Labor’s cost of living crisis talks must produce Centrelink payment increase say unemployed advocates

A performative political response will not fool the millions of people living in poverty

The Antipoverty Centre is calling on the Albanese government to abandon its ineffective so-called cost of living strategy and urgently increase all Centrelink payments to at least the Henderson poverty line.

Included below: comments from Antipoverty Centre spokesperson Kristin O’Connell; welfare statistics; crisis line contact information.

Albanese and Chalmers can’t hide behind charities who profit from poverty and the inadequate, threadbare proposals they say we need.

Welfare recipients are exhausted by the endless series of disappointments we have endured since Labor came to power.

Unemployed advocates have been inundated with stories of people in poverty taking extreme measures to stay fed and housed, and too many who have been unable to do so since living costs began to spiral out of control after pandemic measures – which included the JobSeeker payment being set at the Henderson poverty line – were wound back.

Labor must also remove penalties for “mutual” obligations and abolish the Work for the Dole program of forced, unpaid labour. The pointless and punitive activities welfare recipients are forced to complete cost money that we cannot afford and inflict unnecessary financial crisis on those of us who have nothing to fall back on if our payment is cut.

The government should stop fuelling inflation with its perverse tax cuts and tax incentives for property investors. Ensuring people have enough to live will not drive inflation, and it is unacceptable to sacrifice poor people for the sake of numbers on a spreadsheet.

Quotes attributable to Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and DSP recipient Kristin O’Connell

The prime minister’s decision to urgently call MPs to Canberra this week shows the cost of living crisis has turned into a political crisis for the government.

Labor has finally realised that people who can’t afford the basics will not be gaslit into believing the pitiful measures in last year’s budget are alleviating our financial distress.

We cannot afford for the government to waste more time with piecemeal measures designed for the headlines that don’t improve our lives while people try and get by on hundreds of dollars a week below the poverty line.

More of the same unfair, inefficient and inaccessible payments like Commonwealth Rent Assistance and energy subsidies will not put a dent in the cost of living crisis hurting millions of welfare recipients.

Poverty is a lack of money. The fastest and most effective thing the government can do to help poor people in a cost of living crisis is ensure we have enough to live by lifting Centrelink payments to at least the Henderson poverty line.

Albanese must have the backbone to stop wasting public money on the real drivers of inflation – hundreds of billions in obscenely regressive tax cuts to make the rich richer and hundreds of billions in handouts to landlords that turbocharge wealth hoarding.

Media contact: email media at antipovertycentre.org or call/message 0413 261 362 via Signal

Key statistics

• There are currently 2.4 million working age people relying on Centrelink payments to live. 390,000 of these are principal carer parents and 274,000 are First Nations people. 340,000 people on the JobSeeker unemployment payment (45%) have a disability or chronic health condition. ¹
• The main unemployment payment (JobSeeker) is $375 a week for a single person with no children, which is $227 below the poverty line. The Youth Allowance adult rate is $282 below the poverty line. ²
• There are currently 900,000 welfare recipients with compulsory “mutual” obligations (14% are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander; 42% have a disability; 13% are parents). ³
• 2,460,970 payment suspension notices were issued between October 2022 and September 2023 (latest data) and 423,560 of the 1,610,160 (26.3%) of all payment suspensions applied were imposed on First Nations people. ⁴
• The stage 3 tax cuts are forecast to cost $377 billion over 10 years. ⁵
• The cost of negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions from 2010 to 2032 is estimated at $228 billion. ⁶