Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for International Development and the Pacific (Senator Fierravanti-Wells) to a question without notice asked by Senator Siewert today relating to Newstart.

In question time today we heard the minister once again refuse to answer the question as to whether she could live on the Newstart allowance. She couldn't even answer the question—or wouldn't answer the question—as to whether she could live on the Newstart allowance plus the additional payments the government keeps using as an excuse to not raise Newstart.

Just last week, this place passed tax cuts. Tax cuts going to the highest-earning people in the community will almost—not quite; there's a little bit of a gap—pay the vast majority of somebody's Newstart allowance, which has not increased for over two decades. The government's constant refrain is that there are other, additional, payments that mean that Newstart is actually higher: 'Don't worry, folks. There are additional payments. People aren't living in poverty.' That is so patently untrue. For the vast majority of people on Newstart, the only supplement they get is the energy supplement—$4. I'm not arguing that that should be cut, but it is only $4. Even so, that $4 means a lot to somebody living below the poverty line, but the government wants to cut even that. The very excuse the government uses for not raising Newstart is that people are getting additional payments. It knows full well the vast majority of them are only getting the energy supplement, yet the government is saying that knowing full well that it has a plan to cut that payment on its books.

Thirty-eight per cent of people receiving Newstart also receive rent assistance because they pay private rent. The maximum payment is $67 a week for that, but they're paying exorbitant rent. I'd say every member in this chamber knows how hard it is to find affordable rental properties. I'd suggest that if they don't know that, they've been living under a rock and not paying an ounce of attention to the debates that have been going on in this place—not to mention the large media coverage on the lack of affordable housing. Anglicare recently produced their affordable snapshot that showed just how few properties there are available in terms of affordable housing for those living on very low incomes.

The other excuse the government use—and they used this one in estimates—is that the poverty line is a bit arbitrary and we can't say that all people are living below the poverty line if they're living on Newstart. I'm sure the government know very well—I'm giving them credit and the department credit that they know their facts about poverty in this country—that the poverty line is a very good substitute measure for measuring the deprivation that people live in. There's a very strong correlation between the research on deprivation, the various errors around deprivation and the poverty line. So we know very well that people in this country living on Newstart are living below the poverty line and that they are suffering deprivation.

There should be no argument about the fact that we need to increase Newstart and that that needs to happen now, immediately. This country can apparently afford to give tax cuts—although we argue that that's a very bad idea, and we argued in this place that that's a bad investment. A good investment would be to increase Newstart, because those already working would rather see that money invested in services, as would we. We want to see that money invested in public services and supports, because people want a good health system, they want a good education system and they want a good, strong social safety net.

Investing in Newstart also makes economic sense, because poverty is a barrier to employment. If we raise Newstart, we actually help people find work. Also, all that money will be directly invested back into the economy. We're giving those at the upper end of the scale— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.