Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to continue on this very important matter of public importance. At the outset, I want to comment on the two proceeding contributions. As always, the contribution from Senator Stoker was as dry economically as you can get—there is nothing to see here; there are no problems here; it is all sweetness and roses. Nothing could be further from the truth. Senator Siewert, at least in the short time I've been here, has been consistent on this platform. She has been consistent on the social platform of equity and opportunity for people who find themselves unfortunate enough to be attracting either Newstart or the myriad of other social security payments. She has carried that challenge right throughout the several parliaments that I've been a part of. I don't want her to be on her own in this argument, and I don't think she is on her own in this argument.

When you look at the statistics, in South Australia, as you may well be aware, Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, the statistics are simple and clear. There are 65,558 South Australians on Newstart, and we can look at where those people are. We know that Spence has 11,687 people on Newstart, the second-highest number in Australia, with only Lingiari, an electorate I'm sure my colleague Senator Dodson is well familiar with, having a higher number of people on Newstart. If you look at the seat of Grey, 9,382 persons are on Newstart. You can start to dig into this detail, and I'll go through South Australia. In Barker there are 6,804. In Kingston there are 6,590. Interestingly, in the metropolitan seat of Adelaide, there are 6,462. In the seat of Makin there are 5,951. In the seat of Hindmarsh there are 5,909. In Mayo there are 4,566. In Boothby there are 4,443. In the seat of Sturt there are 3,758.

There isn't a state or territory or, indeed, a federal electorate in Australia that doesn't have a reasonably large component of people on the Newstart system. We heard from the Hon. Mathias Cormann that it's a transition payment. But if you dig into that it is not true. There is a growing proportion of people who are on it for over 12 months. They're on $555-odd a fortnight if they're a single person. That is impossible. I don't even think we should be asking ourselves whether you could survive on $40 a day, because clearly 98 per cent of the community would have no hope of meeting their obligations in respect to shelter, food, public transport and the wherewithal for their children at that level. It's just impossible. In fact, the real question is: what level of support are people getting from family, friends and charities to allow them to subsist on that contribution? And how big is that growing proportion of people who are just falling out of shelter?

They're living in cardboard boxes on Swanston Street. They're sheltering in parks. I'm fond of a bit of exercise in the morning and it's not unusual, when you walk through a park in any city in Australia in the morning, to see people sleeping in it because that is the only place they can go. It may be the only safe haven they've got because the value of Newstart will not allow them a roof or shelter. We are not doing enough in this space. I don't know what the fiscal answer is or whether it's the suggestion by Senator Siewert and others of a $75 increase. I'm not sure that would make a huge difference, but I am sure of this: the parliament should be looking at the fundamental aspects of this, the underlying causes of this, the geographical spread of this.

Take Lingiari. If you're at Docker River or Lajamanu or Peppimenarti or Yuendumu, no-one is going to start a business up there tomorrow and offer you a job. That ain't going to happen. There is limited opportunity for employment; there is limited opportunity for training. These people are routinely thrown off Newstart because they didn't go to a job interview. Well, you can't go to a job interview that's not there! I well remember an estimates hearing with the secretary of Human Services saying how they stop people's payments and how they transacted this policy. I said, 'What do you do?' and they said, 'We write them a letter to say they haven't complied, and within 14 days their payment will be stopped.' I said, 'That's fine. The only problem I have is that the last time I was at Yuendumu I never saw any letterboxes, so where do those letters actually go? Do you know that they actually get to a person who is able to read it, comprehend what's going on and respond or are you just using some governance and due diligence process that turfs people off? Is it that, when they don't have any money and they've starved for a couple of days, they'll find someone who can interpret for them and you'll probably get a reaction? Is that what you're doing?' The answer was, 'No, Senator, we're not doing that.' The processes and the administration of the system for people who are so far behind the eight ball need to be looked at.

