Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to make a contribution on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (More Support in the Safety Net) Bill 2024. I echo the comments of my colleagues Senator Allman-Payne and Senator Shoebridge that this absolutely barely touches the sides when we talk about more support in the safety net. I also want to echo the acknowledgement of the amazing work of former Greens senators Janet Rice and Rachel Siewert, the baton they passed on to Senator Allman-Payne in the community services portfolio in our party, and the work that they did tirelessly—and I know Rachel continues to do that work in Perth—on raising the rate of income support to $88 a day.

Obviously, we on this side of the chamber will never stand in the way of a bill that delivers an increase in support for some people, but at the end of the day I want to reinforce from a Greens perspective that it is woefully inadequate to accept that $1.30 a day is providing more support. That's absolute rubbish, because the people that need that $1.30 a day need much more than that, and we've been campaigning for much more than that. They will barely even notice that $1.30 a day as a difference.

Only an increase in the base rate of income support will deal with Australia's poverty crisis, which is crippling the nation. People want to refer to it as a cost-of-living crisis. Well, it is, but it's also about poverty. It is the gap between the rich and the poor in this country, and it is widening. The people who need support from the lawmakers in this country—in this chamber and the other place—are going under, and they're doing it rapidly. They're not just doing it tough. As Senator Allman Payne already outlined, these are people who are barely surviving, in some of the most horrible, tragic situations—and not just them but their families. We have seen an increase in women sleeping in their cars with their children and in older women who have been subjected to poverty. As my colleagues have already said, JobSeeker is a starvation payment in this country. Millions of people in Australia are living in poverty and continue to live in poverty, and it's simply cruel. That is the only word that I can find to describe what is happening. When this government, which tells people, 'We're not going to leave people behind,' gives people a measly $1.30 a day, it's ridiculous and it is cruel.

As we know, the burden of poverty falls disproportionately on the shoulders of First Nations people in this country. Most of the indicators of poverty and related disadvantage show First Nations people are between two and three times worse off than non-Indigenous people in this country. For a population of less than half a million, it's pretty sad that we are two or three times as likely to be poor in our own country. That means that 30 per cent of Indigenous households across this country are in income poverty, which basically translates to about 120,000 Indigenous people who are living below the poverty line. They're not on it. They're not above it. They're underneath it. In this place we absolutely dismally fail to protect all Australians from poverty, particularly our most vulnerable people. We fail to help them out of the misery that unfortunately was created as part of history. In this place earlier today I sat and listened to people talk about how important it is to pay homage and to listen to history. Well, for us, there is a lot of history that has left us through colonisation which has now deeply entrenched our economic disadvantage in our own country.

I want to share this quote from a previous parliamentary inquiry into poverty. It says:

Not only is Indigenous poverty deeply entrenched, the causes are complex. … despite government policies directed toward achieving economic equality for Indigenous Australians, there has been little improvement to their relative socioeconomic status, according to standard social indicators.

It's the reason that we have what we call Closing the Gap in this country. But the harsh reality—and yesterday I introduced a bill on truth-telling into this place—is that our land was taken from us and our economic base was taken away. The legacy that we inherited as part of poverty remains with us today. In some cases and in some parts of the country, it is dismal and has actually accelerated. If this country has decided that it wants to close the gap, we cannot leave people in the kind of poverty that is destroying communities and exacerbating some of the social problems.

You come in here and talk about the social problems that are happening in black communities across the country—in fact, you love to have a bit of political ping-pong about it—but you're not willing to admit that Indigenous poverty is so deeply entrenched and persistent in our communities. No-one wants to work on that. It's in the too-hard basket. This also implies that improving the economic and social status of Indigenous people would actually require you, through bipartisan agreement, to have a long-term plan that you'll stick to and that you can all decide on. We need long-term government intervention that has innovative social models to ensure there's a higher degree of what we call grassroots engagement that is community controlled but not in the sense of where we are now. It's about making sure that we are truly involved in the development and implementation of the programs that are on the ground, because you're not listening. We're speaking into that void all of the time. We speak to a new government when there's a new government about the same issues we spoke to the last government about. That is why Indigenous communities, when we talk about the issue of poverty and its connection to social problems, are not willing to listen to that.

