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

I want to speak today about the South Melbourne Centrelink office, which Services Australia have announced will close in October. This closure is going to have a major impact on so many residents in South Melbourne and surrounding areas. By closing this office, Services Australia is making it harder for constituents to access the help they need. People on Centrelink payments are already doing it incredibly tough, and it's about to go from bad to worse. Not only are income support payments way below the poverty line, but now it is going to be much for tougher for many of those who are accessing those inadequate payments. it would be that much tougher for many of them.

The closure of the South Melbourne Centrelink office will mean that people seeking help in person will need to spend more time in travelling to other offices and to pay for that travel—travel expenses they just can't afford. Local resident and retired community worker Kerry has told me that the closure of the South Melbourne Centrelink office will mainly affect the most vulnerable and marginalised locals—homeless people, those with disabilities, some older people and others who lack access to digital devices or simply find them challenging. Kerry notes that homeless people flock to the inner city due to the abundance of services. Obviously, when you're sleeping rough your access to an internet connection or charger is limited, so you need face-to-face services, not some disembodied voice at the end of a phone line who, Kerry says, has probably got productivity targets to meet and may round off the call or flick you to another section.

Kerry has made the really important point that when you're living in precarious circumstances but still have to report your earnings every fortnight to Centrelink, it can be a lot easier to just present at the local office then to find a working phone line or public computer. And as the JobSeeker rate is still abysmal, some people just can't afford to keep their phone or laptop in credit for the whole fortnight. Reporting in person is cheaper than buying a recharge voucher. Kerry's view was that both state and federal Labor governments have broken their social contract. Shutting down Centrelink offices is the sort of heartless cutback that we would expect from a Liberal government. This closure is a decision that places an unnecessary burden on people who are already facing financial hardship. We should be making it easier for them to access support, not making it harder.

Punitive income support systems designed by current and previous governments and their agencies exist to punish people in poverty rather than help them, and this situation in South Melbourne is no different. If this last year of the Labor government has shown anything it's that they do not take tackling poverty seriously. This Labor government continue to give Services Australia a free pass to make peoples lives harder.

Let's also consider the timing of the decision. Poverty is impacting so many Australians, and it's only getting worse. With skyrocketing rents and months of inflation, it's currently impossible for people existing on JobSeeker payments to get by without relying on charity. Not being able to afford nutritious food, education, housing and the resources to get a job is having a significant impact on people's physical health and their mental wellbeing. The Greens continue to demand that the Labor government raise the rate of all income support payments above the poverty line and provide people with a guaranteed liveable income. Now we also have to ask that people on income support payments have the ability to directly access support in a service centre, where they can talk to staff in person.

I want to question Labor's apparent disdain for this particular area of Melbourne, where recently the state Labor government forcibly evicted 68-year-old Margaret Kelly, a public housing resident at the Barak Beacon estate in Port Melbourne, effectively to privatise the land with a huge and unnecessary redevelopment. The neighbouring suburb of South Melbourne, which is facing an imminent Centrelink office closure, and Port Melbourne, once the site of a wonderful, supportive public housing community, are both victims of Labor's bizarre and hurtful attacks on low-income people.

To the member for Macnamara in the other place: this is your electorate; there are almost 10,000 people on JobSeeker in your electorate. Where are you? Where is your party? The people who elected you are being punished by your government simply for accessing in-person income support.

I implore the Labor government to reverse the decision to close the South Melbourne Centrelink office and prove to the community that their needs are being heard.