Welfare recipients despair over poverty inquiry failure

“No one left behind” rings more hollow with each passing day under the Albanese government

The Antipoverty Centre categorically rejects the Senate Community Affairs Committee’s pathetically inadequate recommendations arising from its inquiry into the extent and nature of poverty in Australia. The report was tabled in the senate last night.

The poverty inquiry report is just the latest in a long line of deep disappointments faced by welfare recipients under the Albanese government.

At the same time as living cost increases are far outstripping changes in Centrelink payment rates, the government is actively pursuing higher unemployment, condemning more of us to live in deep poverty for reasons beyond our control.

Quotes attributable to Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and JobSeeker recipient Jay Coonan

These recommendations are an insult to the hundreds of welfare recipients who contributed to the inquiry and to the millions of people living well below the poverty line in this country.

Despite having a Labor-Greens majority, the committee couldn’t even bring itself to make the single most obvious recommendation that can drastically cut poverty overnight: higher income support. In 2020 the Morrison government showed just how easily this can be done.

Instead, we got yet another list of proposed reviews and tweaks.

The welfare system is killing people. Our lives are getting harder, and it’s clear that most politicians do not care whether we live or die as a result of the policies that leave us sick, hungry, homeless and suicidal.

Poverty is not a “wicked problem”.

We don’t need more reviews, we don’t need more consideration, we just need all Centrelink payments increased to at least the Henderson poverty line and we need it now.

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