The conclusions and recommendations of the Committee’s majority report do not reflect the evidence the committee received, nor does it address the concerns that were raised.
As a result, the majority report only has the backing of the Government’s own Senators.
Measures in these two omnibus Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bills include forcing young job seekers to live for six months without income support, changes to indexation of the pensions.
This will have increasing impact on the ability of older Australians and single parents to meet their living expenses, increasing the retirement age, cutting and freezing payments for families and single parents and reassessing payment eligibility for some people with disability.
The submissions and evidence heard by the Committee, with the exception of the Government's own departments, show that if enacted these Bills will compound poverty and hardship in the community and will not help improve employment participation.
The radical changes being proposed will hurt disadvantaged Australians. The inquiry heard repeatedly of the negative and potentially dangerous effect of these budget measures and of the perverse outcomes they will have.
St Vincent de Paul said that “we cannot agree with measures that will drive people even deeper into poverty, above all in an environment where there simply aren’t enough jobs for the numbers of people looking for work”.
Additionally, a number of organisations raised concern about the cumulative impact of the Government’s measures, with National Welfare Rights saying that “these Bills contain a wide range of measures which have complex interactions with each other, and with other measures proposed in other Bills the harshest reductions to income are felt by the more vulnerable social security recipients and low income working families”.
While the majority report notes some of the concerns that arose during this Inquiry, it does not adequately address them.
Instead, in making a blanket recommendation that the Bills be passed, the report says that the Government MPs are “satisfied that the measures are accompanied by appropriate safeguards to address these concerns”.
This just isn’t the case and does not reflect the evidence to the Committee.
The Committee was not told how the harm caused to people by the budget would be mitigated, or shown evidence to suggest that cutting payments or removing access to income support would help people into work.
In fact there was a lot of evidence of the further barriers that these measures would impose for jobseekers, and of the impact of declining incomes of some of the most vulnerable members of our community.
Along with these claims, the Government has tried to justify its approach by resorting to spin about the importance of a sustainable social security system. For our income support system to be sustainable it needs to be effective and adequate and so the Government needs to look at the revenue side of the budget.
As the Council of the Ageing noted, “sustainability has two faces”.
“It is essential that people who are reliant on the pension for all or most of their income can be assured that it will provide an adequate standard of living,” the Council stated.
“If not it will not be a sustainable system.”
ACOSS likewise identified flaws in the Government’s approach to delivering long term reform, stating that “the government put one hand behind its back, focusing only, to a large extent, on direct expenditure and doing very little to increase on the revenue side”.
“We believe this is why the impact of this approach has led to the very unfair burden on those who do rely, appropriately, the most on government expenditure—those who are on the lowest incomes and who are the most disadvantaged in the Australian community.”
The Government’s blinkered approach to the budget and its lack of consultation has led to potentially effective measures being ignored.
Throughout the inquiry, there was a lot of criticism of the Government for its approach. The Majority report itself notes that “there have been significant concerns raised about the fact these cuts have been developed and could potentially be delivered outside the boundaries of the McClure Welfare Review”.
A discussion about the future of retirement income, about providing adequate income support and supporting people into work is crucial, and numerous submissions questioned why this had not occurred.
Had the Government taken this path, it could have developed measures that recognise the reality that punitive approaches to welfare create dependence on emergency relief, do not overcome barriers to employment or lead to behavioural change.
Improvements to our social security system need to ensure people have a sense of autonomy, relatedness and connectedness, and that they are adequately supported.
This support must come in the form of payments that ensure people are not exposed to poverty, and include an increase to inadequate forms of assistance, such as Newstart.
An evidence based approach would recognise challenges in the current labour market, issues such as age discrimination and the need for better support and training for older workers, better investments in job creation for people with disability, a strong focus on jobs plans and measures to overcome barriers to employment.
These concepts are a world away from what the Government is proposing. These Bills should not be passed by the Senate.
Rachel Siewert is a Greens Senator for Western Australia and the Australian Greens Whip.
