Starving slowly
The government’s new welfare to work change will cause future hardship for sole parents and the disabled (these two not being mutually exclusive). Sole parents and the disabled who are put on to the Newstart allowance from next July will discover it attracts a waiting period for people with savings, a delay that doesn’t apply to the current Parenting Payment Single (PPS) or the Disability Support Pension (DSP).
Basically, a Centrelink payment keeps the bare necessities in your life. Housing, food and clothing. None of these are extravagant. You will not find many PPS and DSP recipients with a Harbour view, unless they are 25 to a house.
Now this government will force them to use up their savings before they can get a Newstart payment. If a PPS or DSP recipient has savings that will usually be to cover the unexpected. A school excursion or a belt on the washing machine.
This government is mean and punitive.
I’m predicting that cash-under-the-mattress will return to favour.
September 26th, 2005 at 5:50 pm
Suki, love your new site, as well.
On topic,you speak carefully and well as to the plight of single mothers and the disabled as of July, next financial year. Worth remembering are the ‘casualised’,who have been the testcase for savings rules and Newstart entitlements about to be introduced for others.
Same rules have applied for ages , making it impossible for those folks to ever save , particularly in seasonal work. Yes, super, but cut off from payments after three months and then back to savings and no holiday pay.
September 26th, 2005 at 6:33 pm
Thanks for this insight joe2.
The steady increase of casual workers who still qualify for Centrelink payments wil be a cohort to watch and no doubt advocate for.
September 26th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
Yes, Suki and maybe, Four Corner’s,tonight, on Aunty, will be worth a look.
Casuals are demonised if they take ‘cash’ and impoverished, if they don’t. A fairer system ,would put the penalty on the ’employer’, who offered the cash rather than the recipient, probably desperate for a dollar.
September 26th, 2005 at 10:34 pm
I’ve had to explain to a young worker that taking cash also puts them outside the protection of workcover. There will be minimal OH&S thought and no respect for the notion of ‘Safety Sam’.
September 27th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
The situation will become, as with everything else, Americanised. Two or three part-time jobs to get enough to live on. Fathers working all night and mothers working through the day.
September 27th, 2005 at 5:09 pm
And, eventually, no safety net – you don’t earn you starve.