I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2023. The Albanese Labor government is committed to supporting people to overcome barriers to getting and keeping paid work and to ensuring people can access and develop the skills they need for the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow. This bill supports this important work by ensuring that legislative authority for government spending on programs targeted towards that commitment is achieved in the best possible way.
The former government rushed through the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Streamlined Participation Requirements and Other Measures) Bill 2022, known as the SPROM bill, shortly before the last election. That bill made significant changes to social security law, including inserting chapter 2D into the Social Security Act. While Labor ultimately voted in support of the bill, we raised concerns at the time that the former government mishandled the bill by rushing through that consideration. The changes to chapter 2D of the Social Security Act commenced in April 2022. The purpose of the changes was to provide more streamlined legislative authority for spending on employment programs. The explanatory memorandum for when chapter 2D was introduced stated:
… all that the new Chapter 2D does is provide statutory authority for expenditure … All of the usual processes and requirements for the establishment and oversight of such programs will remain unchanged.
While chapter 2D is achieving this purpose, its operation will be improved through the technical amendments in this bill. This bill ensures that chapter 2D continues in the best possible way to provide more streamlined legislative authority for spending aimed at supporting Australians to get and keep paid work.
Unemployment in Australia remains at historic lows, currently 3.5 per cent. Nearly half a million more Australians are in work today than when Labor came to government a little over a year ago. As far as the Albanese Labor government is concerned, when somebody wants a job and gets a job, that is a success. We're also committed to making sure that those jobs are well paid and secure so workers can look after themselves and their loved ones. It's why we twice backed a pay rise for Australian workers on the minimum wage, why we backed and funded a 15 per cent pay rise for aged-care workers, why we have introduced a better and fairer bargaining system and why, this week, the minister has introduced a bill to close the loopholes for workers, which is such an important step to ensuring workers are safe, that their wages aren't stolen and a whole range of changes that will mean so much to so many Australians. However, we know there are still people who want to work and are finding it hard to get a job. The government is working to try to make sure that we can get a better deal for those individuals as well. An improved chapter 2D will support spending on that important work.
While this bill is, as its name suggests, a miscellaneous measures amendment, a bit of a change that, in itself, is not necessarily that interesting to speak about, it is very important. It shows our government's commitment to getting our social security system right. It's my belief that we as Australians don't take the pride that we should in our social security system. As Australians we are proud of Medicare and universal health care. We're proud of our tradition of a fair system of wages and conditions for workers. We're proud of public education. We recognise that these things are all part of what makes us a relatively egalitarianism society when you compare us to somewhere, for example, like the United States. We are proud of that. We like to think we are the country of the fair go.
But when we talk about our social security system in a way that makes people who receive those payments somehow sound undeserving or somehow like they're not trying, we are not doing justice to that incredibly important policy area and what it means to so many Australians and to the futures of people. All of us at some point might access our social security system, and most of us do. So it's important that we recognise the importance of this policy area and the power that it has to lift people out of poverty and to give people opportunities that they may not otherwise have.
Of course, having a job is the best way to secure a decent standard of living for yourself and for your family. I'm sure this is something that Labor, the party of workers, absolutely believes in. As I said, unemployment is currently at a record low under our government, but there are still around a million people looking for work, relying on our social security system and receiving the JobSeeker payment. There are more who receive the other range of pensions and allowances and family payments that are provided by that system.
If we go back to around the time of Federation, Australia was one of the first countries in the world to establish a universal age pension—by universal, I mean anyone can receive it; obviously, it's means tested. Many other countries in the world have an insurance model where you actually put away for your age pension through your working life and that determines what you can access. We had a universal age pension. Soon after that, we introduced support for single parents, and mothers predominantly. This was very early on after Federation. Around that same time, the Harvester judgement was given, which recognised that people should receive a decent amount of money through their work to support themselves and their families.
Those two things went hand in hand to ensure that we had a decent standard of living in Australia. These things have historically been important. It's why Francis Castles coined the term 'the wage earners' welfare state'—that is, you can look at Australia as a place where the welfare state, which is highly targeted, is for those who can't support themselves through a job. That is very much the case to this day. We have one of the world's most targeted social security systems, which means that the money goes to those on the lowest incomes and most in need. While the system is often called complex, there are reasons for that, meaning that it is targeted to those most in need.
I'm taking the opportunity on this bill—which is around this important, if not particularly exciting, amendment—to talk about this system. It's critically important to all Australians and to us having equality in our society and to making a difference in the lives of so many Australians. We should take more pride in this policy area.
