Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Three million Australians live in poverty. That's one out of every six children. For people struggling against poverty, struggling to make ends meet on Newstart, Christmas is transformed from a time of joy and celebration and togetherness to one of isolation and frustration and shame. Christmas is the time when it so often seems that our society turns into a mirror in which your reflection is seen and in which is cast upon you all the things you are told you should be able to provide for your family, that you should be able to give to your friends yet can't. And that is turned into something that you yourself have done wrong, though you may be applying for every last job you can find, though you may be competing with hundreds of members of your community to get that one part-time, casual retail job which falls through. Upon that turns your entire festive season. The struggle to know where the next meal is coming from, the struggle to know how you're going to make the sums add up so that you can afford to go to the doctors, so that you can travel a couple of hours to see friends or neighbours—all of these issues are made so much worse at Christmas time. Poverty comes home to bite in a real way.

This year, this government has had an opportunity that is afforded to very few governments, the opportunity to take a bipartisan step forward in the alleviation of poverty. Everyone agrees that Newstart is too low. From the Australian Council of Social Service to John Howard to Barnaby Joyce and everybody in between, everyone agrees Newstart must be raised, yet this government has stubbornly, arrogantly, cold-heartedly held out against the tide of history. They should go back to their electorates this Christmas ashamed of themselves, ashamed that they rejected the opportunity to act and help those who need help, help those who are struggling against a social safety net with far too many holes in it.

Finally, I would like to pay tribute to one of my colleagues in this place. There are so many who have contributed so much to the campaign to raise Newstart. It has been a whole-of-community campaign. I am proud to have been and to be a member of a party which has led that campaign. I am proud to be part of communities that have come together to bring forward the urgent need to raise Newstart. And I am particularly proud to work alongside my colleague, Rachel Siewert, who has, on this issue and on so many other issues, been the moral guiding compass of this chamber. She has worked as I have never seen any other person work to bring about this consensus and to bring to the fore this issue, giving us an opportunity for change—an opportunity which this government must now take up. There can be no ifs and no buts: we must raise the rate.