisions about what payments they can afford to make for school excursions, extra little treats, school uniforms, paying the rent, paying the power bills. All of these things are affected by these measures that put people out of pocket by $50 per week. These cuts will occur at the same time the government is busy processing the cuts to income tax for wealthier Australians. It is refusing to address issues like negative gearing and capital gains, which would not only mean that it has more money but also help to address the issue of housing affordability, which also affects the cohorts of people that we are talking about here. The measures in this bill are not justifiable.

The government keeps talking about 'bloated welfare bills' in those and similar terms. We do not have overspending on income support. We have a well-targeted income support system. Our social safety net is much more well targeted and we spend less as a percentage of GDP than many, many other countries in the OECD. That there is overspending is a myth made by the coalition government because it does not support an adequate social safety net. It is intent, through its repeated cuts to it, on ripping great big holes in our social safety net. It is trying to con Australians into thinking that there is this massive spend, when the money that is spent is ensuring that people get better support, that should guarantee that they are not living in poverty, that those barriers to employment are not there, that it is doing what it is meant to do, support vulnerable Australians in periods of crisis—when they are unemployed and when the single parents need support. (Time expired)