Since 2013, we’ve actively campaigned:

  • For a welfare system that gives people a liveable income, and treats them with dignity and respect
  • Against the attempts to demonise the unemployed, and those scraping by on welfare
  • For a housing system that puts peoples’ needs and rights first, instead of prioritising the profits of investors and landlords

And over that past decade, we’ve:

  • Organised many welfare rights training sessions to help people learn how to advocate, for themselves and others, on how to deal with Centrelink, Job Agencies, and government bureaucracy
  • Supported and trained dozens of low income people to speak publically to both state and national media, about the realities of living in poverty and dealing with insecure, unaffordable housing
  • Hosted countless community lunches and dinners for low income people across SA – in Elizabeth, Salisbury, Smithfield, Ottoway, Port Adelaide, Beulah Park, Clarence Park, Christie Downs, and Morphett Vale

Here’s a brief history of our community and some of our activism:

2013

Saturday, November 16th 2013, outside Government House on North Terrace, over 60 people from across Adelaide united and held an open-air public meeting fight back against the ongoing war on welfare.

This included sole parents, unemployed people, students, age and disability pensioners, people from SIMPIa (Stop Income Management in Playford) who campaigned against the Basics Card, and allies from the union movement and community sector.

From this meeting, Anti-Poverty Network SA was formed – a collective run by those directly impacted by poverty and unemployment.

2014 TO 2020

Resisted the brutal 2014 Abbott Federal Budget, which threatened huge cuts to education, health, and welfare – holding a mock “Death of the Fair Go” funeral, and more protest action

Hosted five national Anti-Poverty Week conferences from 2015-2019 – the largest Anti-Poverty Week events in the country, and the only ones organised by people with low incomes

Fought against the attempts of the 2017 Turnbull Government to introduce Job-Seeker Drug-Testing

Campaigned against the Basics Card in the NT and Playford Council in the northern suburbs, and the expansion of the Cashless Debit Card into Ceduna

In 2018, we kickstarted a national campaign that saw 20 local SA Councils, and 50 nationally, call for a raise to unemployment welfare payments

Started the Newstart Choir in 2019, that reworked Labor’s “It’s Time” 1972 election jingle to push the Federal Labor Party to commit to raising unemployment payments

We’ve appeared before multiple Senate and Parliamentary inquiries, having made many submissions on issues from Cashless Welfare and Work for the Dole, to Renters Rights and Public Housing

2021 TO 2024

In September 2022, we published Broke, Cold, Stressed – the results of a survey of 288 low income renters, which received state and national media attention

Campaigned for urgent action on the rental crisis, including an emergency rent freeze and more public housing – held during Homelessness Week (August 2022), and the one-year anniversary of the Malinauskas State Government (March 2023)

On the one-year anniversary of the Albanese Federal Government (May 2023), a few days after the Federal Budget, we rallied to highlight the disgracefully-low $2.86 a day ($20 a week) JobSeeker raise that was announced, a raise that will keep JobSeeker over $35 a day below the poverty-line

During Homelessness Week (August), we rallied at Whitmore Square, near the long-empty Salvos social housing building, to call for a massive expansion of public housing stock, and ensuring that all existing public housing is able to accommodate people

In November 2023, we released our 3rd annual Renters Report, ‘I’m Scared Of My Next Rent Increase’, a survey of 301 low-income renters, showing the impacts of the continuing crisis on the renters in poverty, and followed this up by addressing a Parliamentary Forum on Renting

In November 2023, we celebrated our 10th-anniversary in style, with our ‘No One Deserves Poverty’ community conference, which saw over 100 attendees from across Adelaide and the rest of the country join us in Elizabeth to discuss the cost-of-living crisis

In June 2024, after another disappointing Federal Budget that prioritised tax cuts and breaks for the rich, property investoes, and fossil fuel corporations, and gave low-income people and renters only crumbs, over 70 people came together in Kilburn for an afternoon of connection, conversation, and planning actions for the second half of the year.