An expert panel set up to advise the federal government on social and financial disadvantage is a step closer to becoming a permanent body after receiving a Senate committee’s green tick.
The Labor-chaired committee, led by the Victorian senator Marielle Smith, recommended on Thursday the legislative mechanism to give the body permanency pass with no amendments.
The Greens, however, have accused Labor of “steamrolling” the bill without making changes proposed by experts and advocates in order to create a “poverty committee that doesn’t cause any trouble”.
The minor party, along with the independent ACT senator David Pocock, set out a number of recommendations urging the government to require the expert panel to include members with lived experience of poverty and disability to ensure it is “representative of the people most impacted by the issues it seeks to investigate”.
Meanwhile, the opposition described the proposal as the “codification” of a political deal with Pocock, a waste of taxpayers’ money and paying “lip service” to addressing the needs of Australia’s most vulnerable.
The group of poverty and social inclusion experts was established in December last year after Pocock brokered a deal with the government offering in return his vote to pass multi-employer bargaining laws.
The expert committee has already delivered a report on the jobseeker payments recommending lifting the “seriously inadequate” rate,which led to its modest increase.
A bill to make it a permanent fixture that will report before every federal budget was introduced last month.
If the bill is passed, the committee will consist of 13 members representing different sectors, including economists, academics, union and business representatives and community advocates, who will be chosen by the social services minister in consultation with the treasurer.
While the Greens said they would welcome its permanent establishment, they criticised the bill for failing to require the committee’s membership to include at least one person with “direct and contemporary experience of economic exclusion” and one or more people with a disability, despite many submissions to the inquiry raising these as key issues.
The party also called for adequate compensation for people with direct experience of disadvantage for the expertise and time that they would contribute to the committee’s work.
The Greens further criticised the bill for making no explicit reference to the eradication of poverty as part of the committee’s work, including setting national poverty-reduction targets, and also raised concerns about the transparency and independence of the committee under the proposed laws.
Pocock also urged the bill be passed with additional amendments, including removing the ministers’ powers to direct the committee to not consider – or only consider – certain matters and requiring the committee to deliver its report at least 14 calendar days before a federal budget.
Coalition senators Maria Kovacic and Kerrynne Liddle opposed the bill in its entirety, describing it as an “unaccountable and powerless advisory committee” costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
