Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

You aid you want to respond to people's needs on an as-required basis. You saw fit to note that $40 a day wasn't going to be sustainable in the context of a pandemic. I take from what you're saying that you're quite prepared to go back to $40 a day and that there is no commitment from the government at all to assess the baseline of what Newstart should look like. I want to ask you, please, what assessment the government has done of rents in Australia to know how survivable that payment is, about the basket of goods that people need to buy, about people's capacity to pay their utilities, and their capacity to pay for school excursions, clothing, and home telephone and internet connections.