The Senate has supported a Greens referral to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee to conduct a Senate inquiry into the purpose, intent and adequacy of the Disability Support Pension (DSP). 
 
There have been a series of changes and cost-saving measures over recent years that have reduced the number of people able to access the Disability Support Program. Since then, there has been a sharp decline in people applying for and being approved for the DSP. 
 

“This budget is a surplus of scatter gun approaches and tinkering around the edges. 
 
“This is a budget that continues the ongoing disdain this Government has for people who have been doing it tough for a long time and for whom things have only got worse due to the global pandemic and recession: people on income support, older women, young people, single parents and disabled people.
 

The Greens say Employment Minister Mr Robert’s cruel comments on the ‘lifestyle’ of people on JobSeeker are not based in any realm of reality in which Australians are living.

“It’s just nonsensical to tell people to get a job when in March there were 238, 700 jobs available and there are 1.5 million people on JobSeeker and Youth Allowance payments”, Senator Rachel Siewert said. 

 The Greens say the Government should abandon the Cashless Debit Card not continue to throw money at the failed punitive program.
 
"The $30 million “Job Ready Package” intended for the Cashless Debit Card Trial sites must be invested in supportive measures, for all people in regional, rural and remote areas that need support and training.
 

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: