Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Before I start dealing with the Ending Poverty in Australia (Antipoverty Commission) Bill 2023 before us, I acknowledge the work done over a long period by my colleague Senate Siewert and followed on by Senator Rice in relation to poverty in this country. I acknowledge that they have set the agenda in this space and continue to push governments of all persuasions to deal with an issue that really shouldn't be happening in a country as well-off as ours.

I heard earlier this morning in some of the other contributions that poverty is complex, and I certainly don't discount that there are aspects of poverty that do require really complex solutions. But we also know that some things are really simple. We had the world's real-time experiment during the COVID pandemic. We doubled the rate of JobSeeker overnight and we heard story after story of how that transformed people's lives. People who couldn't afford to put food on the table suddenly could. We heard stories of people who could afford fresh fruit and vegetables for the first time in a long time instead of subsisting on two-minute noodles. We heard tell us that they could buy new uniforms and shoes for their kids at school when they previously couldn't. They went and got their teeth fixed because previously they couldn't afford to go to the dentist. You can't tell me that you can push that all aside and say, 'This problem is really complex and hard and we can't do the things that we already know will work to transform people's lives quickly.'

I also heard in previous contributions that this bill can't be supported because it duplicates things that already exist. I listened to the contribution of my colleague, and I heard Senator Rice say that this is about putting forward concrete ideas for how what is being proposed can be significantly improved. That's not taking the simple approach. That's acknowledging that some parts of this are complex and we need a body that can deal with that in a manner which it deserves.