Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Workforce Incentive) Bill 2022. This bill makes small but meaningful improvements that will benefit age pensioners and some veteran recipients. It'll mean that people's payments will be suspended for two years, but not cancelled, if people's incomes mean they can't receive the payment. It'll enable people to keep their pensioner concession cards for up to two years after their payment ceases. That's a welcome measure, and we support it. Finally, and most importantly, it makes changes to the work bonus to increase the amount that age pensioners are able to earn if they are working before their pension gets cut.

To begin with, I want to thank the minister's office for their close and constructive engagement on this piece of legislation. The minister moved an amendment in the House of Representatives as a result of negotiations with the Greens and advocacy with organisations such as National Seniors to extend the time that this scheme will operate to December next year. That is a concrete improvement in the bill.

I also want to thank the opposition for their advocacy on this issue. They put forward a clear, concrete proposal that would help people on income support, and we welcomed that. I want to say to the opposition and to the government that we'd like to see some other proposals for people on JobSeeker to allow them to earn more as well. They're on lower incomes than people on pensions, and their effective tax rate, which operates as a disincentive to work, is much, much higher.

Finally, I'd like to thank National Seniors Australia for their close engagement and advocacy on this issue. We recognise that they would like to see further changes to the age pension, and we look forward to continuing to work with them on how the system can be improved.

As we discuss the measures in this bill before us, I want to also contrast that with what else needs to occur—that is, a change to the appallingly low rate of JobSeeker. There is a desperate need for a guaranteed liveable income. The benefits that are flowing through to age pensioners in this bill could also flow through to other people on income support. These same measures included in this bill that increase the income support benefits that age pensioners are able to receive could be extended to other people on income support.

Mere days ago, we saw the collapse of Deliveroo, which is leaving around 15,000 workers without their usual source of income with no more than a few minutes notice. Sadly, we know that many people working as delivery drivers will not be able to access income support because of the restrictions in place. We know that even those who are eligible will likely face hours of paperwork and potentially weeks of waiting. Then, when they do receive the payment, it will be a vastly inadequate one, vastly below the poverty line.

Imagine that you're a jobseeker looking for permanent, reliable work that delivers you a decent income. You get a bit of work here and there—casual, unreliable, unpredictable work. You're certainly not going to go off JobSeeker in order to take this work because, although you might get enough work this week, who knows what will happen next week or next month?

Imagine you're this jobseeker and you've got health issues that enable you to work more some weeks but not the rest. Of course, under our punitive system, you're not eligible for the disability support pension even though you've got these health issues—not that the DSP gives you all that much more than JobSeeker.

Imagine that this week you are able to work. Imagine that you are actually just like the age pensioner, somebody who is able to fill the labour shortage gaps that we are facing in this country. Your health is good this week, and there are some extra hours of cleaning available at a local business. You'd really like to take up this opportunity to pay a few bills, to get the washing machine fixed or to pay off some of the loan that a friend generously lent to you six months ago so that you could repair your car. But it's not worth it.

This bill is giving age pensioners an $11,800 work bonus. They are going to be able to earn that amount before their payments start to be reduced—again, we welcome that; we're supporting this bill—but, unlike those pensioners, the jobseeker we're talking about has a work credit of only $1,000 before they start to have their payments reduced. That means that as soon as they start getting a bit of extra work their payments get slashed. In fact, they are facing an equivalent marginal tax rate of over 60 per cent in many instances. If we look at the modelling of that, for some jobseekers, depending on their circumstances, it's the equivalent marginal tax rate of between 60 and 80 per cent. So not only are our jobseekers who are capable of working some more hours and of working to top up their JobSeeker payment having to scrimp by on JobSeeker and get by on charity or loans to survive but they just can't get ahead. And they're certainly not being incentivised to take up extra work if it's available.

That's the first reason why I wanted to bring the issue of jobseekers into this debate. It's because they, like aged pensioners, are available to take up extra work opportunities as they're available. They should also have available this increase in the amount they can earn before their payments are slashed. The other reason why we're actually debating this issue today and debating increased income limits for age pensioners is because we know that living on the age pension can be a real struggle, particularly if you're an age pensioner who is renting a house privately. Pensioners, when you ask them if they want to be able to earn extra money, say that they sure do, because surviving on the pension is a struggle. They say they need to be able to earn extra in order to survive.

But, of course, as well as this focus on pensioners, we also need to be focusing on the people on income support who are surviving on much, much less. Those are the people on JobSeeker, on youth allowance and on parenting allowance. Jobseekers are expected to exist on $48 a day when the Henderson poverty line is $88 a day. We heard in the debate on this bill and in the committee hearings on this bill from the Australian Council of Trade Unions. They have publicly called for an increase in the JobSeeker rate. We've heard that from the Business Council of Australia, who acknowledged earlier in the pandemic that the rate needed to be raised. And we've heard it from social services and community organisations around the country. These two things go hand in hand: we need to increase the rate as well as allow people to earn more. Most importantly, we've heard this time and time again directly from the people who have been forced to rely on inadequate payments. So I have been sharing stories in this place from people whose lives have been impacted by the failure to act on JobSeeker and other payments. I want to thank them for their courage in sharing their stories; it has been a privilege to try to bring their voices into this place.

