Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am grateful to have the opportunity to also support raising the level of Newstart and youth allowance. This is an incredibly important issue for so many Australians who find themselves stuck on Newstart through no fault of their own and find themselves struggling to make ends meet. The conversation is even more relevant today, which is both part of Anti-Poverty Week and also the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. If you are on Newstart, you are living on a payment that is significantly below the poverty line.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind or in the minds of my colleagues that the rate of Newstart needs to be increased without delay. The rate of Newstart is just too low. It's supposed to be a temporary payment but, on average, people are on Newstart for three years. It is not because they don't want to work hard and have a go, as some on the government benches may have you believe; it is because the jobs just aren't there. Unemployment is at over five per cent and there are over 1.9 million Australians who don't have work or don't have enough work to make ends meet.

The Newstart rate is so low that it is actually preventing people from getting work. It is stopping them from having the 'go' that the government wants them to have. It is trapping people in poverty today. You cannot live on $40 a day. It simply does not cover the basic cost of living, let alone all the additional costs that you have if you are trying to get yourself into employment—the costs of access to the internet, appropriate clothing and even transport to job interviews. If you are really struggling to make ends meet, pay your bills and support your family, that is obviously a barrier to getting into work.

The Prime Minister has previously said that the harder you work, the better you do. He is essentially saying to Australians who are struggling that it is all up to them—just try harder, just do better. What he is saying is that if you are poor, if you are stuck on Newstart, it is your fault; nobody else is responsible, it is just your fault. That could not be further from the truth. This Prime Minister and this government are doing nothing to deal with the crisis of poverty in Australia today.

Poverty is a huge issue. The ACOSS report of last year, Poverty in Australia, found over 13 per cent of Australians were living below the poverty line. That is more than three million people, including 739,000 children. That's three million Australians and 739,000 children. The recent Foodbank hunger report found that 14 per cent of Australians are eating less food than they need due to a lack of money. In 2019, no-one should be going without food. No-one should be having to go without food so that their children can eat on that night. It's especially difficult to accept that that's happening in one of the richest countries in the world, our country. So many of the Australians on Newstart and on youth allowance make up these Foodbank statistics, and it's absolutely shameful, given how easy it would be to help them get through it by raising payment rates.

Take Ross, who shared his story with that Poverty in Australia report. He said:

I'm an ex-Australian soldier who returned to Australia, couldn't find work and was shunted into Newstart and (Work for the Dole). I have a three-year-old and barely have enough money to feed/clothe him or I. The extra money would help us "survive" until I could get back on my feet, employment-wise.

Does the government think that Ross isn't working hard enough? Does the government think that Ross is not having enough of a go? Does the government think that he should just try a little bit harder? What about Ross's three-year-old son? Doesn't he deserve a good start in life? At the moment, he is one of the 739,000 children in Australia today, right now, who are living in poverty.

For a child that lives in poverty, it's not just about having a secure home and enough to eat—as if that weren't important enough. Poverty limits a child's future, it limits their ability to learn, it limits their opportunities. It can mean going to school on an empty stomach. It can mean missing out on excursions and not being able to participate in the things that all the other children are enjoying. It can make it difficult to spend time with friends. All of that can leave those children who are living in poverty feeling ashamed about what they're missing out on, feeling excluded, feeling isolated.

The tragedy of it is that it just doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't need to be this way. The government could help hundreds of thousands of Australians and their families if they just showed some compassion and raised the Newstart rate. If compassion isn't enough to motivate this government to get them to act, then perhaps they can listen to the economic arguments for raising Newstart. We've seen over the past few weeks economist after economist ringing the alarm bells about the Australian economy. Only yesterday did we see the IMF substantially downgrade their forecast for Australia's economic growth. Today in the media, businesses are screaming out for the government to act to boost our faltering and flagging economy. Up until now, the governments have had their heads in the sand when it comes to the state of the economy. They keep telling us: 'Everything is fine. We've got a plan and our plan is going great.' Well, has anyone seen this plan? We haven't, the Australian people haven't, and I'm pretty sure that it doesn't exist.

Here's an idea for the government: raise the rate of Newstart. Research by Deloitte found that raising Newstart would help create economic growth while helping regional areas that are most in need of help. The Governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, has said that now would be a good time to raise the rate of Newstart in order to boost economic growth. Even the Treasurer has admitted that raising Newstart would be good for the economy. So why not do it?

It will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australians and it will help boost our economy.

If you're still not sure about it on the other side, why don't you ask one of the following who have called for an increase to Newstart: former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, former Nationals Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, deputy Nationals leader Senator Matt Canavan, Liberal senator Dean Smith, Liberal MP Russell Broadbent, Liberal-National MP Andrew Wallace and, lastly, Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos, whom we all would acknowledge is a well-respected contributor in this place. And they are not alone either, because the business community is also calling for a raise in the Newstart rate, as are a host of not-for-profits and charities around the country. All of those people and all of those organisations are in agreement with the 75 per cent of Australians who agree with raising the Newstart rate. So why is it that the government will not listen to the overwhelming public opinion and public support for raising the Newstart rate? Why is it that they won't do the compassionate, logical and sensible thing and raise the Newstart rate? It's because, instead of helping those people on Newstart, the government is currently doing its best to target them, to isolate them and to stigmatise them, with their terrible robo-debt program, with their discriminatory cashless welfare cards and with their demeaning drug-testing programs.

The government's legally dubious robo-debt scheme, which they want to rollout to target even more vulnerable Australians, is based on flawed calculations and it has an error rate of one in five. The cashless cards that they want to roll out across the country are preventing people from being able to purchase essential items at affordable prices. Those cashless welfare cards are excluding people from being able to participate in their community, in community events, in services and in activities that don't accept the card.

How about the proposed rollout of drug testing for social security recipients? How indiscriminate! How demeaning! It is something that is going to waste millions of taxpayer dollars. It's a project that medical and policy experts have said just won't work. Why spend millions of dollars on programs when there is no evidence to suggest that they are going to help people get off social security payments, off Newstart or off youth allowance? Why do all of that when you could just raise the Newstart rate, which we all know would have a massive impact on those hundreds of thousands of Australians who are relying on it today? Families are struggling and the government just doesn't seem to care, so take your heads out of the sand and raise the rate.

Question agreed to.