Page 3079 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 October 2022
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Canberra households, and to contribute to the Senate committee. So, rather than setting up a parallel inquiry in the ACT, with exactly the same terms of reference as the Senate one, costing taxpayers money and diverting resources that could otherwise be applied directly to supporting low-income households, it is the government’s view that we can contribute positively to the Senate committee that is undertaking this review with exactly the same terms of reference. Ms Lee has just cut and pasted them!
There will be nothing different in an ACT inquiry—nothing!—from what is being undertaken at a commonwealth level about issues that we all know are largely driven by commonwealth income support measures. How do we know that? We know that because when income support was lifted for a period during the pandemic, there had been no single measure in living memory that did more to lift more people out of poverty than those increases to income supports. In the end, the measure that we are all using—ACTCOSS, ACOSS, the Canberra Liberals, the government, the federal government, all of the academic research—talks about a poverty line. That is, indeed, a level of income that we would strive to get more Canberrans, and more Australians, above.
There are a number of ways that that can be achieved. Clearly, the level of commonwealth income support payments is one of those ways. Strong labour markets and full employment is another way. But, certainly, our side of politics acknowledges that even having a full-time job will not lift some above the poverty line because, for 10 years in this country, the active economic policy—the stated intent of federal Liberal government economic policy—was to suppress wages growth.
When, in this chamber and in estimates, I have mentioned the fact that wages will have to lift in this full employment market, those opposite have started heading for an apoplectic fix. Ms Castley, in particular, was beside herself at the thought that wages would increase, because small business would have to pay the wage increase. Well, yes, business will have to contribute through higher wages to poverty alleviation. That is a fact. What this country needs after 10 years of anaemic wage growth is for income levels to rise. For those in the workforce, and particularly those on the lowest of salaries or wages, that is incredibly important and makes a practical difference.
We know that. We do not need an inquiry to tell us; we already know it. That is why economic policies that support a restoration of decent wage growth are fundamental to addressing part of the poverty challenge. We also recognise that beyond commonwealth income support payments and having more people in employment, what has historically been called the “social wage”—like access to free health care and free education, and access to more affordable childcare, access to opportunities and concessions for low-income households—is fundamental as part of a total picture.
My amendment goes to the detail of what the ACT government is doing. Part 3 of my amendment talks about the food security network, concessions and rebates, utility concessions, conveyance duty concessions, the utility hardship fund, the spectacles subsidy scheme, the taxi subsidy scheme, motor vehicle registration concessions, driver licence concessions, public transport concessions, the vulnerable household energy support scheme, the home energy support scheme, and the low-income home energy support program. There is a long list of ACT government programs and projects that constitute a direct wealth transfer to more than 30,000 low-income
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