Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is one thing and one thing alone that keeps the Newstart rate in Australia low, and that is the moral judgement of Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Every party in this chamber except the one that he leads and his supplicant party in the National Party supports a raise to Newstart. In fact, some of them have started to have the courage to speak out. I heard some pretty mealy-mouthed contributions in the Senate this afternoon on this subject and I imagine we're going to hear a few more this evening. There are even members of his own party who believe that we need to raise the rate of Newstart. Senator Sinodinos has had a bit to say on the subject. The bloke that they idolise, the former Prime Minister John Howard, whose opinion I imagine should be taken account of in the Liberal Party, has had a bit to say about the subject. Former leaders of the Liberal Party have been out in the community talking about the need to raise Newstart. But this show over here can't find it in its heart to raise the rate.

We could start that process immediately, not with resolutions in the Senate but with changes to regulation and legislation. But there is one man in the way, one man who refuses to admit that Newstart is too low. The words can't escape his mouth. There are formulations like, 'I know it would be difficult,' and, 'I can't imagine that it would be easy.' Those are the sorts of mealy-mouthed contributions. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is going to stand in the way of lifting the rate to Newstart until he's dragged kicking and screaming to the conclusion that the government can't do anything else.

We have to ask the question: why? What's stopping him? He has the numbers in this parliament. He has support within his own party. If he was concerned about the fiscal impacts of raising Newstart, why not commence a review? He hasn't hesitated before making other choices that have had an impact on the budget position of the Commonwealth—for example, stage 3 tax cuts. The Grattan Institute says that in 2025, towards the end of the 2020s, there will need to be expenditure cuts in the range of $40 billion per annum. There is no hesitation for tax cuts for high-income earners. There is no hesitation making the choice to drive the agenda for corporate tax cuts, which again would have had a significant impact upon the fiscal capacity of the Commonwealth.

This is the Prime Minister for a political stunt. He is prepared to cough up 1½ billion dollars of Commonwealth expenditure to reopen Christmas Island just for a press conference and to try to make a political point. He's all heart and all courage when it comes to his own interests but he's got no capacity for empathy with ordinary Australians who find themselves unemployed. It comes down to a question of moral judgement. He either believes that Newstart recipients deserve the indignity of living on $40 a day or he believes that he should ignore them. He thinks that he can ignore them because in Scott Morrison's Australia everybody is a winner. The government is on your side, apparently, but only if we ignore the people who don't matter to him. Because, in his Australia, nobody is poor, that he can see; nobody is unemployed; nobody is ever laid off; nobody is homeless; and nobody ever goes hungry. According to this lot over here, everything is going really well, and if these things do happen to people, well, they just don't matter. They have no place in his moral imagination. I had a few things to say about Scott Morrison and unfunded empathy last night, and I thank the chamber for being accommodating about it. I said that his remarks were grotesque, cowardly and dishonest—