Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to support Senator Dodson's disallowance motion. This is a motion which is in essence an appeal to this chamber and to the Morrison government to show some compassion to the 400,000 Australians who are likely to have lost their jobs by Christmas. Put simply, this motion is an appeal for some common decency.

Reintroducing the liquid assets waiting period means that many people will, in effect, have to become destitute before they can apply for JobSeeker, even if they have modest savings of as little as $5,500 in the bank. As Senator Dodson pointed out, whether they have borrowed money from their family or, at the urging of this government and many conservative commentators, whether they have accessed their super and then lost their jobs or whether they have some redundancy payments, they'll have to run those moneys down before they can access JobSeeker. Many of them will have to wait up to 13 weeks. Often, these are people who have families. These are people who have mortgages, even if they have been able to defer them, and, if not, they will be in default. They're people who have rental accommodation and who can't necessarily secure an arrangement with their landlord. All of this is what this government is now trying to present to us as a means of helping people prepare for a COVID-normal Christmas. To me, it could be a scene from Dickens's A Christmas Carol whereby the Prime Minister is playing Ebenezer Scrooge. He's putting in a peerless performance in doing that. Not only will there be no joy, but there'll be no festivity. Many families will not be able to have basic sustenance, because of the liquid assets waiting period. This is simply not the time for the government to be obsessed with the deficit. As it was said in Alan Kohler's piece in The Australian this morning, this is a time for 'whatever it takes'. It's a time for us to understand just how deep the economic crisis is in this country.

Frankly, if the government abandons people who are struggling, as it seems so intent on doing, the deficit's only going to get worse anyway. Taxes won't be paid where there is no money to be spent or where people simply have nothing to spend. We've seen the government being dragged kicking and screaming to every measure that helps ordinary Australians who've been hit hard by the pandemic. They were very slow to introduce the coronavirus supplement for JobKeeper, and now they seem intent on winding it back as soon as they can. I've already mentioned Alan Kohler. On 29 September he wrote:

… over the next few months, hundreds of thousands of people will go from having a job in February, to getting $750 a week from JobKeeper in March, to now getting $600 a week, and then soon getting $282 a week from JobSeeker. That will be a nightmare for those hundreds of thousands of individuals and their families.

Mr Kohler points out what even the most scrooge-like member of this government should understand: apart from the misery the government is inflicting, the contribution that these folks are actually making to the economy ought not be underestimated. It's an irony, isn't it, that we read in the papers again that the banks and other financial institutions, too, will feel the consequences of the government's actions. How many Australians who are losing their income support have a mortgage? I understand there are roughly 200,000 businesses out there that are on loan deferrals. Will they be able to start repayments? The answer to these questions, as Mr Kohler wrote in The Australian, is 'somewhere between none of them and all of them'. If a third of the loans went into default, that would be four times the current total impairment provisions of the banks and nearly three times last year's total profits. The government is allowing all of this to happen in spite of what is known about the unemployment crisis. The reality is that things are getting worse, not better.

We learned at the estimates hearings that some 1.8 million Australians will be on unemployment support by the end of the year. That's 300,000 more than the government had previously predicted. A recent report by Anglicare, Jobs availability snapshot, found that there are 100 unemployed people for every entry-level job. Cutting unemployment benefits can only make that situation worse. Those benefits not only allow people to put food on the table but are spent in local businesses. Unemployment benefits are not just about supporting individuals but an economic stimulus measure in themselves. That's why Labor has been calling for a permanent increase in the JobSeeker payment, yet the government is prematurely cutting support for people who are unemployed. That's why I say this is a measure that calls for a bit of decency and compassion.

This instrument reduces the coronavirus supplement from $550 to $250 per fortnight. Labor opposes this cut and supports maintenance of the rate at $550 per fortnight to support Australians in this time of acute need. At a time when the country is facing recession, when unemployment is on the rise and when so many ordinary Australians are struggling to get by, as Senator Dobson said, this is nothing short of being cruel. Unfortunately, the Senate simply doesn't have the capacity to do anything about that part of this instrument without depriving people altogether, so we're not seeking to change that. What we're seeking here is to call on the government to immediately reinstate the full amount. We can do so by opposing the restoration of the liquid assets waiting period for assessing unemployment payments, which will force thousands of Australians in need to wait for up to three months before they can access JobSeeker. The liquid assets waiting period was suspended in March, due to the pandemic, so that struggling Australians could get access to what they needed and do so quickly.

That need has not diminished. But, at a time of unprecedented crisis, the government is now expecting Australians to run down every last dollar they have before they can access unemployment benefits. That's why we on this side of the chamber are describing it as cruel and cynical. It's a double hit on those who were urged to take out or draw upon their super. It was a cynical move by a government that sought to undermine industry super in this country and went to some trouble to do that. It leaves people with no buffer whatsoever to meet the normal expenses of life. It leaves people in a destitute situation and forces them to rely upon emergency relief. It forces people to rely upon charity, and there could be nothing quite so cold as that. It's shameful that the government is allowing this to happen. It's shameful that we've had to do this again, as has already been indicated tonight. It is now time for the government to show some common decency, and for this chamber to show some common decency and support this proposition.