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

The Ending Poverty in Australia (Antipoverty Commission) Bill 2023 is an incredibly important, constructive step towards ending poverty in Australia. If passed, the proposed antipoverty commission would provide parliament with independent and transparent advice on the causes of poverty in Australia and how to reduce it, and would advise on the minimum levels for social security payments, including JobSeeker, the parenting payment, youth allowance, the age pension and the disability support pension.

We know the need for this commission. It's because successive governments have used the lack of a national definition of poverty, which this antipoverty commission would create, as an excuse to keep people living on inadequate income support payments. We need a national definition of poverty, one that takes into account different needs and contexts, and one that the government can be held accountable to. By setting up an independent commission which would have that responsibility and which would provide advice to government, we would increase the transparency. It means that we could take real action to know the extent of the problem and what needs to be done about it.

But, of course, it's the Greens who are putting forward this bill; that's because we want to have that independence, transparency and integrity in how government decisions are made. This week in parliament we have seen that the Labor government has some major issues when it comes to dealing with transparency in politics. Establishing more truly independent bodies to advise government is an important starting point. This antipoverty commission, if established, would have the same standing as the Productivity Commission or the ACCC. It would be a trusted source of independent advice to government—independent advice that governments would ignore at their peril.

I do want to acknowledge that the idea for this commission builds upon the work that has been done by the interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, which was established before the last budget. At the moment this is a temporary committee. It published a report in April which builds upon their work and the advocacy of unemployed advocates, social service organisations and academics. The report contains really important evidence about economic disadvantage in Australia. The report found that, apart from a temporary boost during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the JobSeeker payment has been declining relative to median incomes and other Centrelink payments for decades. It articulated what the Greens, people on income support and many others already knew: the rate of JobSeeker is completely inadequate.

The committee put forward a suite of important recommendations for the government to reduce economic inequality in Australia. But as committee member and associate professor at the Australia National University Ben Phillips highlighted, the most pressing concern and the most important for immediate policy action is to substantially increase the JobSeeker payment. The report recommended that the government commit to a substantial increase in the base rates of JobSeeker and related working-age payments as a first priority, and suggested that increasing the rate to 90 per cent of the age pension would improve adequacy. Despite this salient and pressing recommendation by Labor's own Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, in the last budget the Albanese government decided to raise the rate of JobSeeker by just $4 a day. Four dollars a day is not the substantial increase that the committee recommended. Four dollars a day can't even buy a coffee, let alone pay someone's rent, groceries and medical expenses.

We know that poverty is a political choice, and right now the Labor government is choosing to keep millions of Australians on income support well below the poverty line. We know that the government is now committed to introducing a permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee before the next budget. If this permanent committee is established then maybe the government would feel the need to pay more attention to its recommendations. What we believe, as Greens, is in setting up a truly independent commission rather than a committee, when the government seems able to just ignore its advice. A truly independent committee is what's needed.

The bill that I am putting forward to the parliament today is a template. It's a model. It is what, in fact, we would like to see in the government's permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. We would prefer to see an antipoverty commission, with the true independence that a commission has. I would love to see this bill passed. It probably isn't going to be passed today. Given that and given that we know the government intends to establish a permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee before the next budget—given that we expect to see legislation to do that at some stage before the end of the year—we are, by presenting this bill, offering to the government what we think needs to be included in that permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee legislation, which we understand we will see in the coming months.

We need to ensure that if government makes an increase like the tiny increase made to JobSeeker before the last budget—there may be a bigger increase from the work of the permanent committee before the next budget—it's told we need more than that. We need to know that there is actually a really strong, independent body of advice that will be listened to and that the government would then take on board, ensuring that payment rates on income support are adequate so that people aren't living in poverty in the future. We cannot allow the one-off increase we've had this year—we might get a one-off increase again next year—to be an excuse for further decades of inaction.

In my roles as the chair of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee's inquiry into the extent and nature of poverty in Australia and chair of our inquiry into the worsening rental crisis in Australia, I have been hearing time and time again about the devastating impact of poverty on individuals and communities. We've heard how poverty prevents people from connecting with their friends and communities, how inadequate income support payments mean people have to leave their studies, and how some people can't afford to eat high-quality food, even though they know they have deficiencies in their diet. Just yesterday, Suicide Prevention Australia released a report saying that more than half of Australian families are reporting higher than normal distress due to the rising cost of living. Suicide Prevention Australia's community tracker found families were twice as likely as others nationally to call the frontline suicide prevention service for help. They also told us that in the last year the rate of suicide has increased by seven per cent. These are the real impacts of poverty. In our hearings into the rental crisis, we've heard that the number of people accessing homelessness surveys has also increased by seven per cent in the last year. This is the real human cost of poverty.

