Senator WONG (10:39 PM) —by leave—The opposition opposes schedule 2 and schedule 4 in the following terms:

I will try to not take up my allotted time, because there are other senators who want to speak. The opposition is moving to oppose these two schedules because these are the schedules which impose the harsh and extreme income cuts on vulnerable Australians—people this government obviously cares little about. We see the same attitude in this legislation as we saw in the industrial relations legislation. The Howard government say, ‘We don’t mind creating a class of working poor in Australia. We don’t mind junking the principle of a fair go. We don’t mind junking the principle of fairness’—something Australians have always strived for and have always supported.

In the industrial relations legislation we saw the government voting time and time again to remove fairness and to oppose amendments that put fairness into the industrial relations system. What we see in this legislation is precisely the same attitude. It is an attitude that is coloured by a view that Australia is better off having an American social model. That is what this legislation does—particularly when it is combined with the industrial relations legislation. It is recasting Australia with an American die. It is the Howard government redrawing Australia into the American social model. It is the Howard government junking some core Australian values of fairness, of ensuring that those who cannot look after themselves and those who are disadvantaged are cared for and properly supported and that they have a modicum of dignity in our society.

The reason Australia has always supported these values is that we understand that we as individuals have a relationship to others in our community and, if others fail, if others struggle, if others are vulnerable, if others do not have enough to eat, the whole community suffers. There are social costs and there are moral costs. It is a question of values, and what we see in this government is an extreme agenda that is about imposing an American social model on Australia. We know that the American social security system offers virtually no financial security for the jobless, and America has an army of working poor. That is precisely the way this government is approaching its so-called welfare reform.

One of the most insidious things in this legislation—which we will not be able to discuss in detail due to the guillotine that has been applied—is the way in which this government will force jobless people to work for dirt or get nothing. The government have removed the protection of awards from the test of suitable employment. That will mean that a job seeker, a person with a disability or a sole parent will have to take a job provided it complies with the four minimum conditions, which are simply inadequate, and the minimum hourly rate and no other award conditions, or risk having their payments cut. That is what it means. People will have no choice. You either work for peanuts or you get nothing.

There is the removal of the award protections and, combined with that, the government is saying that if you lose your job—supposedly for misconduct or through some voluntary act—you also get an eight-week breach. What happens then? This is another area where the industrial relations extreme agenda collides with these welfare changes, because the removal of unfair dismissal will mean that people cannot dispute a false allegation of misconduct. They can be in the position of having an eight-week breach and not being able to dispute it through the industrial relations system, because this government is removing unfair dismissal from 98 per cent of Australian workplaces and workers.

The reality is that this legislation is not about welfare reform. This legislation is, at its core, about reducing the income payments to vulnerable Australians. These are families and individuals who are already overrepresented in the poverty statistics. These are vulnerable Australians. We have heard again tonight that St Vincent de Paul told the committee inquiring into this bill that 70 per cent of the visits they already make to homes are to people with a disability and to sole parents. This government should be doing something to encourage and support these people out of welfare and into work. But no; what do they do instead? They say, ‘We will cut their payments; we will put them onto the dole in the future.’ The dole was never meant as an income support payment for people with a disability. It was never meant as an income support payment for parents. That was never the basis on which the dole was introduced and it is not a payment that is structured or at the right level for those groups—people living with the costs of disability and people living with the costs of parenting.

I have already spoken about the irrational and economically unsound approach the government have taken in relation to tax when it comes to Welfare to Work. They have actually come up with a set of changes which make work less financially attractive. It is pretty extraordinary to have the gall to call something a Welfare to Work package when you take more money off people for doing the right thing and when people earn less and keep less in their pockets for every dollar earned under the new system than under the current system—when you are increasing the disincentives.

At the core of the changes, as I have said, is a reduction in the family budgets of vulnerable Australians, and we on this side do not believe that is welfare reform. As I said before, if the government thought this was a good idea, if they thought this really would help people into work, they would have applied it to existing recipients. But they are not doing that, because it is politically unsaleable because it is unjust and it is unfair and they want to quarantine the political pain. What they are doing is attacking those who are to come; they are doing it in respect of people to come. I will not even go through the issues of transitional provisions—where, frankly, they are not protecting existing recipients in the way they said they would on budget night—because we do not have the time. The primary political objective is: ‘We’ll attack the incomes of those to come because we can do so politically because we have the numbers in the Senate now.’

This is unfair legislation. This is absolutely unfair legislation and, combined with the industrial relations legislation, it is not about increasing opportunity, it is not about increasing skills, it is not about ensuring people have the opportunity to move from welfare to work. What it is about is reducing the amount of money that already vulnerable families have to put food on the table. That is what it is about. So the amendments moved by the opposition relate to those schedules of the bill which impose the reduction in income, because we do not believe that is welfare reform.