Minister Plibersek must apologise for Sky News comments about advocacy groups

Yesterday the social services minister took to Sky News to make abhorrent remarks about civil society organisations representing single mothers, First Nations legal advocates and peak legal and social services bodies. Minister Plibersek is taking advantage of our natural emotional reactions to acts of violence as cover for removing the right to due process for welfare recipients accused of a serious offence, just because they are welfare recipients. The list of organisations she impugned can be found here: Growing calls for Labor to abandon new powers to stop Centrelink payments

We won’t restate her words here because they are truly shameful. The minister knows what she said and she should apologise.

We want to remind the government of Commissioner Holmes’s words in the Robodebt Royal Commission Final Report:

Anti-welfare rhetoric is easy populism, useful for campaign purposes. It is not recent, nor is it confined to one side of politics, as some of the quoted material in this report demonstrates. It may be that the evidence in this Royal Commission has gone some way to changing public perceptions. But largely, those attitudes are set by politicians, who need to abandon for good (in every sense) the narrative of taxpayer versus welfare recipient.

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