As the cost of living continues to soar, we must do everything in our power to ensure that communities are kept out of poverty and out of financial distress. If we do nothing, the consequences are devastating. Many of those consequences won't become apparent for many years. That's because by making a political choice to leave people in poverty now we are not only letting down millions of Australians but also abandoning future generations. There are countless children—one in six—living in poverty. They should be enjoying their studies and playing with their friends; instead, they're worrying about their next meal. Activities like sport and music are out of reach. How can they even consider these luxuries when affording food is a daily struggle? We've heard so many stories of what the impact of poverty on people is. Bonnie, who receives a JobSeeker payment, told me:

My life sucks. I pretty much don't go anywhere or do anything as I can't afford to as well as not wanting to because I have been suffering debilitating depression, anxiety, insomnia and a host of other medical issues so only really feel safe at home. I have nothing to look forward to. I find it hard to even communicate with friends as when they ask about what I've been up to, I don't want to lie but I also don't want to tell them about the dumpster fire my life has become. My unit has been sold twice in just over a year (currently for sale) and my rent has gone up twice in the time and will go up again in August (if I am lucky to be living in the same place … I have lived in my unit for just over 12 years and am terrified of what might happen in the next few months. I have no control over anything and the uncertainty leaves me in a constant state of stress, depression and anxiety. I barely sleep; my blood sugar is out of whack, and I am miserable.

This is the human cost of poverty. The Greens of course support the concept and the work done by the Interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee; however, we believe that the original framework does not go far enough to address poverty in Australia. The idea of an independent body is to provide clear advice to parliament on the issue of poverty, and it's something the Greens have long been advocating for.

Our antipoverty commission has a number of distinct features that we think are critical to establishing an effective, independent body to tackle poverty and inequality in Australia. These include an explicit focus on addressing poverty in its name and framework and a clear requirement for the development of a national poverty line. There would be a requirement for government to publicly respond to recommendations made by the independent commission, a clear requirement for legislated reviews of income support payments and the poverty line, and an independent parliamentary committee that would scrutinise appointments to the commission. We want to ensure that this isn't just another body that the major parties stack with retired ministers and staffers. We need people with skills, expertise and knowledge of poverty to guide policy, and a focus on lived experience that enables people with direct experience of poverty to be commissioners.

For far too long governments have used the lack of a nationally accepted measure of poverty to dodge responsibility for the inadequacy of income support payments. This is how the Labor government were able to ignore the explicit recommendations of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and how they will continue to continue to keep people on income support in poverty. We urgently need a national definition of poverty, one that takes into account a diversity of needs and contexts and one that the government can be held accountable to. Multiple times on committees over the past year I have discussed and asked questions about why we don't have a national definition of poverty. Basically, the answer I get back from government is: 'It's too complex. We can't possibly do it.' That is just not good enough. Yes, it is complex. Yes, it may need to be multifaceted; in fact, it almost certainly will be. But we can do it, and we should do it so we have a benchmark for what the poverty line actually is.

Another important part of our bill is the focus on lived experience. Successive governments have implemented policies that fail to take into account the experiences and knowledge of people experiencing poverty. Enabling people with lived experience to be commissioners of the antipoverty commission will ensure that these voices are heard. This bill is a significant benchmark and an important part of the longer work that is needed to end poverty in Australia.

Another example of the need was articulated in the ACOSS report, released earlier this week, on the inadequacy of income support. There was a further report earlier in the week. Poverty is a critical issue that our country is facing at the moment. The ACOSS report found that inadequate income support payments push people to cut their food intake, that most people reported taking steps to reduce their energy use, and that 64 per cent went without other essentials, like food and medication, to afford their energy bill.

Poverty is a fundamental issue that, as a caring society, we need to deal with. I often think about the time when I was a young adult, in the 1980s, and I went overseas. I went to Europe and, for the first time in my life, saw homeless people on the streets. I remember thinking: 'I'm so glad we haven't got that in Australia. We haven't got people who are homeless and destitute in Australia.' We are a much richer country than we were then, in the eighties, yet the conditions some people are living in are just appalling. When we look at people who are homeless, people who are destitute, people who can't afford to put food on the table, it is a political choice that we're making to have those people there.

This bill goes further than the interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. It sets out a clear framework for a robust and independent body to tackle poverty. I urge my colleagues, particularly the government colleagues, to use this bill as a benchmark to assess the legislation for the establishment of the permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, to ensure that we have the best chance of eradicating poverty in Australia. The Greens will certainly be using what's in this bill as a blueprint for our deliberations when we see that legislation over the coming months.