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

The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Promoting Sustainable Welfare) Bill 2018 is a shocking attack on multicultural Australia and a shocking attack on people who are migrating to Australia expecting that they are here to contribute and expecting that in return they will be treated as equals, expecting that the Australian values of a fair go for everyone will apply for them too. This bill is attacking all of that. This bill, by making migrants wait four years before they are eligible for Newstart, is essentially relegating them to being second-class residents. They have to wait four years for Newstart, four years for a low-income health card, four years before they can access bereavement allowance and four years before they can access a parenting payment.

We have got a culture in Australia of welcoming migrants. We have been built on migrants. Other than the First Australians, everybody in Australia has got a history of migration to this country. And one of the wonderful things about our migrant basis is that everyone is welcome for who they are, regardless of their background. That is the theory. That's what we pride ourselves on: welcoming people from all over the world. They come here. We treat them as equals. Everyone works hard, does their best and reaps the rewards of being Australians. But yet, by making people wait these extraordinarily long periods for welfare payments, it is cutting out one of the critical parts of our social welfare net and it is saying that new migrants to this country are not eligible for the same benefits that Australians are, regardless of the fact that they are here and they have been welcomed here, in theory, to be equal to the rest of us. It is treating migrants as second-class citizens.

I must admit it is actually what I've come to expect from this government—this government, with their agenda of racist dog whistling, of attacks on migrants, of attacks on multiculturalism. It's what we've come to expect. But the absolutely appalling thing is that Labor are supporting this bill—Labor, who call themselves the party of social justice, call themselves a party that support the welfare safety net, call themselves a party that supports multiculturalism. They have done a deal to support this legislation. And, in terms of how bad the legislation is, we've just heard Senator Leyonhjelm say that this legislation is actually implementing stuff that's in the Liberal Democrats policy and we know that, at least on the basis of where the Labor Party say they line up, that should be anathema to the Labor Party. But, no, the Labor Party has cooked up a deal with the government in the back room to attack multicultural Australia and attack migrant communities.

And this deal has got consequences. People who arrive here with the best of intentions—skilled migrants or people arriving here with the expectation of work—can very easily find themselves out of work through no fault of their own. They might work for a while for an employer that they had lined up, and that employer might go bust. Whereas the rest of us are able to rely on Newstart to find access to other work, they can't. They are left with no income at all. People might arrive here, set up a small business and work hard to get their small business underway, but that small business might fail. Again, rather than having that safety net, like the rest of us have, which would enable them to work out where to go from there, they find themselves very quickly spiralling into poverty. When you haven't got an income, when the pay cheques are not coming in and when the benefits aren't there, it means that you can't pay the rent or put food on the table for your kids. When you can't pay the rent or put food on the table for your kids, you are then at huge risk of ending up homeless and that having the impact of children ending up living in poverty.

This bill was roundly slammed in the Senate inquiry, and, although there have been substantial amendments, the worst aspects of this bill still remain. Some of the submissions to the bill's inquiry show the expectations of the welfare sector—the people who are working with migrants who are likely to be put into these circumstances—of what they think the impacts are going to be. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said:

The bill would impose unnecessary hardship on individuals and families, and may impact the ability of people to be self-sufficient if they are not adequately supported in the early years of their arrival …

And they said:

The changes will impact the demand on the social services sector in Australia. As waiting periods to access to the welfare payment system are extended (and in some cases introduced), people may face destitution and homelessness and will turn to the social services sector, placing greater demand on an already stretched sector.

And the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre know what they're talking about because they've been picking up the pieces for many years now for people who are left without any other support—people who have come to this country and who deserve our support but haven't been getting it. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre are the ones left picking up the pieces, and they are fearful that there will be even more demand on their services and even more demand on charity. That's not how we should be running our welfare system. That's not the way the Australia that I know and love works. The Australia that I know and love actually thrives on knowing that we have got a really good safety net that people can fall back on when times get tough. The Federation of Ethnic Communities' Council Australia submission states:

FECCA believes the proposed Bill would impose considerable hardship, and create an underclass of migrants who find themselves facing dire financial circumstances as they try to settle into Australia.

The submission went on to say:

FECCA strongly believes that providing support for people in the early stages of their journey is critical to ensuring that they are able to fully establish their lives in Australia.

We know, however, that, when Labor had done their deals in the back room and decided that they were supporting the government's bill, FECCA decided to come out and say they were actually happy with it until their constituents told them that no, they weren't. And FECCA, the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Council, had to do a bit of a backflip and an about-face and say, 'I'm looking at this amended bill, and it's actually still really bad.' It is still going to have the impacts that they were worried about, and they are now calling on Labor to not support this bill because of the impacts it's going to have on ethnic communities right across the country. And the Labor Party is saying, 'Well, we had to do a deal.' No, they didn't. They did not need to do a deal that is so appalling that it's going to put people's wellbeing at stake. If it's because of the impact of what maintaining a really good welfare safety net means for newly arrived migrants, if it's because of what it's going to cost the budget, may I suggest to the Labor Party there are many other ways to gain money.

First of all, just look at the big end of town and get a few more of them to pay their fair share of tax. Look at the massive number of companies, the huge businesses in Australia, that don't pay any tax at all. Just look at the rebates to fossil fuel companies and the fuel tax rebates they get—billions and billions of dollars that we could be bringing in if we had a much fairer tax system. But instead, we are picking upon the people who are most in need. We are picking on the people who are least able to fight back for themselves.

These newly arrived migrants haven't got their lobbyists in here sort of doing the rounds, trying to get all of the good deals that suit them. No, they haven't got the big donations that are given to both the Labor and the Liberal parties to do big deals that suit them. The people who this bill will affect are the people at the bottom of the pecking order who are just being shafted. Rather than having a fair system and rather than continuing that investment, we could continue to have a welfare system that works and that would mean that you don't have the problems of people being left homeless, people being left in poverty, and that affects us all. The impact of people who have got no income coming in, who find themselves homeless, who find themselves with nowhere to live, who find themselves on the streets, is not good for us. That is not good for Australia as a society. It's not good for their kids going to school hungry. It's not good for their kids to not even be able to get to school. It's just not good for any of us to have this increasing inequality. There is so much evidence that what we need to be doing to be creating a thriving, prosperous society, is reduce inequality. But measures like this are increasing inequality in Australia.

Labor say that they are all about reducing inequality but that's just what they say. This is a classic example of the Labor Party saying one thing and doing another. And it's just what we will expect that if, as is expected, we have a change of government the next election, if we turf this appalling mob out, if we have a Shorten Labor government then I think we can expect that they are going to be saying one thing and doing another. They'll talk about social justice as they are cutting welfare payments. They will talk about trying to create a more equal society as they are taking actions like this that are actually increasing inequality. It's exactly what you're going to expect from a Shorten Labor government.

The Greens are going to continue to fight. We are going to continue to fight for everybody in our society, regardless of how long they have been here, regardless of their background, regardless of their ethnicity. We are going to continue to fight for fairness. We are going to continue to fight for justice. We are going to continue to fight for equality and, in doing that, we are certainly not going to be supporting this bill tonight.