Senator SIEWERT (Western Australia—Australian Greens Whip) (11:17): I rise to make a contribution to the debate on the address-in-reply to the Governor-General's speech—a speech that was devoid of a vision for this country. It embodied measures that are heartless, cruel and punitive and based on an ideological approach. Part of the speech, in the fifth or sixth paragraph, says: Our prosperity enables us to deliver one of the world's most reliable social safety nets, providing income support, universal health care, disabilities support, aged care— That is so far from what is actually happening it's not funny. We have a safety net in this country that has so many holes in it that people are falling right through it. We have a narrative that the Prime Minister is about compassionate conservatism. Well, it's not really in the dictionary, but what that means is 'heartless'. They don't care; they don't give a damn. In fact, it's how we can push as many people off income support as possible. If the Prime Minister is looking to the US, which is where that phrase started, that's exactly what they're doing, and that's exactly their aim. It's ironic that the measures the government are proposing under their so-called 'world's most reliable social safety net' are devoid of evidence; they are ideological—but then the government fall back on the so-called data to support their positions, and they manipulate it at will and then don't provide it. For example, who saw the figures the government released on Friday on the targeted compliance framework? Those figures are not available on the website when you look for them. They're not there. I've been trying to get them. I've put questions on notice. They haven't been released. Then, all of a sudden, we got the government's version released to—who? Oh, yes, News Corp. Then you can't get them; you can't interrogate them. But, if you look at some of the data on ParentsNext, which I got at the end of the last week through questions on notice, you'll see that nearly 80 per cent of those that have had their payments suspended are parents. It's called ParentsNext because it is about parents, most of whom are single parents, most of them single mothers. Eighty per cent of those suspensions are through no fault of the participants—80 per cent. You might say this, and I've heard the government say this: 'But they don't necessarily lose their payments.' Even the threat of losing payments—and I've heard this directly from mothers—curtails people's ability to spend. This is somebody's lived experience. They got told on Friday that they hadn't reported, but they had tried to. The phones were busy, and all those sorts of things happen. So, over the whole weekend, that mother basically could not spend any money because she did not know whether she was going to get paid on Monday, because she'd been told that her payment would be suspended. That is as good as cutting a payment when you're living from payment to payment, which is what parents do. That is not compassionate. That is not caring. That is not 'one of the world's most reliable safety nets'. If that mother did not know whether she was going to get paid on the Monday after that weekend, that is cruel; that is mean. I'll come back to some of the other massive holes in our social safety net, but I wanted to go to First Nations peoples, who got a mention in the Governor-General's speech, and talk about issues that strongly affect our First Nations community. One is that the government is shouting loud and proud about constitutional recognition, which has been on the agenda for quite a long time, and support for elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. They don't talk so much about treaty and they don't talk so much about truth-telling, which are two key areas of the Statement from the Heart. They do talk about First Nations voice to parliament and about constitutional recognition. But, for those who have read and taken on board the Statement from the Heart, what that calls for is constitutional recognition via enshrinement of the voice in the Constitution. But the government, within weeks of being re-elected, have ruled out putting the voice in the Constitution. The very thing that the Statement from the Heart calls for, which has so much support in Australia, is that that should be enshrined in the Constitution. So we're going to a co-designed process. But the very thing that First Nations peoples are calling for is not included in that consultation process, so the government are undermining the very definition of a co-designed process. It is not what First Nations peoples are calling for. The government committed to the Closing the Gap targets in the Governor-General's speech. I understand that the process, finally, is on track, and there is a genuine co-design process, with the head of NACCHO and the minister now co-chairing that process. That should be replicated in everything that is done to our First Nations peoples. There needs to be genuine co-design, and government needs to genuinely embody the practice of ensuring that programs funded for First Nations peoples are developed, delivered and led by First Nations peoples. That includes delivery of services. That includes discussions on constitutional recognition. That includes issues around child care. I was just at the SNAICC conference. The Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care does brilliant work around First Nations children in particular. The key issue that came up at that conference that got reported on the last day—I was only able to attend the last day, unfortunately—was the impact that the changes to child care have had on child care for First Nations peoples, to the point where First Nations providers are on the verge of having to close down. It has undermined the very thing that the Governor-General talks about in this speech in terms of making sure those services are there for First Nations peoples. I'm also going to touch on things this speech doesn't mention, and one of those is the Aboriginal flag. Last week we had people in this place talking about the fact that the Aboriginal flag is under copyright and that First Nations sporting organisations are no longer able to use the flag on their uniforms without paying a massive amount of money. Apparently it's not called a copyright fee; it's 'admin services' and things like that. This government needs to show leadership and start negotiations to make sure that First Nations peoples can use that flag. In the nineties it was proclaimed as a flag; does that mean nothing in this country? That needs to be upheld by this government. People cannot be left in limbo, as is happening right now. I strongly support the Closing the Gap campaign. This issue needs to be dealt with. I want to go to another area that is not mentioned in the Governor-General's speech, and that is around justice, and, in particular, juvenile justice and the calls around the world to increase the age—Raise the Age, as the campaign is called—to 14 or above. That issue needs to be addressed urgently. The Northern Territory royal commission made hundreds of excellent recommendations, many of which involve the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth are not progressing this at the speed they need to. There needs to be action. For example, if you look at the recommendation around the provision of 'payment of Medicare benefits for medical services provided to children and young people in detention in the Northern Territory', the Commonwealth say they don't support that recommendation. That is something the Commonwealth has control over and needs to be addressing urgently, along with all the other recommendations, so that we see this issue around youth justice addressed. We need