Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If you listened to those on the other side, you would think that life's quite rosy, really, for anyone on Newstart. However, a boost to Newstart is supported by a number of organisations. It's supported by the Business Council of Australia, the Reserve Bank, John Howard, John Hewson, Barnaby Joyce, Chris Richardson, KPMG, Ai Group, COTA, National Seniors, the Australian Local Government Association, COSBOA and the Small Business Association of Australia. So, obviously, everything is not as rosy as those on the other side would have us believe.

It's clear that Newstart is not working as it should and that it is causing great distress and harm to people. The reality is it's not possible to live on Newstart, with the low rate of payments making it even more difficult to re-enter the workforce. People are finding it difficult to meet transportation costs or to afford clothes for job interviews. Those on the government side say that Newstart is a temporary payment, that it's not there for living on and that people should get a job. But the reality is that the average person on Newstart has been on the payment for three years. Three years is not what I would call temporary.

Earlier this week I met with Jeremy from the Unemployed Workers Union. He has been on and off Newstart for the last few years. He is highly qualified and works freelance in the editing and publishing space. Sometimes he has a good amount of work, sometimes it dries up, and sometimes he can also manage to get casual jobs to help make ends meet. His situation is not unusual. In fact, over 130,000 Newstart recipients have a job but do not receive either enough hours or enough income to get them off the payment. The majority of Newstart recipients are desperate to find work, and they work hard, looking for work, to try to meet the compliance obligations Centrelink demands. So the narrative that this government puts forward that you can't leave the house without a job falling into your lap is complete nonsense. Instead of admitting that the economy is weakening and that there are not enough jobs to go around, the government wishes to blame jobseekers and implement punitive measures to distract from its complete incompetence.

Jeremy told me about how disheartening it can be to submit applications for many, many jobs and, more often than not, not even receive an acknowledgement of your application. Interviews are extremely rare because there are many times as many jobseekers as advertised jobs. In fact, the government's own figures show there are 19 job applicants for every job available. Of course, Newstart recipients also have issues accessing our stretched medical and mental health services. When the gap fee for a GP or a psychologist visit might be the whole of your food budget for a week, people often forgo their medical treatment, in order to survive. With its policies, this government, remarkably, seems to want to make things even worse for these people.

Older Australians experience particular difficulty in re-entering the workforce, due to structural barriers and age discrimination. The number of over-55s on Newstart has surged by a staggering 58,313 over a five-year period, according to the latest figures from the Department of Social Services. That means one in four Australians on Newstart are aged 55 or over—the single largest cohort of recipients of the allowance. Instead of having a plan to retrain and bring older workers back into the workforce, this government wants to subject them to humiliating drug tests. We oppose the drug testing of welfare recipients. Can I just say this is the third time the government has dusted off that policy. It's punitive and it's not going to work.

The government's desire to roll out nationally the cashless welfare card is also poorly thought through. I heard yesterday that drought-affected farming families will be rightly shocked, as I imagine they would be, by the suggestion that was made yesterday that they could be subject to the Morrison government's cashless welfare card. The government suggests that people should be in work, not on welfare. Well, guess what? Farmers are workers. Farmers are already at work. They live at work. This government needs to understand what it takes to survive on a drought-stricken farm. I'm wondering if the Nationals actually agree with that policy. Labor does not support a national rollout of the card.

Those opposite are a third-term government, but, as we on this side have said many times, they've got no policy agenda at all. They're an utter disgrace. They're blaming and shaming, basically, welfare recipients, such as people on Newstart. It's an absolute atrocity and it needs to stop. As I said, those on the other side are an utter disgrace, and it's absolutely clear to everybody. I will again give the list of those who support an increase in Newstart. A boost to Newstart is supported by the Business Council of Australia, the Reserve Bank, John Howard, John Hewson, Barnaby Joyce, Chris Richardson, KPMG, Ai Group, COTA—

Debate interrupted.