Senator Dodson is correct. We want to know who the beneficiaries are in this system. If an inordinate amount of tax dollars are spent in this area, how much is spent on governance, compliance and due diligence? Are people getting an income out of supplying the Indue card, or whatever the card or the flavour will be? Are people making money out of the administration of a deficient system? I have the very quaint view, I suppose, that perhaps government should look at private equity for some solutions. We can't keep doing the wrong thing. We can't keep doing the same thing and getting the same result. That's madness. We need to look at things in a much more innovative way. Are we able to break cycles of poverty, desperation and subsistence living with a different way of doing things? We all read widely and we get reports, and we know there are different ways of looking at this problem. We don't appear to have moved anywhere from: 'They appear to not be doing the right thing, so let's punish them.'

I am disturbed that, when you go a social worker in a Centrelink office, they will openly and honestly list the things that should be done to enable people to move to proper attendance at job interviews and have a chance of a successful interview. If their teeth are gone or their teeth are not repaired, they can't open their mouth, they can't smile or they can't talk properly, you're really asking a lot of someone to go to a number of job interviews. If they are suffering some psychosocial disability which is not being treated, it's going to be very difficult to move those people forward.

A person sticks in my mind. He was on the phone for 40 minutes in the Centrelink office. He took the phone and started banging it on the counter until someone came and interacted with him. The interaction he needed was some assistance for a bus fare to travel to Melbourne for his grandfather's funeral. The system we have is: 'Do not speak to a real person. Go to a computer, go to a phone and wait and wait and wait. I think the transitional arrangements are such that a lot of people don't wait; they go away, and they're counted as victories. The issue still remains. We really do need to do a whole lot better in this space.

I return to South Australia. In the seat of Spence there are 11,687 people who are on Newstart and youth allowance. That is an absolute disaster. That's almost 10 per cent of the federal electorate. If that's not an issue that should challenge every member of parliament, I don't know what is. And each one of those people would have friends and relatives—mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts—so there is a broad community knowledge of this. But the community is doing the right thing; otherwise we would see many more problems.

I think it is incumbent on this chamber and the other chamber to really lift our game in this space and to take a leaf out of some of our new senators' speeches. Why don't we work on what's possible across the chamber? Why are we engaged in political pointscoring on the most vulnerable in the community? I think it's a real tragedy and I'm deeply saddened by the fact that we do seem to pointscore over people who are in dire straits and need a leg-up, not a handout.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the matter of public importance before us today. Newstart is no longer a transition payment, and people receiving Newstart and youth allowance are living in poverty. That is the reality today. We know that Newstart is no longer a transitional payment. We know that 44 per cent of people who are on it are on it for more than two years at a time.

I want to say how proud I am of my Greens colleague Senator Rachel Siewert for her persistent and passionate work to make life better for those who are doing it tough. We know that Newstart, youth allowance and other support allowances are not enough. The single rate of Newstart is a mere $40 a day. Insufficient doesn't even begin to describe it. After paying their rent, Newstart recipients are left with $17 per day. No-one can live on that. Maybe the government senators here can tell me what they should go without—food? Electricity? Medicine? A roof over their head? Maybe you have some brilliant, innovative ideas on how someone forced to live without basic necessities can choose one which is more important than the other.

Our safety net is consistently being eroded, and people on income support are a target for ideological attacks and so-called savings. This is a national shame. You have no right to say, 'The best form of welfare is a job.' This is a line I'm so sick and tired of hearing from the Liberals, and yet we heard it again and again today from Senator Cash and Senator Stoker. It is patronising in the extreme. It is also particularly dishonest, because you refuse to recognise that poverty is a massive barrier to employment. Until people can eat, pay their rent, afford transport and access communications services such as a phone and the internet, they will be extremely limited in their ability to build a life and find employment. Newstart is too low to give people the support they desperately need to get through tough times. And with your refusal to raise Newstart, you are condemning people to cycle upon cycle of poverty.

