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

This is an issue I've talked about in this chamber on many occasions. In fact, I chaired a Senate inquiry that found that inequality in this country is getting worse. It distresses me greatly to hear this discussion being juvenilised down to 'the politics of envy'. Try telling that to young people who are being locked out of the housing market. In the HILDA survey, if you read the chapter on housing, it's quite distressing when you look at the impacts the current system is having on young home owners. I know many young people who think they will never be able to afford to buy a house. In this country, not only are we dealing with growing income inequality, we're also dealing with wealth inequality, and that's an issue that particularly plays out on young people and those people who are trying to address those issues of inequality, who are trying to find work and who are trying to find accommodation.

We have a system that favours cashed-up landlords who outbid young people who are trying to buy houses. They keep pushing the price up and up so that young people can't afford to buy those houses. And that's because, guess what? Wealth inequality means that the bulk of the wealth, or a large amount of the wealth, is actually owned by a small proportion of people who then lobby government to set the rules. They lobby government really, really hard about not changing negative gearing, about not changing capital gains, about not changing issues around trusts and about not wanting to have banking royal commissions. For example, they use that wealth not just to acquire more wealth, making the community more unequal, but they also use it to lobby government. And then—you guessed it!—government senators come in here and they say, 'Oh, that's the politics of envy!' The fact is that the rules in this country specifically entrench inequality.

The same government—the politics-of-envy government—who talk about nurturing young people's endeavour are the ones who also wanted to condemn young people to living on thin air for six months. And then, when they couldn't get that through this place, they wanted to make them live on thin air for four weeks. They're the same ones who refuse to acknowledge that income support in this country is too low. In fact, they go out of their way to vilify people who are living below the poverty line on inadequate income support payments—inadequate Newstart payments and inadequate youth allowance payments that further inequality.

While I'm on this subject, this is why I was greatly distressed on Monday when this chamber voted down our efforts to increase Newstart. I've been campaigning in this place for over five years—longer than that—to increase those base rates of Newstart and youth allowance. Five years ago—actually, nearly 5½ years ago—I lived for a short time on Newstart to try to raise awareness of the issues and just to feel what it was like living on Newstart. And we are still campaigning to get an increase.

We knew then it was below the poverty line. When you get big business and community organisations agreeing that Newstart is too low and that it contributes to people living below the poverty line, you actually must realise that there is a problem. That's why I was really upset when the Labor Party said that what we'll have is another review of whether Newstart is actually adequate or not. Actually, that review could be just going out and finding the nearest five or six people who are living on Newstart and asking them whether they think it's adequate or not, because it's not! It is not an answer to the issues to just have another review; it's to commit to Newstart. So, besides coming along where the Greens went on negative gearing, on capital gains tax, on trusts and on the banking royal commission, how about following us down the line of agreeing to increase Newstart and youth allowance? Make a commitment to do one of the quickest things you can do to address the issues of poverty and inequality. We agree! We were out there leading the debate on inequality a long time ago. Agree that one of the ways you can address inequality is to increase Newstart and youth allowance. Then let's look at what other amendments we need to make—and they are to make some significant changes to our social safety net, to see how we can have a system that addresses the issues of the 21st century. There is no doubt that things need to change. I support this ongoing issue of inequality— (Time expired)