Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Workforce Incentive) Bill 2022 will enable eligible social security pensioners over age pension age and certain veteran entitlement recipients over qualifying age to earn up to another $4,000 before the income tax test is applied and their payments affected. This will occur through a $4,000 increase in the work bonus unused concession balance for each eligible recipient and a $4,000 increase to the maximum unused concession balance until 30 June 2023.

For years now One Nation has been fighting for an increase to the age pension and more opportunities for pensioners to earn additional income. Actually, it was just prior to the last election that the issue of pensioners being able to earn extra money took pride of place in one of my cartoons, Please Explain, and it was well received by the public. They loved it. The government is to be acknowledged and commended for adopting our policy. Thank you. It's years too late, but you've adopted it. It wasn't on your agenda prior to the election. Maybe you watched my cartoon, and it gave you a little hint about where you should go to look after our pensioners in Australia.

With the need to increase Australian workforce participation becoming more urgent, allowing pensioners to earn more without penalty made all kinds of sense long before now. A person's utility in the economy does not end at retirement age. The knowledge, experience, industry and work ethic of many Australians at this age are substantial economic assets we can ill-afford to leave untapped. This can be applied to many industries and economic sectors that are screaming for skilled workers.

It is simply better for this nation that Australian jobs are done by Australians instead of outsourcing them to a flood of overseas workers who we cannot accommodate sustainably. We are going to bring over 200,000 people into the country. The additional income earned by age pensioners will largely be spent in our economy and in our communities, especially regional communities. In many cases today it is income that our oldest population really needs given there is very little else the government is doing about their rising costs of living and soaring interest rates. Older Australians will enjoy not only additional income without penalty but also potential health benefits from remaining active in the workforce longer, like members of parliament. They're active in the workforce. This will potentially have the flow-on effect of reducing public health and aged-care costs in the long term.

One Nation completely supports this legislation and looks forward to its passage, apart from the fact that the government are stipulating it's only until 30 June 2023. So I'll tell the age pensioners out there, 'You have seven months at this stage, but then it depends on the passage and assent of this bill how much time you really do have to go and make your $76.92 a week, regardless of the inflation rate of eight per cent, what you are paying extra in rent, what you are paying extra in food and what you are paying extra for your medication.' Oh, no, that's right—the government took another policy of mine to actually reduce the PBS. I suggested it be to $19.50, which we could afford, but the government made it $32. They did reduce it, I have to say that, but again it's another One Nation policy they've taken.

The fact is that pensioners have given of themselves for this country. They are living in poverty. A lot of them can't even eat properly and buy the food that they need, and the government think that they've done a wonderful thing for them to allow them to earn $76.92 a week until June next year. I would like to know what skin it would be off the government's nose if we allowed this to continue. Why are they not making this unlimited? We shouldn't be putting a time limit on it. Why June next year? Why is there a time limit?

We have a shortage of workers in this country. We have known that grey nomads actually work. They travel around the country and do the picking of fruit that we can't get workers for. These people will want to get out to work, but a lot of them won't because of the part-pension provisions that they will lose. Even more important to them is that they will lose their health benefits. That is more important to them than a few dollars. You will gain more out of it because a lot of them won't be sitting in their homes going through depression, not knowing what do with themselves, feeling useless to society, let alone to themselves, and this would give them such an improvement in their health issues that we should be taking it up.

I'll tell you what—these age pensioners are damn good workers. I know because I employed them. How many people in this chamber have run their own business and employed staff? How many? Most of them haven't even owned their own businesses. They have never employed staff. They have gone through the unions. They have actually gone through the political universities and all the rest of it. They ended up here in office and became politicians. They wouldn't know what it's like to be in the real world. They have no idea what it is like to struggle, and yet they are putting these stipulations on pensioners. I don't know why they even bothered in the first place if they were only going to do it for about six or seven months. Why bother? What was the big game plan? Was it to get a pat on the back from people out there that they really are looking after pensioners? I don't see it. It is a great step, but I think that you need to actually get rid of it finishing up in June 2023.

The other thing is that the government must now turn its attention to incentivising the more than 900,000 Australians currently receiving unemployment benefits. The worker and skills shortage demands that we do more to address long-term unemployment and get people who are capable of working into jobs that are going begging. The incentives have already been taken care of. Governments provide generous subsidies for relocating for work, and businesses are offering things like sign-on bonuses and free accommodation.