Instead of coming up with good, evidence-based public policy, this government has come up with ineffective and punitive programs like Work for the Dole, jobactive and ParentsNext, which actually demonise people. These programs force everyone who is struggling into a one-size-fits-all model. Evidence has repeatedly shown that these do not work and that they're causing serious harm. We need approaches that fit individual circumstances and respond to barriers people face, particularly for young people, older Australians, people with disability and First Nations people.

Instead of having compassion, the government is using some of the most vulnerable people in the country as political footballs. The Liberals have chosen to take an ideological approach to unemployment, framing it as a personal moral failing of individuals, rather than addressing the systemic issues such as poverty, intergenerational trauma and job-market conditions. Even 27 years ago, as a new migrant, when I relied on the dole to get by, it was hard to live on those support payments, and it is shocking that, despite the skyrocketing cost of living, the rate of Newstart has not risen in real terms in over two decades.

Senator Rachel Siewert has been sharing the experiences of people on Newstart in this chamber almost every week. So you really don't need much more evidence to know that people are really struggling. You don't even need to go very far to get this information.

The Prime Minister has taken to using abhorrent terms like 'unfunded empathy' when referring to an increase in Newstart. The Liberals certainly find the money when they need to subsidise fossil fuels and they can certainly find the money when they sign-off on massive tax cuts for big corporations, so how come there is no money for the most vulnerable people who need it?

The parliament has the chance to make a real, concrete difference to people's lives and ensure that no-one is forced to live in poverty in Australia.

The Greens have been calling on the government to raise Newstart for years. The Liberal government should know that there's a growing number of us in this place, and out there in the community, who will not stop until we make sure that every Australian can live a life of dignity.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No-one is saying that it's easy to get by without a job, which is why the Morrison government is squarely focused on job creation to help working age Australians gain financial independence. We're delivering results with more than 1.3 million jobs created since we were elected, which is about 240,000 a year—compared to just 155,000 a year, on average, under Labor.

Newstart is a taxpayer funded allowance that provides a safety net for people while they look for a job, and has already increased twice a year every year in line with CPI. The government's approach to assisting people on Newstart is focused on our success in getting people off welfare payments and into a job. Around two-thirds of those granted Newstart get off the payment within 12 months. Everyone who receives Newstart is eligible for some form of additional assistance from the welfare system. Ninety-nine per cent of Newstart allowance recipients receive an additional supplementary payment such as rental assistance, parenting payments or the energy supplement, which works out to an average extra $130 a fortnight on top of the $555 base rate.

Welfare cost more than $172 billion in 2018-19, representing more than $1 in $3, or 35 per cent of all spending by the government. It is the responsibility of government to ensure our social security and welfare systems are sustainable into the future, so that it continues to provide support for those most in need.

As the PM said last year, 'If the government had the money to raise Newstart I reckon I would be doing it for pensioners first.'

The Labor Party played a cruel joke in the lead-up to the election by claiming that they would review the rate of Newstart but did not budget for any of its increase.

Australia has a strong safety net for those that need it most. Few countries provide the strong safety net that we have in Australia. The welfare system is funded by taxpayers and needs to be managed responsibly. The responsibility extends to taxpayers who are paying for our welfare bill now and to the future generations who will have to meet the cost of the system in the decades to come. This means the system must be fair and sustainable.

The Morrison government recognises that there are times when people need a safety net to help them when they're down on their luck. In Australia, we have a very comprehensive and targeted welfare system that is there to assist those who are doing it tough. At the same time, we have to be fair to taxpayers, as well as to welfare recipients, because we have to understand that every dollar that is spent on welfare is a contribution from the taxpayer. There is no magic pudding. The money has to come from somewhere. We want a fair go for taxpayers. That's why our welfare system needs to be targeted to those who need it; not those who would like to have it. It needs to be targeted, sustainable and in line with community expectations.