I also want to mention specifically that the rate of JobSeeker is an issue that we've heard about from some senior members of this government. When legislation passed through parliament with a miniscule increase to JobSeeker after the COVID supplement ended, multiple Labor ministers said that they thought the increase wasn't enough and that they would act. Well, now they're in government but we are yet to see any action. The now Deputy Prime Minister said in a speech:

The government is in control of the budget and the purse strings, and, in order to change the budget, ultimately we need to change the government. This is a matter to which Labor is committed. In government, it is something we would certainly seek to act upon.

The legislation before us today is a great step forward for age pensioners but we are yet to see any action on a change in policy that would increase the rate of JobSeeker or which would allow them to earn more. All we have got so far from the government is a commitment that was made in the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children, that they would commit to review the rate of JobSeeker before budgets.

So let me give them a hand with that review. The rate of JobSeeker is inadequate. I asked about this very issue in estimates and it turns out that a 'review' actually doesn't mean whether the rates are adequate. It turns out that the review isn't a review. Senator Ayres answered my questions in estimates, and it wasn't 'a review' as a noun, it was 'to review' as a verb. All that meant was that there was an informal discussion between the head of the department and the minister. That review wasn't examining whether the rate was adequate, or whether people were able to live on the payment or whether the rate is so low that it's putting people at risk of domestic violence, food scarcity or homelessness. No, the review is whether the government think they can afford to increase the rate.

At the same time, the government tells us that the stage 3 tax cuts are the Holy Grail of pre-election commitments. They cannot be reviewed, considered or contemplated in any way, shape or form despite costing the budget bottom line $250 billion over the next decade. But, no, we must not touch them. In fact it seems Labor ministers aren't even allowed to look at the stage 3 tax cuts out of the corner of their eye, probably because if they did the right-wing media would assemble like a school of piranhas desperate to draw blood on the premise of a broken promise.

I hope the Labor Party is going to find the courage of its convictions and, in addition to moving on age pensioners, will act on increasing the rate of JobSeeker. We hope that will happen because it will make a crucial difference to the people who are forced to live below the poverty line and are not able to earn anything extra without having it absolutely slashed by the income limits. In the meantime, we will keep calling for a rise in the rate of JobSeeker as often as we can. I will keep raising it in any debate on any bit of legislation where it is relevant because we need it. People are living in desperate poverty. We will keep calling for a guaranteed liveable income for anyone who needs it. Poverty is a political choice. It is a choice that the Liberal Party made for over a decade, except for that brief window when the COVID supplements lifted payments above the poverty line. And it's a choice that sadly the Labor government made in their first budget, leaving hundreds of thousands of people relying on payments that are below the poverty line.

With regard to this legislation, in line with this I foreshadow that we will have some substantive amendments during the Committee of the Whole debate. These amendments reflect the work we were putting in to developing a policy platform before the election. I want to particularly thank the drafters for their incredible work on this. The Social Security Act is a large and complex piece of legislation, and I thank them, particularly given the time frames and the small team that's available. We are putting these forward as substantive amendments because we want to make the point that poverty is a political choice and that politicians in this place, in the way they vote, are making choices that impact the lives of people across the country. The amendment items in the sheet that's been circulated in the chamber set out clear changes that we call on all parties in this place to support, and most important among them is raising the rate of income support to $88 a day. We know that the rate of JobSeeker and other payments is too low, and we know that it needs to be increased. Here today is an opportunity to do that.

We also have an amendment to abolish mutual obligations. We've seen reporting about how these systems have failed to help the most vulnerable and instead have left people interacting with a baffling and at times cruel system. We can end it. We have amendments to provide earlier access to the age pension to help people who, in previous years, would have been able to access the age pension at 65 but now are no longer able to do so. Simply put, we think this could make a huge difference to thousands of older Australians who are eking out a living, surviving until they reach age pension age. This is particularly true for First Nations people who we know face a lower life expectancy.

We have an amendment to lower the age for JobSeeker from 22 to 18, and that, in combination with removing mutual obligations, would make a huge difference to thousands of students around the country. Too many people are forced to study full-time on payments that are inadequate. This would change that for them. Finally, we have an amendment to extend the work bonus to other income support groups. If people can enable those on the age pension to earn more before losing their income support, why can't we do it for people on JobSeeker or the DSP? That is a simple question that I want to put to everyone in this place.