The Greens have laid the blame for Brisbane’s three-day COVID lockdown at the Morrison government’s door, saying its failure to ensure all frontline healthcare workers are vaccinated has triggered a necessary public health response that will damage already struggling businesses and force more workers into unemployment.

The more than 130,000 people currently receiving JobSeeker in Brisbane will have their safety net slashed to below the poverty line on Thursday after the Coalition and Labor refused to support the Greens’ proposal for an $80 a day payment.

The Greens have strongly condemned the lifting of the temporary pause on new income support recipients going on to the Cashless Debit Card program, put in place in response to COVID-19. 
 
"The Government has spent billions pushing this punitive scheme, and millions on flawed evaluations trying to prove that the card works and to justify their punitive approach.

Today the Government gagged the Senate and allowed no time to even debate the first so-called real permanent increase in the Jobseeker Payment since 1994. 

The Greens say that unemployed workers and people living in poverty have been very clear that they want to see their representatives in Parliament supporting and campaigning for them, doing everything they can to increase the rate of JobSeeker above the poverty line. 

“People living in poverty in this cruel punitive income support system feel isolated, they feel abandoned and want people to be vocal in their condemnation of this joke of an increase in the rate of Jobseeker”, Senator Rachel Siewert said. 

The Community Affairs Legislation Committee has tabled its report into the Government's pitiful Bill to increase the JobSeeker payment by $3.57 a day. The Greens have tabled a dissenting report.
 
The Australian Greens are deeply disappointed in the lack of time provided to consider and scrutinise this change to Australia’s social security system. 
 

The Greens have said that Mr Morrison’s continued attacks on people on income support is cruel and demonising of people in our community who are doing it the toughest.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt said that his electorate of Melbourne was one of the hardest hit by every reduction to JobSeeker, and that Scott Morrison's actions demonstrated he didn't care about the genuine causes of unemployment.

Lines from Leader of the Australian Greens and Member for Melbourne Adam Bandt MP:

The Greens say that halted shipments of Astra Zeneca vaccines from Europe show the risks of relying on international supply chains to inoculate Australians, extending their call for the government to establish a publicly-owned vaccine production centre.

News of a quarter of a million doses due for Australia being blocked has exposed the risks caused by the privatisation and winding down of Australia’s domestic vaccine production capabilities over decades.

The Greens say that the Aged Care system is fundamentally broken and there needs to be a sense of urgency in fixing it.
 
"The Royal Commissioners set out a five year process and the work needs to start today", Senator Rachel Siewert said. 
 
"This reform needs to be underpinned by a new aged care act based on a human rights approach. 
 
"For too long, aged care has been put in the too hard basket. The Royal Commission Report clearly shows that years of tinkering around the edges has fundamentally failed older Australians. 
 

Greens Leader Adam Bandt says the first stop for funding needed improvements to aged care in the wake of the Royal Commission, should be to take billions of dollars being grafted out of the system in profits and spend it on more staff instead.
 
“Already we’re hearing a government start laying the groundwork for putting the needed reforms in the ‘too expensive’ basket, but there’s over a billion dollars in low-hanging fruit if the government unwinds privatisation and stops subsidising the profits of big corporations” Greens Leader Adam Bandt said.
 

"Yesterday the Senate supported my motion calling on the Government to immediately revise its JobSeeker announcement and urgently increase the Jobseeker Payment to be above the poverty line", Australian Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said. 
 
“In supporting my motion the Senate has agreed that the Government's proposed $3.57 a day increase to JobSeeker is not enough. 
 
“I strongly urge Senators to support amendments to the bill in the Senate to increase the rate.