Union for the Dispossessed

Much, much harder, clearly. Over 20 years the social security system has become increasingly harder. It is a very lean system in Australia. Let's get this in perspective. We are a low taxing country, and I know some of the unions have difficulty with this concept, because some of their members feel that they pay a lot of tax. Increasingly of course people are not so upset about tax, rather that we in fact should have better services - particularly, health, education and community services, than get another minor, or small tax cut like the last one. But the fact remains that we are a low taxing country compared with the other 30 OECD countries, we are the sixth lowest, which means that we have got a really tight, targeted, lean social security system which is very efficient in economic terms, but also very lean. And the way we have got that is by targeting, and targeting and targeting and chasing down any dollar and really, really being tight. So it is very tough because the payment levels are really low, around about the poverty line. It is not based on former income like it is in Europe. And because we are targeting constantly, government after government, year after year is looking for more savings, targeting here and there, it has got very tight. It is very, very lean. In fact it is very harsh.

In addition to that we have had the ideological shift towards first, reciprocal obligation. When Simon Crean was Minister for Employment back in 1993 and coming out of the recession and Labor put in place a pretty tough penalty scheme. Under reciprocal obligation which transmogrified into to mutual obligation and was taken up with a vengeance by Tony Abbott, who, as you know has been a master at slagging off at unemployed people in order, in our view, to make unemployed people the problem - the issue - rather than unemployment. He wasn't prepared - the government wasn't prepared to face up to unemployment as the issue, and preferred to demonise unemployed people as the problem.

All of those movements opened up the political ground for this really harsh breaches system and penalizing of people and so we have got 385,000 people being breached in one year. But thanks to our campaign we have brought that back now to half - it is way down. Even though it is way down it is still too high. It is down to about 112,000. So we have really campaigned well to get those down and some of those breaches have been reduced slightly.

Still, all of that means in answer to your question, that it has made it much harder, much tougher. The environment has been very tough on social security during that time.

We have a myth of an egalitarian society. What impact has this had and are we less egalitarian that we were 20 years ago when the Welfare Rights Centre opened?

Well, you are right. It is a myth, because we have much greater inequalities than most Australians realize, and the fact is that over the last 20 years, certainly that has accelerated in the last 10, that the rich are getting richer faster and faster by virtue of executive salaries. Top end salaries are scooting away. And the poor are becoming more numerous. They are not getting poorer thankfully. Our social welfare system, our welfare State has kicked in and underpins. It protects the poor. We don't have an under class - yet. It is emerging in places unfortunately as our poverty gets concentrated into certain regions, and we are developing an under class of people who are locked out and are second and third generation. But we don't have a particular under class yet. We do have more and more people living in poverty today. More and more people are on social security payments. The migrants we brought out here in the 50s we used them up as factory fodder and then we spat 'em out in their 50s with bad backs and the like. You know, the unions' scheme looked after them for many, many years. Well, they are on disability payments.

And should we wonder why there are increased numbers. It is obvious, the whole world of work has changed. To give an example, it is more IT less digging trenches. Now I ask what a social security system is for. If we are not going to intervene in the market and build jobs, create jobs and re-train those people specifically into areas that treat them better and leave that totally to the market, then we are going to expect a few more people on social security.

So we have got more and more people on social security. Our social security rates are very tough and very mean - hence we have got greater inequality. Simple. Plus we have got deregulation of the labour market. Unions may be fighting battles on all fronts there, but to some extent we know that it has been deregulated. There is much more casual and part-time work and hence some income - thankfully we have still got the award system and the minimum wage here. But the minimum wage is still pretty tight. And so you have got a lot more people in that range and the shooting out of immense wealth at the top end and greater inequality - which has really blown this country apart.

Do you get frustrated that there aren't politicians out there arguing the case for welfare and the broader benefits to society for a decent welfare system?

We are very frustrated about that and for a range of reasons. - One, -I can say it here because I am sure a lot of union members who are even members of the Labor Party really get very frustrated with the Labor Party for not being brave enough to take up that territory. Because for too many years they have looked too much alike - there has not been a lot of difference - and they have looked very, very similar - and there is not a lot of difference on some of these policies unfortunately.

The second reason it is so frustrating is because we believe in this sector that there is a big heart in most Australians. You can appeal to the dark corner of every soul like Pauline Hanson did, and like John Howard has done, but you can also "appeal to the better angels" as Abraham Lincoln said , but we don't have politicians that are prepared to do it. But I reckon they are still there and there is a big heart in most people. It is a question of how you put it. It is a question of whether you are prepared to go there and take people to where they don't necessarily want to go, but to shine a light on that path. Because I think most Australians don't want a really unequal country. They don't want millions of people to live in poverty. They would be just as happy to have it explained to them how there are 7 unemployed people for every one job, rather, and that we need to do something about jobs, or that we need to invest in our Medicare or our health structure.

I mean, we have got our debt to GDP ratio in economic terms down to an incredibly low rate. About 3% ratio of debt to GDP. European average: OECD is up around the 50% mark. Now we have got no debt and that is no bad thing in a way. but we are not investing in our physical or social infrastructure. Why are we buying those economic arguments that we have to use our surpluses to retire debt? I'm opening up too much territory there, but the short answer is, yes, it does frustrate me.

Well, I'll go one step further. If I give you the ALP Leadership for five minutes, what is your five point plan for Australia?

It is a delightful invitation and a wonderful hypothetical one, but let's accept the challenge anyway.

The first thing you would do, we would join a number of other European nations and adopt an anti-poverty strategy. A national anti-poverty strategy. That is the first thing I would do- obviously - is go to the people who need government, and government intervention most and they are people living in poverty. We don't have a strategy at the moment, we don't have a plan, we don't have goals, we don't care and a nation chooses the level of poverty that it is prepared to tolerate. We do not have to tolerate what we have got. So first thing, a national anti-poverty plan. That would lead immediately it seems to me, into the next biggest and most important thing, which is employment.

There are at least a million, easily, probably two million jobs that most of know need to be created - could be created sorry - need to be done, in schools, on the railway, in the hospitals, in our health system, in community services, in aged care, in pre-schools. We know that these jobs need to be done. We know that nations can afford them. We know that we would be better off with it, and you would have a stack of people off social security. The cost of it wouldn't even be that great, by the time you actually had them paying taxes and not getting social security. So the second step would probably be about job growth.

The third one would be education because that is breaking the cycle into the future. Investing in our public schools. Many of them are a shambles really, and I don't need to elaborate there.

The fourth area would clearly be in the health area. And it is not just about employment there, it is about actually improving the system so that we are not creating the sorts of obstacles for low income people to seek medical help. I would certainly be getting the private health insurance rebate out of the way. That's $3 billio we would have immediately.

The fifth thing I would do, and it probably would fund a lot of these things, would be to attack the $7 billion to $10 billion in tax rorts, loopholes and shelters that are exploited by companies in sheltering, coming to avoid tax, and we would not only make it a more efficient economy, but a more equitable one, and we would be able to finance most of those things.

Now, somebody said: Oh, great! Five things that would make sure Labor stays out of power. And I don't believe it. I just don't believe that! It would not be easy, that is true, but you have to be prepared to believe in that argument and sell that. And what the hell is the point of being the Labor Party if you are not prepared to sell that argument anyway.