In order to help people who are doing it tough in the future it's the responsibility of the government to ensure that the welfare system is sustainable. With the Morrison government's economic management it is important to ensure that we have a social safety net that we can rely on, so it continues to provide the support to those that need it the most and who will rely on into the future. The government wants a welfare system that supports our most vulnerable and encourages those who are capable of work or study to do so. Most importantly, it reduces intergenerational welfare dependency. We also need to ensure that the system is sustainable into the future. The wellbeing of vulnerable Australians remains a high priority for the Morrison government. Around $29 billion is invested each year to support families through family tax benefit, childcare payments and paid parental leave. Over $827 million is invested in the 2019-20 year through the Department of Social Services' Families and Communities Program to support vulnerable families, improve children's wellbeing, reduce the cost of family breakdown, improve financial capability and literacy, and build strong and resilient communities. The Department of Social Services provides around $2 billion to more than 8,000 organisations that are specifically set up to help our most vulnerable Australians.

The Morrison government's focus on a strong economy is working. We're delivering the job opportunities Australians need. This government has seen the largest increase in jobs since the global financial crisis, with more than 1.3 million jobs since we were elected. The proportion of Australians receiving working-age income support payments has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years, at 14.3 per cent. There were 230,000 fewer working-age recipients on income support payments in June 2018, compared to June 2014. More than 100,000 young Australians between the ages of 15 and 24 found jobs—that is the highest number in Australia's history. To put that into perspective, 52,000 jobs were lost in the same category between November 2007 and August 2013. This means tax relief for 10 million taxpayers.

Those opposite played a cruel joke on Australians in the lead-up to the election, claiming that they would review the rate of Newstart but doing nothing to budget for its increase. Labor voted in the Senate against the motion to increase the rate of Newstart as recently as 4 July 2019. Prior to the election, their policy was a review, and then a review, with no 'view' of lowering the rate. Labor have not been clear in what they offer to people trying to get off welfare and into work. When it comes to welfare spending, the difference between the coalition and Labor is that only the coalition is able to maintain the sustainability of the welfare system. When Labor were in office, the rate of increase in spending on welfare far outpaced the rate of growth in tax revenue. Labor's position on this important welfare payment changes almost every day. This flip-flopping started in the lead-up to the election, when Labor claimed they would review the rate of Newstart, but, as I said, did nothing to budget for its increase.

No-one is saying that it would be easy to live on Newstart. The government understands this. It understands that Australians are doing it tough. Newstart is a safety net. It's not meant to be a replacement of salary. The focus of Newstart, combined with our government's additional supports and programs, is to help people who find themselves on hard times, to support them to get back into the workforce. Whether it's Work for the Dole or Youth Jobs PaTH—which is a fantastic program that all employers across Australia should think about getting on board with, because it's an opportunity for them to connect with young people that just want to have a crack and get entrance into the workplace. We're helping Australians to get a job so that they can earn a wage that creates a better future for them and their families. The Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey shows little net change in income inequality between 2001 and 2017. Indeed, it has come down slightly under the coalition from 0.304 to 0.302, with a lower number indicating lower levels of inequality. The survey shows that the proportion of the population below the relative poverty line has fluctuated over time but the broad trend has been downwards.

In conclusion, as I said in my first speech last night, I've had a long experience working with some of Australia's most vulnerable people and helping them find work. I've never been unemployed for a great period of time, so it's true I haven't walked in the shoes myself, but I've walked alongside a lot of people who have. I'm really committed to improving the system that helps people get off welfare and into work. It's one of the things that I bring into this place, and I'll be looking forward to working with the government to ensure that we do what we can to get more people off welfare and into work.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is one thing and one thing alone that keeps the Newstart rate in Australia low, and that is the moral judgement of Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Every party in this chamber except the one that he leads and his supplicant party in the National Party supports a raise to Newstart. In fact, some of them have started to have the courage to speak out. I heard some pretty mealy-mouthed contributions in the Senate this afternoon on this subject and I imagine we're going to hear a few more this evening. There are even members of his own party who believe that we need to raise the rate of Newstart. Senator Sinodinos has had a bit to say on the subject. The bloke that they idolise, the former Prime Minister John Howard, whose opinion I imagine should be taken account of in the Liberal Party, has had a bit to say about the subject. Former leaders of the Liberal Party have been out in the community talking about the need to raise Newstart. But this show over here can't find it in its heart to raise the rate.