There's another quote I want to share from the same inquiry:

A future challenge for governments will involve implementing approaches that recognises the heterogeneity of Indigenous life influenced by the decisions made by Indigenous people in terms of how and where they want to live. These factors in turn affect how rapidly any progress might be made in improving the economic outlook for Indigenous people. The multifaceted and complex nature of Indigenous poverty suggests that approaches that merely mirror those for mainstream society, or advocate immediate outcomes, may risk failure.

That is the history of this nation, because, in this place, we still have governments that think it's great that, when it comes to income support—the majority of First Nations people, not all of us, are on income support, whether it be DSP, JobSeeker or youth allowance because we are not an ageing population; we're a youth population. We are still being slammed and getting a measly extra $1.30 a day.

What we know is that tackling poverty is a fundamental issue that should be front and centre in the minds of governments and also of First Nations people and non-Indigenous people. If the nation were meeting its obligation, an obligation to ensure that we have fair and equitable social, economic and cultural living standards for all citizens, we would be progressing and, as others in this block have already talked about—I think it was Senator Shoebridge—we wouldn't have a Treasurer standing up and talking about a surplus. We'd actually be helping Australians, all Australians, including First Nations people, to actually tackle the issue of poverty, but we're not.

We must increase the base level to a level that is above the poverty line. We've heard of people struggling to survive, and that survival becomes a full-time job. It is a full-time job. They can't make it to a job interview when they can't afford a bus fare, when they can't provide an address on a form, when they become homeless. These are the constant barriers. It doesn't matter where they turn, there is a barrier. Senator Allman-Payne, in her speech, has already talked about the knockbacks for housing that people coming into her electorate office get. Just how demoralising and soul-destroying that must be for people is beyond me. This government is not listening. The federal government plays such a pivotal role in this. In my home state of Western Australia I know firsthand that the frontline services are bearing the brunt of the emergency relief needs of our communities. In fact, many of our Greens offices, who are being sought out for emergency relief, are also finding themselves in that situation, and my office is doing that as well.

I just want to mention briefly the amazing comments that Senator Allman-Payne made in her speech. People who are watching out there may not have heard Senator Allman-Payne's personal account of working with the folks in her electorate and in Gladstone, where her office is, and also with the students whom she worked with as a teacher, but it was heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking to sit next to her in the chamber and see how emotional she was and it has been heartbreaking to see how much it has distressed people who are dealing with and working alongside our folks in communities. Penny, thank you for sharing the reality of this situation with this chamber today. Over in this block we're familiar with this, and I echo some of those same sentiments.

As a mother and as someone who grew up in poverty—I've worked two or more jobs and I've hustled my arse off to make sure that my kids didn't get into intergenerational poverty—the thing that burned in my brain the whole time Penny was talking about what was happening was that one in six children in this country is still living in poverty. We can never claim to be the lucky country that we are, because, if we do, we are seriously kidding ourselves. We are not the lucky country when one in six of our children is still living in poverty in Australia. I know there are many people across this chamber who have their own children and grandchildren. Think about that when you are in power in this place and you make government policy. What are you going to do to leave a legacy behind? It doesn't matter whether we're talking about rent, energy prices or prices at the till care of the supermarkets, this increase will be barely felt by those people, and it certainly isn't helping to shift the dial for that one in six children.

Below a certain income level, poverty breeds more poverty in a cycle which keeps people down. Income support in this country is below that certain level—and the Greens will keep fighting to make sure that we raise all income support payments in this country to the rate of the Henderson poverty line. If you don't know that, get out of your ivory tower and go and talk to the people sitting on the ground outside your offices and in the parks. Stop looking away from them. They want to tell you of the distress they're in because of poverty. Poverty is a political choice. In this place we should know better in order that we do better. It is incumbent upon us to look at this issue and stop looking away. An extra $1.30 is not enough. It is not enough. It's not going to hit the sides. It's barely going to make a difference. We can come together to do better.