Senator AYRES (New South Wales) (18:25): There is one thing and one thing alone that keeps the Newstart rate in Australia low, and that is the moral judgement of Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Every party in this chamber except the one that he leads and his supplicant party in the National Party supports a raise to Newstart. In fact, some of them have started to have the courage to speak out. I heard some pretty mealy-mouthed contributions in the Senate this afternoon on this subject and I imagine we're going to hear a few more this evening. There are even members of his own party who believe that we need to raise the rate of Newstart. Senator Sinodinos has had a bit to say on the subject. The bloke that they idolise, the former Prime Minister John Howard, whose opinion I imagine should be taken account of in the Liberal Party, has had a bit to say about the subject. Former leaders of the Liberal Party have been out in the community talking about the need to raise Newstart. But this show over here can't find it in its heart to raise the rate. We could start that process immediately, not with resolutions in the Senate but with changes to regulation and legislation. But there is one man in the way, one man who refuses to admit that Newstart is too low. The words can't escape his mouth. There are formulations like, 'I know it would be difficult,' and, 'I can't imagine that it would be easy.' Those are the sorts of mealy-mouthed contributions. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is going to stand in the way of lifting the rate to Newstart until he's dragged kicking and screaming to the conclusion that the government can't do anything else. We have to ask the question: why? What's stopping him? He has the numbers in this parliament. He has support within his own party. If he was concerned about the fiscal impacts of raising Newstart, why not commence a review? He hasn't hesitated before making other choices that have had an impact on the budget position of the Commonwealth—for example, stage 3 tax cuts. The Grattan Institute says that in 2025, towards the end of the 2020s, there will need to be expenditure cuts in the range of $40 billion per annum. There is no hesitation for tax cuts for high-income earners. There is no hesitation making the choice to drive the agenda for corporate tax cuts, which again would have had a significant impact upon the fiscal capacity of the Commonwealth. This is the Prime Minister for a political stunt. He is prepared to cough up 1½ billion dollars of Commonwealth expenditure to reopen Christmas Island just for a press conference and to try to make a political point. He's all heart and all courage when it comes to his own interests but he's got no capacity for empathy with ordinary Australians who find themselves unemployed. It comes down to a question of moral judgement. He either believes that Newstart recipients deserve the indignity of living on $40 a day or he believes that he should ignore them. He thinks that he can ignore them because in Scott Morrison's Australia everybody is a winner. The government is on your side, apparently, but only if we ignore the people who don't matter to him. Because, in his Australia, nobody is poor, that he can see; nobody is unemployed; nobody is ever laid off; nobody is homeless; and nobody ever goes hungry. According to this lot over here, everything is going really well, and if these things do happen to people, well, they just don't matter. They have no place in his moral imagination. I had a few things to say about Scott Morrison and unfunded empathy last night, and I thank the chamber for being accommodating about it. I said that his remarks were grotesque, cowardly and dishonest— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Faruqi ): A point of order has been called. Senator O'Sullivan: Could you direct the speaker to address people in the other place in the correct manner. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I would ask the member to address people in the other House by their correct titles. Senator AYRES: I'm very grateful for his intervention, because he is absolutely correct. What the Prime Minister said was grotesque, cowardly and dishonest and an insult to the one million Australians trapped in poverty and unemployment. A first speech is an important occasion in the parliament. It's an opportunity to say what you really think, and it's an opportunity to say what the right course is for the country. I think it's worth returning to the Prime Minister's first speech, which he gave to the House of Representatives on 14 February, 2008, following his election in Cook. Incidentally, that was the very moment that he switched his support from the Sydney Roosters to the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks in another craven attempt to suck up to the people of Cook. Here is what he said: From my faith I derive the values of loving-kindness, justice and righteousness, to act with compassion and kindness, acknowledging our common humanity and to consider the welfare of others… He went on to quote Desmond Tutu, of all people. He said: ... we expect Christians ... to be those who stand up for the truth, to stand up for justice, to stand on the side of the poor and the hungry, the homeless and the naked, and when that happens, then Christians will be trustworthy believable witnesses. He's happy to talk about compassion and welfare when it is easy, when it is rhetoric and when it doesn't mean anything to the one in 10 households that live in poverty, but, when it comes to the substantial business of taking care of the poor, he has only unfunded empathy. It's an appearance. It's a performance. It's a line for the cameras and for the radio. The Prime Minister is a hollow man with hollow words. The Newstart rate of $40 a day is not dignity. It's destitution. It's pushing people further into poverty. It's actively preventing them from getting work. Seven hundred and twenty two thousand Australians and their families rely upon the Newstart rate. I've seen what this means for working people. Working people who've lost their jobs are on average on Newstart for three years. Workers that have been left behind by change in the economy deserve a bit of dignity. Fifty thousand workers were left behind by the closure of the auto industry, as were thousands of workers in other manufacturing sectors. Of course, factory closures have been a feature of this government. The evidence shows that when a factory closes one-third of workers get another job, one-third of workers retire and one-third never work again. Twenty-five per cent of Newstart recipients are over 55—that's nearly 200,000 Australians. Council of The Ageing's CEO, Ian Yates, said: There are more unemployed workers between 55 and 64 than any other group of Australians and they receive Newstart income support payments longer than any other group as well. They're condemned for the rest of their working-age life to $40 a day and a regime of weekly, punitive interventions. Newstart is too low to allow these workers to rebuild their lives. It's too hard. Social security should deliver a measure of dignity to people, and a capacity to rebuild their lives and get into work. For Australians in tough positions, facing $40-a-day Newstart makes their lives worse. Single parents who have been shifted off the single-parent benefit—the result, I have to say, of a decision by a previous government—are in a terrible position. They face the declining ability to pay for household expenses; the prospect of homelessness; insecurity; big challenges like finding shoes to put on their children's feet and finding clothes for them to go to school—the terrible stress that that presents to those families: no jobs, no support, $40 a day. It's a much tougher row to hoe for people in rural and regional Australia, who, apparently, some people on the other side still care about: $40 a day, no hope, no dignity, no job.