We could start that process immediately, not with resolutions in the Senate but with changes to regulation and legislation. But there is one man in the way, one man who refuses to admit that Newstart is too low. The words can't escape his mouth. There are formulations like, 'I know it would be difficult,' and, 'I can't imagine that it would be easy.' Those are the sorts of mealy-mouthed contributions. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is going to stand in the way of lifting the rate to Newstart until he's dragged kicking and screaming to the conclusion that the government can't do anything else.

We have to ask the question: why? What's stopping him? He has the numbers in this parliament. He has support within his own party. If he was concerned about the fiscal impacts of raising Newstart, why not commence a review? He hasn't hesitated before making other choices that have had an impact on the budget position of the Commonwealth—for example, stage 3 tax cuts. The Grattan Institute says that in 2025, towards the end of the 2020s, there will need to be expenditure cuts in the range of $40 billion per annum. There is no hesitation for tax cuts for high-income earners. There is no hesitation making the choice to drive the agenda for corporate tax cuts, which again would have had a significant impact upon the fiscal capacity of the Commonwealth.

This is the Prime Minister for a political stunt. He is prepared to cough up 1½ billion dollars of Commonwealth expenditure to reopen Christmas Island just for a press conference and to try to make a political point. He's all heart and all courage when it comes to his own interests but he's got no capacity for empathy with ordinary Australians who find themselves unemployed. It comes down to a question of moral judgement. He either believes that Newstart recipients deserve the indignity of living on $40 a day or he believes that he should ignore them. He thinks that he can ignore them because in Scott Morrison's Australia everybody is a winner. The government is on your side, apparently, but only if we ignore the people who don't matter to him. Because, in his Australia, nobody is poor, that he can see; nobody is unemployed; nobody is ever laid off; nobody is homeless; and nobody ever goes hungry. According to this lot over here, everything is going really well, and if these things do happen to people, well, they just don't matter. They have no place in his moral imagination. I had a few things to say about Scott Morrison and unfunded empathy last night, and I thank the chamber for being accommodating about it. I said that his remarks were grotesque, cowardly and dishonest—

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order has been called.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Could you direct the speaker to address people in the other place in the correct manner.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would ask the member to address people in the other House by their correct titles.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very grateful for his intervention, because he is absolutely correct. What the Prime Minister said was grotesque, cowardly and dishonest and an insult to the one million Australians trapped in poverty and unemployment.

A first speech is an important occasion in the parliament. It's an opportunity to say what you really think, and it's an opportunity to say what the right course is for the country. I think it's worth returning to the Prime Minister's first speech, which he gave to the House of Representatives on 14 February, 2008, following his election in Cook. Incidentally, that was the very moment that he switched his support from the Sydney Roosters to the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks in another craven attempt to suck up to the people of Cook. Here is what he said:

From my faith I derive the values of loving-kindness, justice and righteousness, to act with compassion and kindness, acknowledging our common humanity and to consider the welfare of others…

He went on to quote Desmond Tutu, of all people. He said:

... we expect Christians ... to be those who stand up for the truth, to stand up for justice, to stand on the side of the poor and the hungry, the homeless and the naked, and when that happens, then Christians will be trustworthy believable witnesses.

He's happy to talk about compassion and welfare when it is easy, when it is rhetoric and when it doesn't mean anything to the one in 10 households that live in poverty, but, when it comes to the substantial business of taking care of the poor, he has only unfunded empathy. It's an appearance. It's a performance. It's a line for the cameras and for the radio. The Prime Minister is a hollow man with hollow words.

