The Greens have today called for the Government to stop demonising income support recipients to detract from the overwhelming community support for an increase to Newstart
 
“The senate inquiry into Jobactive found that the program is not fit for purpose, yet this Government is using data from the flawed Targeted Compliance Framework from that system to support their ideological narrative”, Australian Greens spokesperson on Family and Community Services Senator Rachel Siewert said.
 

The Senate has again supported a Greens motion calling on the Government to urgently increase Newstart.
 
“Yesterday my urgency motion that the low rate of Newstart is making people sick was supported by the Senate and my motion today calling for an increase was also supported.
 
“This follows my motion in July calling for an immediate raise to Newstart which was the first time the senate had voted to support an increase in Newstart.
 
“This Government needs to listen to the community and the Senate.
 

The Greens said today that Bupa’s failures in its aged care facilities is a warning about what can happen when large multinational businesses take on provision of a large proportion of social services.
 
“We now have a large percentage of our aged care services in this country at risk.
 
“This is a failure of the system of oversight and the Government have failed to properly regulate providers and is yet another multinational company getting away with behaving badly in Australia.
 

The Greens are calling on the Parliament to reject the Government’s attempt to introduce the Cashless Debit Card to the Northern Territory with legislation introduced into the House today.
 
“The Intervention and income management was a failure that caused harm to communities in the NT, and did not meet its objectives”, Australian Greens spokesperson on First Nations issues Senator Rachel Siewert said today.
 

The Senate has today passed a motion acknowledging World Suicide Prevention Day, urging all Australians to help shine a light on suicide prevention.

“The statistics show us that suicide is getting worse in Australia and so we must keep “shining a spotlight” on this issue.”, Australians Greens spokesperson on Mental Health Senator Rachel Siewert said.

The Greens are totally “puzzled” that Mr Morrison is pursing drug testing measures despite overwhelming evidence to two senate inquiries by drug and alcohol experts that the measure would not meet any desired objectives and could have adverse impacts.
 
“The drug testing legislation was sent to committee twice during the last Parliament and the evidence from experts was clear, this approach does not work, that drug addiction is a health issue and should be treated as such”, Greens spokesperson on Family and Community Services Senator Rachel Siewert said.
 

The Greens have called Mr Morrison’s plans to expand the Cashless Debit Card ideologically motivated and discriminatory.
 
“There is no evidence to support the expansion of the Cashless Debit Card so the Government relies on spin and fudged figures to tell us about how great the card is”, Australian Greens spokesperson on Family and Community Services Senator Rachel Siewert said.
 

The Greens have strongly condemned the Government’s attempt to reintroduce their Bill to drug test income support recipients after it was thoroughly rejected by the last Parliament.

"This is an ideological approach, this is clear as the evidence is so overwhelming that this approach doesn’t work", Australian Greens spokesperson on Family and Community Services Senator Rachel Siewert said.

"The evidence further indicates that this "tough love" approach actually entrenches disadvantage and poverty rather than addressing underlying barriers.

The Government has again relied on cherry-picked data to make misleading claims about the success of the Cashless Debit Card in the Hinkler region.
 
“The Government claims that unemployment has dropped in the QLD trial site but they have used the data for the much larger region of Wide Bay as the basis for this claim,” Australian Greens spokesperson on Family and Community Services Senator Rachel Siewert said.
 
“It’s like saying that unemployment has dropped in Canberra using the figures for the whole of NSW, it’s ridiculous!
 

The Australian Greens have called on the Prime Minister to immediately reject any proposal to expand robo-debt to vulnerable Australians.
 
“The Government is proposing to make savings out of the most vulnerable members of our community, after throwing millions and millions in tax cuts to the wealthy” said Senator Rachel Siewert, Australian Greens spokesperson on Family and Community Services.