Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Seasonal Worker Incentives for Jobseekers) Bill 2017. I am the Greens spokesperson for agriculture and regional affairs, so today I want to comment on the Greens support for this bill and what it will mean for our regions and for agriculture in those regions. In the last session of parliament, the Greens ended the political deadlock over the backpacker tax and helped legislate for a fairer backpacker tax, providing certainty for the thousands of horticulturalists and farmers in Australia's food bowl who require seasonal labour on their farms. We also secured a handy $100 million extra for Landcare—an achievement of which the Greens are quite proud. But, that aside, we know how important seasonal labour is for these farmers. Without access to pickers and workers during harvest time, fruit rots on the vine, crops die and millions of dollars of produce are unnecessarily lost. It is a massive waste of Australia's resources.

The bill before the parliament today is part of the crossbench deal that the government had to strike to get their changes to the backpacker tax passed. The trial being proposed in this bill has the opportunity to be a great boon for our farmers, and it will stress test the rhetoric of the coalition. During the backpacker tax debate, we heard many government senators carry on about lazy, unemployed Australians who could not be bothered to do the hard work available to earn a wage out there in the seasonal agricultural industry. This, we pointed out, was a farce as there are so many reasons that unemployed Australians are not able to do seasonal labour, including ongoing caring commitments, education commitments, existing lease arrangements, career paths that cannot be disrupted and a host of other things.

However, this trial will deal with one significant barrier, and that is the effective marginal tax rates and the loss of payments due to earnings over a social security threshold. What is common knowledge to many people living on social security payments is the challenges that come with earning money just slightly over the maximum permitted each fortnight. By doing so, they often face effective tax rates well in excess of 60 cents in the dollar, so it is just not worth undertaking that work. It serves as a massive disincentive for people who do want to work to relocate for a region, particularly when the work is only for a month or two. They make all of that effort and have this massive marginal tax rate on their earnings, they do the work for a couple of months and then they have to resettle themselves back in their hometown.

My colleague Senator Siewert has already spoken to the problems involved with privileging one industry over another. Senator Siewert has moved a second reading amendment that would ensure that regardless of which industry people on social security payments would seek to enter an income bank would be created of up to $4,000 so that those on payments can undertake any form of non-ongoing work without compromising the stability of their support payments that provide for them across the rest of the year. This will be a massive boon and a massive improvement to the lives of people living on social security payments. It will given them access to a wider range of work experiences which will help them in achieving ongoing, viable, meaningful work in many instances.

To reiterate, this trial will give the opportunity to thousands of Australians to be able to earn that extra money over the picking season without facing punitive effective marginal tax rates and facing potential cuts to their support payments. It will also help thousands of farmers get their produce harvested and get it to market. That will be something I am sure those farmers, horticulturists and agriculturalists will be very pleased about, as will the general community. When people see coverage in the media of fruit rotting on the vine and produce not being taken to market they think: 'What a waste! Surely we should be able to manage our society and manage our economy better so that we can make use of this valuable produce and get it to market and get it into people's kitchens.' It is a sensible change and it will complement the modified backpacker tax that the Greens succeeded in getting through the Senate, providing confidence for farmers that they will be able to secure the seasonal labour force for harvest season. For these reasons, I really commend this bill to the Senate.