The Newstart rate of $40 a day is not dignity. It's destitution. It's pushing people further into poverty. It's actively preventing them from getting work. Seven hundred and twenty two thousand Australians and their families rely upon the Newstart rate. I've seen what this means for working people. Working people who've lost their jobs are on average on Newstart for three years. Workers that have been left behind by change in the economy deserve a bit of dignity.

Fifty thousand workers were left behind by the closure of the auto industry, as were thousands of workers in other manufacturing sectors. Of course, factory closures have been a feature of this government. The evidence shows that when a factory closes one-third of workers get another job, one-third of workers retire and one-third never work again. Twenty-five per cent of Newstart recipients are over 55—that's nearly 200,000 Australians. Council of The Ageing's CEO, Ian Yates, said:

There are more unemployed workers between 55 and 64 than any other group of Australians and they receive Newstart income support payments longer than any other group as well.

They're condemned for the rest of their working-age life to $40 a day and a regime of weekly, punitive interventions. Newstart is too low to allow these workers to rebuild their lives. It's too hard. Social security should deliver a measure of dignity to people, and a capacity to rebuild their lives and get into work.

For Australians in tough positions, facing $40-a-day Newstart makes their lives worse. Single parents who have been shifted off the single-parent benefit—the result, I have to say, of a decision by a previous government—are in a terrible position. They face the declining ability to pay for household expenses; the prospect of homelessness; insecurity; big challenges like finding shoes to put on their children's feet and finding clothes for them to go to school—the terrible stress that that presents to those families: no jobs, no support, $40 a day. It's a much tougher row to hoe for people in rural and regional Australia, who, apparently, some people on the other side still care about: $40 a day, no hope, no dignity, no job.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The eradication of poverty should be the highest moral imperative of all of us in this place. When people go hungry, when kids have no place to sleep at night, when folks are trapped under systems and processes which place them in danger, in fear, they should be able to look to this place and know that, while the lights are on in this building, there are people working to help. And yet, for 24 long years, on the issue of Newstart, the very opposite has been the case.

We have wasted decade after decade in this place ignoring the voices of folks living in poverty and ignoring the experts that work in the social policy space. In that time, we have allowed a great crisis to develop in Australia's communities: the crisis of entrenched intergenerational poverty, with folks trapped in a daily struggle that nobody in this place can picture or even imagine. It has been within our power all of these years to do something about it, and yet we have failed.

I want to talk a little bit tonight about what sits at the heart of that failure, because it's something that disabled people experience really acutely. What sits at the heart of this failure is a belief that, if you live in poverty, it is because of your own moral failing—that poverty is a result of your own failure to be a good person, your failure to 'have a go and get a go', as that sentient bag of flour in the other place so eruditely puts it. This ideology, this vicious belief that poverty is the result of a personal failing, is something which we disabled people suffer acutely. There are 200,000 of us that are living on Newstart right now, and we are first to suffer at the hands of this idea that says, 'Oh, you're just making it up.' We must be. We're faking a bad back, we're putting it on with a walking-stick, we're faking our mental ill-health because we want to be on social welfare! We want to be on the DSP! We want to be on Newstart! If only somebody took the rod out of the cupboard and were willing to give us a hard-enough kick, we'd be able to find ourselves a job somewhere! The result of that thought process is that 50 per cent of disabled people in Australia live below the poverty line. We live below the poverty line.

It is a national disgrace that inaction in the face of poverty has become government policy in this country. It is given moral and ethical sanction every day in this place by the repetition of those tired and empty slogans that we hear from the government in this place every single day. There will come a day when this chamber finally moves to act on this issue and at that moment we collectively will owe an apology to all those who we failed during these last 24 years and who suffered as a result. We must now take this opportunity to move on this issue, to do the right thing and to ensure that no Australian is trapped within a system that is letting them down and driving them further into destitution and poverty. I thank the chamber for its time.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the discussion has expired.