to be taking a diversionary approach to youth justice. Where's that commitment in here? In fact, where's the commitment and the heading around young people? It's not in here. Isn't that what this should be focused on? Where is the commitment to young people? Where is the commitment to properly address issues around climate change, for which we are bequeathing to young people all of the problems. I hope everybody in this place is attending the strike on Friday to show their support for the young people of Australia who are prepared to take up this issue. They're taking it into their own hands because they know it's their future and their environment that are at risk. They are not trusting this government, half of whom are in denial about climate change. It's not an issue of whether you believe in it. It's not a choice between believing in science and not believing in science; it's a thing. This government is in denial around taking action. Those are the issues that should be here. Those are the issues that the government should be looking at. They keep talking about, 'Oh, we've generated jobs.' That's a heading in here. Underemployment has increased, and it's young people who are feeling the effects of that, who are having to work two or three jobs and are trying to rely on our so-called 'reliable' safety net. The National Party, who are part of the government, now want to put young people—under the age of 35, I think it is—on the cashless debit card. They want to roll out the cashless debit card nationally. Again, it's devoid of evidence. Not only is there no evidence to support the cashless debit card; if you listen to the people that have been studying this and talk to people about it, it actually makes their lives worse. It makes it harder to budget, harder to go to the supermarket. It is demonising and stigmatising, and people talk about depression. That's what the National Party want to set on our young people. They want them to be demonised, stressed, depressed and angry at that approach. They're saying it's their fault that they can't find work; it's their fault that there's underemployment and they have to rely on our unreliable social safety net, which has people living in poverty. That takes me to the fact that the issue around Newstart was not mentioned in the speech—Newstart, which has not been raised for 25 years and keeps people living in poverty. In here we'll give tax cuts to the already well-off but we won't raise Newstart. One of the ways to boost the budget would be by raising Newstart. It would inject $4 billion into our economy and generate 12,000 jobs. That's not in this speech, because you wouldn't want a reliable social safety net! You want to demonise people! That is why the government rolls out the targeted compliance framework's so-called failures and the number of people who have been suspended or got demerit points, without, of course, actually providing the evidence for it: it's to demonise the people on income support. It is why the government has dragged out the drug trial issue again: 'Let's divert attention away from people, including older Australians, who need an increase in Newstart.' This document does talk about older Australians, but it doesn't seem to focus on the older Australians who are trying to survive on Newstart. We saw in the media on the weekend the lady whose CV had been wiped out. She's in her late 50s. She became unemployed, through absolutely no fault of her own. She is not getting adequate support from the jobactive system and is trying to survive on Newstart. What happens to her? To get onto Newstart in the first place you have to use up most of your savings, so you've got very little, or nothing, to fall back on. If you can't find work, by the time you get to the age of—what is it now?—66½, going up progressively to 67, you are wearing out your savings. Your assets are running down. You can't afford to replace your car, so you've probably got an older car, if you're lucky enough to have maintained it. You've used up all your savings. You are living in poverty. We know that living in poverty—living on Newstart—will most likely have impacted your mental health, because we know that people on Newstart are six times more likely to have health episodes and poorer health. We know they report 48.9 times more mental or behavioural issues. So we know that it is going to have an impact on older people's mental health yet we are prepared to see them continue to live in poverty on the very low Newstart and age in poverty into retirement. That's not a reliable social safety net. It's not a reliable social safety net to make your life harder by putting you on the cashless debit card or by drug testing you. Again we note that this is an evidence-free zone, that the approach to this is ideological. Every single drug expert that I have spoken to says the process won't work, yet here we have a government that's pursuing it regardless of the evidence. That's not reliable. Of course, we have a system that is trying to claw back money from those who are on income support, once again demonising those people and traumatising them. As I said, the Governor-General's speech talks about older Australians. It doesn't talk about those older Australians living in poverty, as I've just articulated. It doesn't talk adequately enough about how we are supporting people as they age into aged care and the system here that stinks, in many cases, to high heaven. We've got a government that's brought in some changes to the use of restraints in aged-care facilities, for example. It's one that we are seeking to disallow because it doesn't adequately address issues around chemical restraints. We have an aged-care system that is underfunded in this country and that does not supply the four hours, 18 minutes that research shows you need to provide adequate care to older Australians. We don't employ enough staff in our aged-care facilities, and then the government is surprised when they start having incidents in aged care that actually have now led to the royal commission. But the government can't wait until the royal commission reports to start acting on some of these grievous issues. These are issues that need urgent attention, and you would have thought that there would have been a much clearer vision in the Governor-General's speech for that. The Governor-General's speech talks about the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and anybody trying to access that scheme knows about the problems with that scheme. But I particularly want to focus on psychosocial issues because one of the issues that has been very poorly addressed in the NDIS is mental health. It's damning of the government who claims—and have moved to address mental health—that they can oversee a system that is so poorly addressing mental health and psychosocial disability. We have a massive problem in this country. If you're coming into the system with poor mental health and you haven't already got a package, you haven't managed to access NDIS or you haven't had previous support, where are the supports in this country? There is a massive gap here in the way that we are supporting people with poor mental health in this country if they are unable to access the NDIS. That's because the states and territories have put all of their funding into NDIS and there's now not enough funding for proper community mental health services. We are heading for a train wreck here. It's not mentioned in the Governor-General's speech. There's no acknowledgement of these issues in that speech. This government is cruel to the most vulnerable members of our community. If you're doing okay in this country, you're okay. But, if you're not, you're falling through massive gaps in our social security system.