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

I am grateful to have the opportunity to talk on this issue and to contribute to the debate about Newstart and the youth allowance, because it is an incredibly important issue for so many Australians who find themselves on Newstart right now and who are struggling to make ends meet.

It's true that that struggle is all the more difficult over the summer holidays and Christmas, because that's when people really feel the gaps between the haves and the have-nots. It's hard to enjoy the festive season when you're finding it hard to pay the bills, when you're finding it hard to put food on the table and when, on top of that, you're worrying that your kids are going to miss out on the experience that you really want to give them at this time of year. If you're on Newstart right now then you're living on a payment that is well below the poverty line.

There is no doubt in my mind that the rate of Newstart needs to be raised. It needs to be increased right now. There is no doubt in the Labor Party that Newstart needs to be increased. So it's difficult, at this time of year, to avoid calling out this government for its scrooge-like behaviour. Here we are, only a few weeks from Christmas, so let's talk about what this government now has on its agenda. It has cuts to Newstart that will impact 40,000 Australian people who find themselves without work at this time of year. This is really the opposite of what people falling on tough times need to see from this government. They need to see some support and they need to see an increase to Newstart payments, not a cut.

Of course, we're not alone, on this side of the chamber, in calling for an increase to Newstart. There are a whole range of community organisations and supporters—former political leaders, economists, the Reserve Bank governor, Deloitte and numerous charities and advocacy groups—who are calling for an increase to Newstart. And while everyone else is thinking about Christmas, those on the government benches are looking to cut Newstart for hard-up Australians—40,000 Australians. I'm talking about their proposed changes to the liquid assets waiting time. They want to change that from three months to six months, and that is really going to increase the pressure on Australians who have just lost their jobs.

If a worker is made redundant and they have $18,000 in liquid assets, they will be forced to wait for six months before being able to access Newstart under the government's proposed changes, and $18,000 is just not a lot of money to live on over six months. In fact, doing this will mean that people who are in that situation will have to use up the only financial buffer that is now standing between them and poverty when they lose their job, it will mean that people won't have money for emergencies and it will mean that people will really be in trouble if a member of their family gets sick or their car breaks down. Doing this at a time when, on this government's watch, we're seeing an increase in insecure work, stagnant wage growth and an ever-increasing cost of living is really a grinch-like move from this government.

If the government don't want to look after Australians who fall on hard times—and often, it must be said, after decades of paying their taxes—then what are their priorities? Last month, Westpac, one of the major banks, was accused of breaking money-laundering laws 23 million times. What did the government do about that? What did the government say needed to be done? Nothing. 'That can just sit with the board.' The rampant wage theft that we're seeing sweeping across the nation? Still waiting for a government response on that.

Instead, the government are far more concerned about penalising people who fall on hard times, attacking low-income Australians and demonising social security recipients. There is a whole list of the government's efforts in those regards, whether it's their refusal to raise Newstart, despite the fact that it hasn't risen in decades and despite the mounting calls in the community; the indiscriminate and demeaning drug tests that they're planning to roll out to people who are receiving social security; the cashless debit cards that they want to expand that exclude people from being able to participate meaningfully in their local communities; their constant attacks on Australian workers and trade unions; or now, at this time of the year, more cuts to Newstart. At a time when more people than ever before are calling for an increase to Newstart, the government wants to cut it. What does this government have against Australians who are on low incomes or who rely on social security? This government's priorities are all wrong. They are focusing on the wrong people.

People on Newstart and youth allowance actually need the rate to be increased because it's too low. This is meant to be a temporary payment, yet we know that recipients are spending an average of three years on Newstart. That has nothing to do with people not working hard enough or not having a go, as Prime Minister Morrison so often loves to say. Let's look at the fact that the jobs aren't there. There are 1.9 million Australians who are underemployed or unemployed. They want to work and they want to work more, but the jobs just aren't there for them. Newstart is compounding that problem for them because it's so low that it's often preventing people from getting work. Newstart is stopping people from having a go and it's trapping people in poverty, because you cannot live on $40 a day. It doesn't cover the cost of living, your rent, your food, your bills and the additional costs of looking for work, like appropriate clothing, access to the internet and transport to interviews. That is a really long way for $40 a day to stretch.

At this time of the year, when so many Australians are enjoying the festive season, looking forward to Christmas with their families and looking forward to exchanging gifts and sharing a special meal, how is $40 a day supposed to stretch even further? The Newstart rate excludes people from fully enjoying the holiday period and also excludes them from wider society. The Prime Minister has previously said that the harder you work the better you do. Essentially, what he was saying was that if you're stuck on Newstart, if you're poor or if you're struggling it must be your own fault; perhaps try a little bit harder. That really couldn't be further from the truth. That sort of statement really shows us where this government's priorities lie.

This is a Prime Minister who is doing nothing to tackle poverty in our country. Thirteen per cent of Australians are living below the poverty line, many of them on Newstart. That's three million people, including over 700,000 children living in poverty today. These are children who often don't have secure homes or enough to eat. It really doesn't need to be this way. The government could help hundreds of thousands of Australians and their families if they showed some compassion and raised the Newstart rate, but this is a government that absolutely lacks compassion, and we've seen that time after time, decision after decision.

In a lot of classic Christmas stories, the scrooge or the grinch characters, who start off as selfish, greedy and uninterested in the plight of others, quite often redeem themselves by the end of the story by seeing the error of their ways. Will that happen with this government? Unfortunately, given the government's track record, I think we're going to need a Christmas miracle for them to see the error of their ways and to increase Newstart. No family should have to struggle, particularly at this time of year. The government should show some compassion.