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

This is not a fair budget. It is not helping those most in need. It is a complete fraud on the Australian nation for the government to claim that this is a fair budget and that they're helping low-income Australians. Look at what they're actually doing, how that money is being spent and where that money is going—in other words, the big end of town. If you're earning $200,000, you're fine: out of this budget, you're going to make $7,000.

I'll tell you what is not fair: it is not fair that the people on the lowest incomes, those struggling to survive on Newstart and youth allowance, are not getting anything. There is no increase in Newstart. There is no increase in youth allowance. The government should've focused their budget on helping those people who are genuinely on the lowest incomes, who are struggling to survive on less than $40 a day—less than $40 a day! I note that some on the other side of this chamber claim they can live on that amount. If you can live on that, try it—try it properly. I have tried it, and it is virtually impossible. When I tried it, it was less than $38 a day. It is impossible to live on when you take out the cost of accommodation, and it's very hard to find affordable accommodation and when you take out all of the other expenses—absolutely essential services, such as your energy water and available communications, because you have to have a phone to be able to find a job. That is where the government should have been focusing their attention, but, no, they didn't do that because they're still in the land of lifters and leaners—and that is quite clear from this budget. It is quite clear. They don't call them lifters and leaners anymore, but they're still into vilifying and demonising those who are trying to survive on Newstart and youth allowance.

I find it very strange that I am quoting John Howard when it comes to income support—when everybody in this place knows my absolute rejection of Welfare to Work that has so significantly impacted those on Newstart and, particularly, single parents who are worse off now that they're having to survive on the appallingly low Newstart allowance while they're trying to raise their kids. Even John Howard said today that Newstart needs to be increased. Even John Howard, the architect of Welfare to Work, is now saying Newstart has to be increased.

And why would the government listen to academics who are actually quoting the evidence and doing the research that shows that Newstart is so dismal and needs to be increased by at least $75 a week? That doesn't bring it up to the aged-care payment, by the way, which everybody also acknowledges is too low. And then I hear them say, 'But that's because they have to live on it all the time'. People on Newstart have to survive on it for a much longer period than they used to before for a whole variety of reasons.

Not only did the government not raise Newstart; they didn't even enable them to access the same sort of increase in the work bonus as those on the age pension—an increase in the threshold in which you can work before you lose Newstart. They only did that for those on the age pension. That is good for people on the age pension, but where is it for the people trying to survive on the disability support pension? Where is it for the people trying to survive on Newstart? Where is it for those single parents who have kids at home, and who are trying to raise their kids on the appallingly low Newstart? You couldn't even do that. You couldn't even give them that little filler to let them earn just a little bit more before the cut-off to Newstart comes in.

Then, to add insult the injury, all those positive reforms that the government was promising to do to the CDP—the Community Development Program—have been thrown out. From what they said, there's no mention of community wages anymore. Yet, Minister Scullion was at Garma in July promising reform to CDP, including community wages. They're trying to put them onto demerit points through this budget—with people, again, trying to survive on income support in remote communities under the appalling CDP. The government have now made that program worse.