INEQUALITY IN SUBURBAN AUSTRALIA

Good afternoon everyone, can I thank ACE for the opportunity to speak at this very important session about inequality and at the outset acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and pay my respects to elders past and present.

 

Inequality occurs every day across Australia and in some areas it is increasing and making life more difficult for many people.

 

According to recent census data I represent an electorate in which on average people earn above average incomes, are asset rich particularly if you own your own home, and possess above average education levels.

 

Despite that you’ll still encounter inequality on a daily basis.

 

On a typical day in Maroubra, where my electorate office is if I walk out the front door at 11am I will generally encounter a group of middle-aged men that sit across the road in the park drinking all day.

 

I regularly interact with these people because it pains me to see them like this and I want to help.

 

Whilst their issues are not uniform and are complex, there are certain characteristics some within that group share.

 

They tend to of course be unemployed, they tend to have not finished high school or if they have at the very best gone to high school and no tertiary education. Unfortunately many of them are Aboriginal, and when you look at the Aboriginal population in the community I represent and indeed in wider Australia you get a picture of inequality in Australia.

 

When it comes to health their life expectancy is 10 years less than the average Australian, when it comes to education levels they tend to not finish high school and very few go on to further study.

 

A young Aboriginal man in our community these days is more likely to go to Long Bay Jail down the road than to go to the University of NSW as a student, a shocking statistic when it comes to rates of incarceration.

 

The problems of these people as I mentioned are quite complex, but what really does get to me and worries me, is that the welfare, the health and the justice systems aren’t robust enough to deal with these complex issues that each and every one of these people have to get them back on their feet with stable housing, employment and living a healthy life.

 

Another characteristic of many of them is that in some respects their parents would have gone through a similar situation, so the poverty that they encounter because of a whole host of other issues tends to be intergenerational.

 

And that’s the most difficult challenge I believe for governments today when it comes to inequality, getting people out of that cycle of poverty that they tend to grow up in.

 

For many of them they don’t know anything else. I’ve got four kids and since they were born my wife and I have read to them every night, it’s no surprise then that they are good readers and they love reading.

 

I visit many households where I see kids that grow up without a book in the house, without access to one book, and it’s no wonder that they struggle at school, they don’t enjoy education, and they drop out of the education system and are likely to end up behind the eight ball for the rest of their lives.

 

When I walk across the road heading to a café, I’ll encounter a parent and the parent will talk to me about the cost of housing, and they’ll say I’ve got kids in their 30’s that are still living at home with me and I can’t get rid of them. They are still at home because they can’t afford to move out.

 

Inequality in housing is a growing issue in many cities of Australia.  Younger generations are being locked out of the housing market because of a system that gives preference to investors over owner occupiers through unsustainable and unaffordable tax concessions.

 

The Turnbull Government believes this is OK and the system does not need reform.

 

Labor has listened to the community and will act if we are elected to level the playing field for home buyers to ensure negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts are restricted and reduced.

 

Labor will act to reduce housing inequality in our nation.

 

If I  then walk across the road to a café to get a coffee, typically I’ll be served by a woman that’s earning the minimum wage, in fact 60% of people working in that industry are women.

 

It’s a person whose income wouldn’t have kept pace with the cost of living in recent years. Her average wages are currently growing at about 1.9%.

 

Wages share of GDP has fallen to 46.2%, yet people such as this are going to face more difficulties with penalty rates on Sundays being cut, if it’s a woman they won’t be keeping pace when it comes to superannuation, because of intermittent breaks in the workforce, and simply the fact that if you’re on a low wage the current level of 9.5% superannuation won’t cut it in years to come in terms of remaining off the pension.

 

Only Labor will protect workers penalty rates and restore fairness to the system for low paid workers.

 

That’s a snap shot of inequality on a typical walk down the street in my community. Of course there are many other areas of inequality relating to disability, access to healthcare and education. This is a picture that is part of life in every community in Australia.

 

We’ve had 26 years of uninterrupted economic growth in Australia but for many particularly for Aboriginal people, for young people trying to get into the housing market, for low income workers, and women, it doesn’t feel like that.

 

Labor is aware of the inequality Australians face and we are acting with progressive policies to reduce inequality.

 

Thank you.