Dear Tanya Pilbersek,
I am writing on behalf of the Anti-Poverty Network South Australia since you have recently taken on the role of Social Services Minister. We are a community organisation made up of people affected by poverty and the lack of affordable, safe, and, secure housing, and their allies.
We believe everyone, including those who rely on the welfare system, are entitled to have a liveable income and not be demonised or experience victim blaming. All people, including those on income support payments, deserve to be treated with fairness, respect, and dignity.
We also believe in a housing system that puts people’s needs and rights (including everybody’s right to a safe, affordable, and secure home) first, rather than the profits of investors and landlords.
Poverty is not inevitable, it is a political choice. There is plenty of wealth in Australia. Nobody in our society should be forced to live in poverty.
Unfortunately the latest Federal Budget provided little relief for the poorest in our society while the wealthy only continue to be assisted to increase their wealth.
Currently at least 1 in 6 children and 1 in 8 adults in Australia are living in poverty. Australia continues to have one of the lowest unemployment payments in an OECD country at just $381 a week. The vast majority of people on it are in housing stress (94%), paying more than a third of their income on rent and 52% are in housing crisis, paying more than half their income on rent. Less than 1% of rentals are affordable for those on JobSeeker and this percentage is similar for those on other Centrelink payments.
A large proportion of people on JobSeeker (64%) go without meals or medications to get by. 2 out of 3 people on JobSeeker say their physical and/or mental health has been negatively affected by being on income support payments.
JobSeeker currently remains well below the poverty-line, at $54 a day. The Henderson poverty-line is $87 a day, so this leaves JobSeeker over $30 a day below the poverty-line. JobSeeker is not a liveable income, and punishes those who can’t find paid work.
40 percent of those who rely on JobSeeker have a disability, and the largest group on JobSeeker are older women who have often spent a large amount of their lives contributing a large amount of unpaid work which our society relies on, and often continue to do so while suffering themselves in poverty.
The Labor government’s own Economic Advisory Committee recommended a “substantial raise” to JobSeeker. We know that this raise is very much possible. In 2020 Jobseekeer was temporarily nearly doubled. In the short-term there were huge benefits resulting from this raise, on people’s health and well-being and, rather than keeping payments lower being an incentive to find paid work, when JobSeeker was increased, people were actually more able to do this. On the raised amount, the amount of people skipping medicines and/ or proper meals halved
Unemployment has been a continuous part of the system we live in, people get sick, lose jobs and have caring responsibilities, and there is always a percentage of people unemployed, so for a party that claims to represent average working people, most of whom are only an unfortunate life event away from needing these payments and, unfortunately, ending up in poverty and possibly in dire circumstances because of this, we need you to do better.
Personally, I know what a struggle it is to get by, and to find a house in the private rental market, on the Disability Support Pension, which is certainly higher than JobSeeker but still hundreds of dollars a week less than minimum wage (minimum wage being set at the rate it is because apparently it is the lowest income someone can reasonably be expected to live on), even though my costs, compared to if I was healthy and able to work, are only higher.
I would like to challenge MP’s to think about how they would manage on this low an income.
As the new Social Services Minister you have the power to make the choice not to continue to force people to struggle to survive in poverty. To make sure people are able to pay for housing, food, medical needs, searching for jobs, studying and staying connected to their community by raising JobSeeker and other social security payments above the poverty-line and we hope as the new Social Services Minister that you will make a commitment to genuinely working towards making sure that no one in Australia is left behind and forced to continue living in poverty.
Yours Sincerely,
Nicole Smith
On behalf of Anti-Poverty Network SA.
Anti-Poverty Network SA 