Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We simply cannot allow people to go back to living on $40 a day. We are a wealthy nation, and it is a national shame that we have people living in poverty. People should not be forced to choose between missing a meal or getting a new school uniform.

Before this latest coronavirus increase, the last time government income support was lifted above inflation was 26 years ago. It was 1994, and it was raised by $2.95 a week. Is this really what the government wants to revert to? Everyone has to be supported with a livable income above the poverty line. We shouldn't choose groups that will be left behind.

What the government have shown us is that there is money available to do the things that need doing; they just refused to do them before. There are plenty of ways that we could raise the necessary revenue. We could reverse stages 2 and 3 of the income tax cuts due to start in 2022 that go to the wealthiest Australians. We could end the $7 billion in public funding in subsidies to fossil fuel companies that gets doled out every single year. We could actually make gas companies pay tax and pay royalties for the gas that they currently get for free. We must ensure that everybody has access to the financial support that they need to live and the ability to provide for themselves while they are studying, caring and looking for work.

In addition to supporting Australians through the recession, maintaining the rate will also boost jobs as jobseeker funding is spent throughout the economy. We estimate that the increased spending unleashed by maintaining the rate would create at least 19,000 new jobs across the economy. We need those new jobs because forecasts for the next year are grim, and young people in particular are facing the prospects of long-term unemployment and underemployment. With a million people likely to be out of work when jobseeker is due to be halved, we need urgent action to make sure that people are kept out of poverty. The cost of putting food on the table and a roof over your head won't halve after the COVID crisis, and neither should income support.

The Greens have long campaigned to raise the rate, but the government's doubling of it during the coronavirus crisis is, in fact, admitting that people out of work need $1,110 a fortnight to pay the bills and the rent. Now that we've got a more realistic rate of income support, we will campaign hard to keep it. We back the calls of thousands of Australians who are urging the government to keep the jobseeker payment above the poverty line. It is unacceptable to return the jobseeker rate to $40 a day, condemning over a million people to live in poverty. People on income support spend that money to make sure that they're looking after themselves and their kids.

Raising the rate isn't just the right thing to do for people; it's absolutely necessary to stimulate the economy. We do live in a society and not just an economy, and I think revenue raising by not dishing out massive tax cuts to people who don't need the help, by cancelling those billions of dollars of free public money to people who are polluting and wrecking the climate, and making fossil fuel companies pay their fair share, is a more than adequate response in a compassionate society where we are wealthy enough to make sure that no-one is left behind and no-one, no child, lives in poverty.

It's about time this rate was retained. We welcome the fact that it has, in fact, been lifted at all. Let's now retain that rate. We cannot drop people back down to poverty just as this crisis is due to end.