What is needed is an additional push, and that is: to reduce what unemployment benefits can be claimed over a set period. One Nation's policy is that unemployment benefits should only be available for two years in every five, and not in one straight go. A person might get a job for six months and then can't work anymore after that for another two or three months, and then work for another 10 months and then have a break. There's only two years of benefits.

We might then start to address the unemployment benefit that's paid out to over 900,000 people in this country—people who are now the fourth generation who are on welfare; people who have made themselves unemployable by their appearance, by their dress, but not only by that. We are failing them, as a nation, because a lot of these people can't get jobs because they can't even read or write properly. And we just keep propping them up by giving them a welfare payment.

There was one fellow who got a job and he came home and was proud to tell his parents. His father abused him for getting a job, because he'd actually shamed his father by getting that job. So what he did was: he threw his job in. Is this what we really want?

People have to start being responsible for themselves and their own actions and stand on their own two feet. As Senator Pocock said, people in this country need a helping hand. Yes, they do. That's what it's about—it's about a helping hand. It is not a way of life.

And to both sides of this chamber, whether on the Labor or the coalition side: you have not addressed the real concerns out in our society, because you don't want to upset these people because you're going to lose the vote. Well, until you address this, we're not going to look after these people who are on welfare payments—people who take it for granted and think it's their God-given right to receive this unlimited amount of money. But it's not only welfare payments. On top of that, their health is all paid for. Then there's every other benefit, like rental assistance and everything else that these people get.

But it's at a cost, which the taxpayers have to keep working to pay for. One taxpayer in Australia on $80,000 supports one welfare recipient. If we've got increasing costs and we're hitting $1 trillion in debt, something has to give. You can't have an increasing NDIS. You cannot have increasing childcare expenses—now with $4½ billion on top of it—of $10 billion a year. We can't keep affording this at all.

And yet you are so miserly in your evaluation, to allow pensioners to earn an extra $4,000 on top of it—and only till June next year, mind you. They're not going to be a drain on our society. Actually, a lot of these pensioners would be able to help their families who have their own businesses and can't get workers. They would gladly go and help them and work for them. It would give them some incentive in their lives. And I think that's what's needed.

I think this was poorly thought out. I think you're being tokenistic. And I don't think that you're being fair dinkum with this at all.

So, in addition to making unemployed people more accountable for taxpayer funded income and providing a strong push into the workforce, it would effectively reduce the cost to taxpayers by 60 per cent over five years. And once again, I'll tell you what our bill is for welfare: $228.8 billion—not 'million', 'billion'—a year. That's what we're paying. How do you intend to address that?

Once again, it would put Australians into Australian jobs instead of outsourcing them to overseas workers—or is that your whole plan? Is that what you want to do: to keep people in Australia on welfare so it gives you the right to open up the floodgates and bring workers in from overseas? Instead of bringing in unsustainable numbers of immigrants to address our skills shortage, we must prioritise those Australians who are capable of working but currently are not.

We have a rental and housing crisis and a public health system under enormous demand. Bringing in an additional 200,000-plus people per year can only make these problems worse, not better. It is also completely inconsistent with this Labor government's obsession with reducing emissions to net zero—a phrase they cannot even explain in layman's terms.

In summary, this bill is a good first step to increasing Australian workforce participation—but only a first step. We've got to do all we can to get more Australians into jobs and work and paying their way, instead of propping them up when they're not taking responsibility for their own actions, and putting a roof over their own head. As I've always said: if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day; if you teach him how to fish you feed him for a lifetime.

We are a prosperous nation. This nation has been built on the hard work of taxpayers. But, I'm telling you now, the taxpayers have had a gutful. They can't afford it anymore. The escalating costs due to government policies have put us in this position. Your emissions trading scheme and what you're doing here, zero net emissions, will put more strain on everyday Australians. So take the pressure off the neck of the age pensioners out there. Give them unlimited access to earn what they want to earn. They will pay their taxes on it after a certain amount. And do not put a time limit on it of June next year.

Look after our independent retirees, who we don't talk about. These people have contributed to this country. They have gone without. They have saved and made their investments, and now they can't get any assistance or help apart from maybe a bit of health care. Look after those people who have contributed to this country. But you don't. You're too busy worrying about the migrants and looking after them, making sure they're housed and have jobs and have everything done for them.

What about the Australian people? These Australians have worked and fought for this nation. They have gone without and built the country that we have today. I'm proud to be part of this country and to call this land my own. Thanks to those Australians who have given me what I enjoy today.