Social Security (Jobseeker Support and Accommodation Supplement) Amendment Bill

The National Party is all about breaking the basics and ruining the future for young people. This bill is just the latest example of their ongoing beneficiary bashing attacks on the poor, while they cut thousands of jobs and leave children growing up in poverty with worsening material conditions. That is not my view; that is a fact. The Government has been told that as a result of decisions that they have made, more children are growing up in households where they do not have enough to meet their basic essentials.

Tell me how cutting benefits for thousands of sick, injured, and disabled young people fixes the basics. Tell me how pretending that sick and injured and disabled young people who have been deemed by Work and Income to not be able to work full time will just magically be able to transition into training or education. Tell me how a young person who is seeing a hiring freeze on our public healthcare system will be wanting to go into a healthcare profession, only to find themselves with a massive student loan and no job to go into. None of the provisions of this bill help address the basics, which is that we’ve got a Government that has been focused on cutting jobs, rather than creating them; that has been focused on worsening material conditions for students, rather than improving them; that has been focused on stripping the sick and injured and disabled people of the support that they need, instead of improving it.

The Minister, in her previous speech on the previous bill, conceded that disabled people have it hard. Well, then, why cut thousands of sick and injured and disabled peoples’ income support as part of this bill? Thousands of people on jobseeker, health, injury, and disability benefits will be affected as part of this bill. For any member of the Government who will say, “Oh, they can just go on the supported living payment.”, I urge you to go out to the streets. Talk to a single bloody beneficiary for once. Talk to them about the challenges that they face getting on the supported living payment. Talk to them about the fact that they face humongous hurdles trying to get into a benefit that has huge barriers, not just because it requires you to be able to afford the cost of going to a GP—it requires you to go to a GP that, for example, will actually be cognisant and competent on disability issues. And it requires Work and Income to choose to not challenge a doctor—a trained medical professional—with a board that can often have people who haven’t practised for years to, basically, decline the comments from a doctor. It should come as no surprise that we’ve got members from the ACT Party, for example, further wanting to restrict access to the supported living payment.

I’ll tell you who exactly is having their incomes taken away from them. This is coming off the select committee’s own documents. We’ve got people who are facing psychological or psychiatric conditions—that’s almost 70 percent of the people who are on jobseeker, injury, health condition, or disability benefits. So much for a Government that cares about our youth mental health crisis. We’ve got people who are facing cardiovascular disorders, who have faced accidents that have left them unable to work, complications of trauma, pregnancy-related issues, congenital conditions including cancer, infectious and parasitic diseases, muscular skeletal system disorder, respiratory disorders, genitourinary disorders, blood and blood forming organs, skin disorders, digesting system disorders, nervous system disorders, immune system disorders, metabolic and endocrine disorders, intellectual disability sensory disorders, and other conditions.

Tell me how cutting the benefits of people who are facing those conditions does anything to fix the basics rather than ruining their lives. Cutting income support for people who are sick, injured, and disabled worsens their health conditions. I find it so galling and telling that the Minister, when I’ve asked her in question time about this very same serious issue, she goes, “Oh, well, people can still access hardship grants for food”. You’re telling families that they should go and line up at food banks and Work and Income to continue to survive while their kids are sick, injured, or disabled? What kind of safety net is that? What kind of future are we trying to provide for young people who are unwell? Their health conditions and their injuries will not improve as a result of cutting that very same income support. You will worsen them.

It doesn’t take an expert to know that if you’re injured or sick and you deprive people of that support, you’ll be leaving them worse off. Then the Minister talked about “Oh, well, don’t worry, there’s a parental income test”. How much is the parental income test? It’s $67,000 total as a household. That means that if you’re deemed to earn as a household over $67,000—that means, for example, two parents’ combined incomes—you won’t be eligible for a benefit. Tell me what family in this cost of greed crisis can actually afford their basic essentials with two parents, perhaps two children, with a total combined income of $67,000. Not many. It just shows that this Government is completely out of touch with the lived realities of working families. Putting more pressure on parents who are simply trying their best while also stripping those parents of the support that their children would have been eligible for before they turn 18—it just does not make sense.

If we look at some other components of the bill that cut the accommodation supplement for low-income homeowners, it tells you exactly who this Government is serving. They have rushed legislation to support property investors, but when it comes to low-income people who have maybe finally saved enough for their first home—yep, we’re stripping them of support. How much? On average, $40 a week. That $40 a week for a low-income family is actually the difference between being able to keep the lights on or put food on the table. The people who they’re cutting support from include people who are in work—in fact, the large majority of people who are affected by this, of a single group, are non-beneficiaries. They’re not just targeting people on the benefit: they’re targeting working families.

It also includes solo parents, who perhaps finally managed to build a life, to get a home, and are just trying to pay the mortgage off. It includes people who have become injured or sick as well and have had to go on a benefit temporarily. We’re not talking about the 18- and 19-year-olds who the Minister continuously and erroneously claims that they’re going to be—she kind of presents it as 20 years continuously on the benefit. We’re talking about people who may just need support for a handful of months while they get better. But I guess it’s OK because, at the end of the day, the Minister says that she’s targeting support to those who need it while claiming $50,000-plus of accommodation benefits herself. That is not serious. You can’t take a Minister seriously when she says, “We’re targeting support to those who need it the most.” while she cuts income support for those who actually needed it, and she claims tens of thousands of dollars to pay for a property that she does not have debt on.

Shame on this Government for showing us who they’re serving, which is not everyday working families. Those 18- and 19-year-olds on a benefit, yeah, they’re supported by and large by working parents—working parents whose lives this Government is choosing to make harder. Again, I just cannot see how Government members on the other side can give us their 10-second contribution telling us that this is a bill about fixing the basics and building the future, as though it was a ChatGPT-produced speech, when they’re doing the exact opposite. They cannot even tell us how exactly this bill will reduce the number of years that someone spends on a benefit, other than by just simply taking that benefit away. It’s not because they’ve created better employment outcomes, and we know that. Young people are applying for countless jobs; we’ve got news stories of jobs that have had hundreds, if not over a thousand applicants.

We know that in this economic system, unemployment is baked in by design. No matter whether it’s Labour or National in Government, unemployment has been a fixture of the economy. You will not tell us that you’ve got a National Party that wants to reduce unemployment to zero. It’s not correct. They don’t want to—they never wanted to. They have never, ever stated that their intention is to reduce unemployment to as close to zero percent as is possible. They have always intended to have a group unemployed, living below the poverty line, and desperate to take any job no matter how poor the conditions are. When you compound that with a legislative agenda that has worsened conditions for low-income workers, it tells you that this isn’t a Government that is ruling for working families but instead for their mates, who are actually benefiting from the policies that they’re putting forward—whether it’s people in the fossil fuel industry, or whether it’s property investors.

The Green Party is committed to repealing this legislation and building a safety net that actually provides tailored support for young people who want to go into education, who want to go into training, who want to get a job—and a safety need that honours the dignity of people who are injured, who are sick, and who are disabled, rather than taking those very benefits away. I dare for those members of the other side to justify taking benefits away from cancer patients or people who are struggling with psychiatric conditions. Justify it. Look at the select committee report and tell me that you don’t know that you’re actually taking the benefits of thousands of people who are sick, injured, or disabled away. Tell me that you don’t know. Justify it—I dare you.