By Pas Forgione.
Despite a Prime Minister who – as he constantly reminds us – grew up in public housing, raised by a single mother, struggling to survive on a disability pension, the new Federal Government has stuck with the old, cruel script:
It continues to allow millions of people to live in poverty, while continuing to shower the rich with huge tax cuts and subsidies.
Over 12 months into the Albanese Government, and despite an unprecedented housing and cost-of-living crisis, people struggling to keep a roof over their head and put food on the table, have received only crumbs.
Australia has one of the stingiest welfare systems in the developed world, despite being one of the wealthiest countries on earth. Pensioners, sole parents, carers, students, and job-seekers, all of them, have to stay afloat on incomes that, in some cases, are hundreds of dollars per week below the poverty-line.
Jobseekers, in particular, have to look for paid work while living on a payment so low, that their very health is seriously jeopardised, with 68% reporting that they have had to eat less, or have had to skip meals, in a recent cost-of-living survey by ACOSS (Australian Council of Social Service).
In the May Federal Budget, Labor announced a JobSeeker Payment raise of $2.86 a day ($20 a week), raising JobSeeker from $49 a day to $52 a day. This increase will still leave JobSeeker over $35 a day ($250 a week) below the poverty-line, at roughly $367 per week.
It is worth noting this $20 a week increase to JobSeeker is even less than the $25 a week increase to JobSeeker that the Morrison Government announced, in early 2021, when it was removing most of the COVID Supplement (a supplement that, during 2020, temporarily allowed job-seekers to live on a dignified, adequate income, before most of it was brutally removed).
Imagine giving job-seekers an even smaller raise than Scott Morrison himself?
Labor has ignored its own experts, by not listening to the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, who recommended a ‘substantial raise’ to JobSeeker.
Would anyone call a $2.86 a day raise, substantial? $2.86 a day: barely enough for a can of a soup.
The Federal Government may point to other measures, but these, too, look like crumbs, when given a closer look.
Despite skyrocketing rents, the maximum rate of Rent Assistance – which only 40% of people on JobSeeker receive – is only increasing by $1.68 a day ($23 a fortnight).
Anti-Poverty Network SA members who are on JobSeeker, and renting, have experienced rent increases of $30 a week, $40 a week, $50 a week, and beyond, rent increases that dwarf the tiny raises to unemployment payments and rent subsidies (and this is without mentioning other soaring living costs, like rising utilities, growing out-of-pocket health expenses).
One of our members, renting in Adelaide’s western suburbs, recently informed us:
“My rent is now $460 a week. This is after a $35 a week rise last year and a $60 a week rise just recently. That is $95 a week increase in 13 months which is just over a 26% increase. This means that after I pay my rent and bills, I have $18 a fortnight left over to pay for food, petrol, public transport, medical appointments and everything else.”
We asked some of our other members receiving JobSeeker for their initial thoughts on Labor’s raise:
Fi told us: “The raise is pitiful. It will barely make a dent in my living and health expenses. Nothing will realistically change for me. The cost of living continues to grow, while I will stagnate.
Joshua told us: “An extra $40 a fortnight does nothing for me. It might mean occasionally I eat twice a day, instead of once a day, or be able to get 3 or 4 extra items at the checkout.”
Rita told us: “Albo said, ‘No one left behind’, but we are left behind. Every time. Some people will say, ‘Better than nothing’. But ‘Better than nothing’ doesn’t pay the rent.”
The $500 energy rebate will provide some short-term relief, but will not stop the huge, yearly increases to power bills.
Labor’s total cost-of-living package for job-seekers, students, and sole parents, is only one-quarter of what they will be spending on the Stage 3 tax cuts, tax cuts that will largely benefit the which will largely benefit the rich.
Some may tell us to be patient, that only so much can be achieved, within a single Federal Budget.
But why should people who are skipping meals, who are rationing their medications, who cannot find an affordable home, anywhere in this country, be the ones to have to wait?
Every year, every Federal Budget, we watch governments allow tens of billions of dollars to make its way to property investors (through the Negative Gearing and Capital Gains tax concessions, worth over $15 billion a year), and to the fossil fuels industry (subsidies worth over $10 billion a year).
Not to mention over $20 billion a year, largely benefitting people earning more than $200K a year, should Labor proceed with the Stage 3 tax cuts.
How can anyone with a straight face, tell someone on $18K a year, that they must wait to be lifted out of poverty?
Despite the relatively low unemployment rate, for many, finding paid work remains an immense challenge. Over 40% of people on JobSeeker have a diagnosed disability. Over half of people on JobSeeker are over the age of 45.
There is 1 entry-level role, for every 15 jobseekers, and 44 percent of job vacancies require tertiary-level qualifications.
Anti-Poverty Network SA formed almost 10 years ago, in late 2013, after the election of the Abbott Government, to fight, through grassroots organising and campaigning, for a country where people are not living in poverty, and not having to endure a punishing and humiliating welfare bureaucracy.
A decade later, despite some progress – the scrapping of RoboDebt, ParentsNext, and partial removal of Cashless Welfare are genuine wins, the results of the hard work of community organisations across the country, often led by the people in the firing line – and despite the new Federal Government, we have a long, long way to go.
It has never been harder to be living in poverty.
Anti-Poverty Network SA 