The Greens welcome the Federal Court judgement on the robodebt class action that found the Commonwealth "unlawfully"  raised $1.7 billion in debts against 443,000 people, but say that the Government has still fundamentally failed to be accountable for the illegal robodebt program. 
 
"Citizens shouldn’t have to fight tooth and nail for justice and take their own Government to court to get any measure of accountability", Greens spokesperson on Family and Community Services Senator Rachel Siewert said. 
 
As Justice Murphy said, this is a shameful chapter. 

The Greens say Minister Robert’s latest release on the DobSeeker hotline confirms that it is just more Government funded intimidation of people on income support. 

This attempt to once again demonise people looking for work is despicable. There are 1.14 million people looking for work and the Minister is making a big deal of a few hundred calls that are still being ‘investigated’. This demonising has to stop.

The Greens are calling on the Government to ensure all workers impacted by the snap Victoria lock down have urgent access to the JobSeeker payment.
 
The Government ended JobKeeper much too early despite warnings of second and third waves,” Greens spokesperson on Family and Community Services Senator Rachel Siewert said. 
 
We know that casual workers, those in hospitality and services roles are the ones that will lose a week's wage going into lockdown. 
 

The Senate has supported a Greens referral to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee to conduct a Senate inquiry into the purpose, intent and adequacy of the Disability Support Pension (DSP). 
 
There have been a series of changes and cost-saving measures over recent years that have reduced the number of people able to access the Disability Support Program. Since then, there has been a sharp decline in people applying for and being approved for the DSP. 
 

“This budget is a surplus of scatter gun approaches and tinkering around the edges. 
 
“This is a budget that continues the ongoing disdain this Government has for people who have been doing it tough for a long time and for whom things have only got worse due to the global pandemic and recession: people on income support, older women, young people, single parents and disabled people.
 

The Greens say Employment Minister Mr Robert’s cruel comments on the ‘lifestyle’ of people on JobSeeker are not based in any realm of reality in which Australians are living.

“It’s just nonsensical to tell people to get a job when in March there were 238, 700 jobs available and there are 1.5 million people on JobSeeker and Youth Allowance payments”, Senator Rachel Siewert said. 

 The Greens say the Government should abandon the Cashless Debit Card not continue to throw money at the failed punitive program.
 
"The $30 million “Job Ready Package” intended for the Cashless Debit Card Trial sites must be invested in supportive measures, for all people in regional, rural and remote areas that need support and training.
 

The Greens have strongly condemned the lifting of the temporary pause on new income support recipients going on to the Cashless Debit Card program, put in place in response to COVID-19. 
 
"The Government has spent billions pushing this punitive scheme, and millions on flawed evaluations trying to prove that the card works and to justify their punitive approach.

Today the Government gagged the Senate and allowed no time to even debate the first so-called real permanent increase in the Jobseeker Payment since 1994. 

The Greens say that unemployed workers and people living in poverty have been very clear that they want to see their representatives in Parliament supporting and campaigning for them, doing everything they can to increase the rate of JobSeeker above the poverty line. 

“People living in poverty in this cruel punitive income support system feel isolated, they feel abandoned and want people to be vocal in their condemnation of this joke of an increase in the rate of Jobseeker”, Senator Rachel Siewert said.